“Thanks for the tip, Sam.”
“A promise is a promise. See you later.” She closed the phone and pressed the accelerator, anxious to get this one closed.
“What’s our plan at the W?” Hill asked.
“Are you willing to distract Ray so I can take care of her?”
“I can do that.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said I’d do it.”
Sam pulled up to the hotel and parked next to the bell stand.
One of the bellmen ran after her. “Hey, lady, you can’t leave that there!”
Sam flashed her badge without slowing down. “That’s lieutenant lady to you, and those are my colleagues.” She pointed to the car Jeannie had parked right behind hers. “Touch those cars, and I’ll toss your ass in jail.”
The young man stopped in his tracks.
“Ballbuster,” Hill said under his breath.
“Literally,” Sam said with a cheeky grin, still high off the damage she’d done to Stahl.
“Wince.”
Inside the hotel, a security guy tried to stop them from proceeding but was given the badge treatment.
“Out of the way,” Sam said.
“What do you want here?”
“Nothing to do with you or your hotel.”
“You’ll need to speak to the manager before you enter.”
“No, I don’t. Get out of our way, or I’ll happily arrest you for obstructing a homicide investigation.” As she spoke, Sam pushed by him and headed for the escalator that led to the mezzanine. With Hill, McBride, Tyrone and four patrol officers in tow, Sam followed the music to the ballroom.
Two huge, stupid-looking guys in ill-fitting suits stood watch outside the main doors. Both were bald with muscles on top of their muscles.
Sam pointed to them, and Jeannie nodded.
“Over here,” Jeannie said to Tyrone and the patrolmen.
Confident that her people had the bodyguards managed, Sam and Hill entered the ballroom, which was filled with glitterati. Women in flashy gowns circulated with men in tuxedos as waiters passed champagne and fancy hors d’oeuvres. On the stage at the far end of the room, a swing band played a familiar tune with big brass sounds.
A woman in a slinky black gown approached them. “May I help you?” she asked, taking a perusing glance at Agent Hill.
“We’re all set,” Hill said, shutting her down as he fired off a text.
“The dress code is formal,” the woman said as she looked down her nose at Sam’s jeans.
“We’re not here for the fundraiser,” Sam said.
“They’re in the front at a table,” Hill said, heading in that direction.
Sam took off after him, yelling over the obnoxiously loud music, “How’d you know that?”
“I told you. I’ve got eyes on them.”
She hated when he turned out to be so useful. “There,” she said, grabbing his arm to halt his progress. She pointed to Ray and Elle sitting at a table, surrounded by people.
“Let me get Ray out of the way,” Hill said.
Sam nodded, and stood back to watch him go over to the table and excuse his way toward Ray, who looked up at him, seeming surprised to see his old friend.
Hill tilted his head to ask Ray to join him away from the group.
Ray got up, said something to his wife and walked away with Hill.
The minute they cleared the dance floor and pushed through the double doors to the hallway, Sam made a beeline for Elle.
She tapped the woman on the shoulder and truly enjoyed the moment when Elle looked up and saw Sam hovering over her.
“What do you want? I’m busy.”
Sam leaned in close to Elle’s ear. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Willie Vasquez and Rick Lind. You have two choices. Stand up and walk out of here with me, and I won’t cuff you in front of all these people. I’ll wait until we get outside. Second choice, put up a fight, and I’ll cuff you right here and drag you out. Your call.”
As she spoke, the color drained from Elle’s face and realization set in.
She’d never expected to be caught
, Sam thought. It was a trait she shared with murderers everywhere.
“What’s your decision?”
“Go to hell,” Elle said, snarling through her teeth. “I’m not going anywhere with you. My lawyers will have your badge. Do you have any idea who I am?”
“You bet I do. You’re a cold-blooded murdering bitch who’s also flat broke, and you’re under arrest.” Sam grabbed her by the arm, hauled her out of the chair, turned and cuffed her before Elle ever knew what’d hit her.
Sam recited the Miranda warning in a clipped, no-nonsense tone and took great pleasure in dragging Elle kicking and screaming through the room. Tuning in to something happening, the band stopped playing, and the crowd parted to let them pass.
“Someone
do something
!” Elle shrieked. “This is police brutality! Lucien!”
Sam recognized the O’Connor family attorney, Lucien Haverfield, who watched the proceeding with a detached aura of amusement.
“Do
something
!” Elle screamed at him.
“May I ask what Mrs. Jestings is being charged with, Lieutenant?” Lucien asked.
“The murders of Willie Vasquez and Rick Lind,” Sam replied, loud enough to make sure everyone around them heard her.
A gasp went through the gathering.
“I’m sorry, Elle,” Lucien said. “I don’t do murder.”
Sam held back the urge to snort with laughter at his dismissive tone. “Let’s go, Elle. You’re done here.”
Elle fought her the whole way, shrieking like a banshee. As they cleared the ballroom doors, she tried again to bust free of Sam’s tight hold. “
Boris!
Horace!
Get this fucking bitch off me!
”
“They can’t help you,” Sam said, “because they’ve been arrested too.”
“You won’t get away with this,” Elle said, seething as Sam dragged her onto the escalator.
“I already have. Keep fighting me, and I’ll give you a little push.” Sam slackened her hold on Elle, and the other woman screamed as she pitched forward on the escalator. Keeping a grip on the cuffs, Sam let her dangle precariously for a second before she pulled her back. Elle remained comically still for the remainder of the ride to the lobby.
A crowd had formed around the police cars, and smart phones held aloft recorded their emergence from the hotel. Sam would bet that Elle wished she’d worn her hair down tonight, because she had no way to shield her face from the cameras. “In you go,” Sam said, putting her in the back of a patrol car.
“You will
not
get away with this,” Elle said once again.
Sam slammed the door in her face and walked away. That had gone well.
* * *
Avery led Ray to a hallway outside the crowded ballroom.
“What the hell is going on, Avery? What’re you even doing here?”
“There’s no easy way to say this, Ray. Elle is being arrested for murder.”
Ray looked at him as if he’d spoken the words in a foreign language. “What in the world are you talking about? You don’t think she had something to do with Willie...”
“Willie and Rick Lind.”
His face went slack with shock. “Rick’s dead too?”
“I’m sorry, but yes. He was found dead today at the Capitol Motor Inn.”
“What’s that got to do with Elle?”
“The company was in big trouble.”
“We’ve had some problems, but big trouble is a bit of a stretch.”
“She’s completely broke. Every credit card is maxed out. The paper can’t meet its payroll next week. Her house of cards was dependent on those World Series TV rights. In her mind, Willie ruined everything, and Rick didn’t help by failing to close out the game when he had the chance.”
“She wouldn’t
kill
them. I mean, she’s not always the warmest woman in the world, but she’s not a murderer.
“Checks for ten thousand dollars each were written to Boris and Horace from your joint account the day after the game. Can you tell me what that was for?”
“I have no idea.”
Avery let the statement speak for itself and watched as the realization hit Ray like a sledgehammer. “We believe she paid her bodyguards ten thousand dollars each to kill Willie. She took care of Lind herself.”
“Why? Why wouldn’t she get them to take care of him too?”
“Because Lind was personal.”
“Personal? What does that mean?”
Once again, Avery let his silence do the talking, letting a moment pass during which the truth dawned on Ray.
“No. Elle and Rick Lind? Come on! That’s not true. I don’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry, Ray, but we can prove it.”
“How?”
“We have a witness that puts her in Lind’s room. She heard them having sex once before. We believe the forensic evidence being gathered as we speak will prove recent sexual activity involving both of them in the room where Lind was killed.”
Ray covered his mouth with his hand and turned away from Avery, his shoulders stooping a bit from the devastating news. “God, I was such a fool.”
Avery rested a hand on his old friend’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
Ray shook him off. “I don’t want your pity.”
“It’s not pity.”
“You never liked her, did you?”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to. My mother always said I’d regret marrying her. People thought I was after her money. It was never about the money. I loved her.”
“I know you did.”
“I’d like to go home now.”
“You’re free to go.”
Ray started to walk away, but turned back to Avery. “Thanks for getting justice for Willie. I really wish he’d caught that ball, but he certainly didn’t deserve to die for missing it.”
“No, he didn’t.”
Ray nodded in agreement and walked away.
Avery watched him go, sad for his friend and a little sad for himself too as another case came to a close. Who knew when he’d next lay eyes on the gorgeous lieutenant who’d occupied his thoughts far too often in recent months?
As he headed for the escalator, he knew he had to accept that he’d never have what he wanted from her. It was time to move on. With that in mind, he sent a text to Shelby asking if she had time for lunch tomorrow.
* * *
Elle went ballistic when she saw Darren and a
Star
photographer waiting outside HQ to document her arrival.
“
You’re both fired!
Don’t you dare come to work tomorrow!
”
The photographer clicked away, capturing the tirade as Darren took copious notes of the venom that spewed from his publisher’s mouth.
Sam took her time walking in as Elle once again fought her every step of the way.
An hour later, Elle and her bodyguards had been processed through central booking and settled in different interrogation rooms. Sam, Hill, Cruz, Malone and Charity Miller were watching them through one-way glass. Horace seemed nervous, Boris looked bored and Elle was still furious, pacing relentlessly from one end of the small room to the other.
Because they’d been working for close to fifteen hours by then and fatigue was setting in, Sam suggested they divide and conquer. She asked Hill to take Boris, Cruz had Horace and she would be going at Elle.
Lieutenant Rango stepped into the small room. “We found some of the blond hairs you needed in Lind’s room, Sam.” He handed her the evidence bag.
“Excellent! Charity, I need a warrant for her DNA.”
“I’ll get it for you.”
“As an added extra,” Rango said, holding up a second bag. “We’ve got some used condoms from under Lind’s bed. We might be able to tie at least one of them to her.”
“Lovely,” Sam said. “Will you get them to the lab ASAP and put a rush on it?”
“On my way there now.”
“Thanks, Rango. Good work. Cruz, will you let Lindsey’s office know we’re almost ready for them to swab her?”
“Yep.”
“Any word from the lab on the knife?” Sam asked.
“They were working on it when I called earlier,” Malone said.
“Great.”
“Let’s get this done,” Sam said.
The others filed out of the room, leaving Charity and Malone to watch from the observation area.
“Hill,” Sam said in the hallway.
He turned back to her.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m great. I just helped arrest the wife of my childhood friend. Never better.”
“I’m sorry it turned out to be her. Ray has to know you didn’t enjoy that.”
“Yeah, I’m sure he’ll be all sorts of forgiving after I help put his wife away for the rest of her life.” He shook his head. “Sorry. I don’t mean to take it out on you. It’s her I’m pissed with. She had everything, for Christ’s sake.”
“She didn’t know any other way to live but rich and entitled. When that was taken from her, she struck out at the ones she blamed, never suspecting for a second that she’d get caught.”
“I feel sorry for Ray,” Hill said. “He’s a hardworking guy who’s put a lot of himself into running the team. Who knows where this will leave him?”
“Hard to say right now, but I’m sure it’ll work out for him. People won’t blame him for what she did. Let’s get this done so we can get the hell out of here.”
They joined Cruz at the far end of the hallway and entered the three rooms simultaneously.
“I’m not saying a word to you,” Elle said when Sam walked in.
“You can just listen for now. Boris and Horace, your faithful henchmen, have told us everything.”
“They wouldn’t dare say a word about me to you!”
“Oh no? Funny how chatty they got when we told them they were looking at life in prison with no chance of parole unless they helped us to make a case against you. They told us everything—how angry you were with Willie and how you told them something had to be done about him, that he couldn’t get away with ruining everything for you.” Sam was spouting pure speculation, but judging from the reaction it drew from Elle, she wasn’t far off the mark.
“They told us how you lured Willie to the seedy motel by blackmailing him with info about how he’d spent time there before with underage girls. How did you know that? Did your lover boy Rick tell you he’d seen Willie there before? Did you tell him you were going to call his wife, Elle? Is that how you got him there?”
Without skipping a beat, Sam continued. “Doesn’t really matter how you got him there. Boris and Horace took over once he arrived, didn’t they? They put him in a room with Amber, hoping to distract him with sex, before they killed him in one place, dumped him in another and took his car somewhere else and all but destroyed it. Did they use Willie’s own baseball bats to destroy the car he’d loved so much? That would’ve been poetic, right? You must’ve been pretty pissed off with Willie to use almost the last of your available funds to pay Boris and Horace to do your dirty work for you.”