Fatal Flaw Read Free Page A

ago.
    With her wedding just days after the confrontation with Gardner, she’d had to put off this meeting for two long weeks and had made it a top priority on this first day back to work. Rolling her shoulders, she prepared to do battle. This was her battlefield, her war room. This was where she shined, and if ever there was a time when she needed to shine, this was it. Some nameless, faceless bastard had shot her father and left him a quadriplegic. If it was the last thing Sam ever did, she’d make that person pay.
    “You don’t have to do this,” a voice behind her said.
    Startled, Sam turned to find her mentor, Detective Captain Malone, standing with hands on hips. His warm gray eyes studied her intently.
    “Yes, I do.” She returned her attention to Gardner, who tapped his fingers on the table as if he had much better things to do than wait for her. “Why’re you here so early?”
    “I had a feeling this might be your first stop today. Thought you might need some moral support.”
    “It wasn’t quite my first stop.” She briefed him on the murders at Carl’s.
    “Oh, jeez. I love that place. I know Carl.”
    “How well did you know him?”
    Malone thought about that for a minute. “Not that well, come to think of it. We passed pleasantries whenever I was in there, but that’s as far as it went.”
    “I got the same story from just about everyone who knows him. Looks to be another head-scratcher.”
    “Aren’t they all?” Malone stepped farther into the small observation room. “Cruz and Gonzales didn’t get anywhere with Gardner.”
    Sam rolled her shoulders again, fighting the tension that wanted to settle there. “I know.”
    “So what’s the plan?” Malone asked.
    “I’ll offer him leniency on the incident at his house in exchange for information about my father’s shooting.”
    “You talk to the USA about that?” he asked, referring to the U.S. attorney.
    “Nope. I have no plans to do shit for that scumbag, no matter what he might have to tell me.”
    Malone chuckled. “Are you the same gal who made for such a lovely bride a few short weeks ago?”
    “One and the same.” She took another hard look at Gardner. “Well, here goes nothing.”
    “Sam.” Malone put a hand on her arm, forcing her to look at him. “If you don’t think you’re going to get him, walk away. Let him spend a little more time rotting in jail. Your offer will start to look a whole lot better to him the longer he’s in.”
    Knowing the captain was right, she nodded, took a deep breath and stepped into the room.
    Gardner sat up straighter but eyed her with disdain. “You again.”
    “That’s right.”
    “What’d you want?”
    “Same thing I wanted that day at your house. If you hadn’t shot at me and my partner, we could’ve cleared up this whole thing then.”
    “What whole thing?”
    “I want to know where you were on December 28, 2008.”
    Snorting, he rolled his eyes. “I’ll tell you the same thing I told you the last time—I got no fucking clue.”
    “Think about it. What did you do for Christmas that year?”
    He shrugged. “Same thing I do every year. Nothing.”
    Sam opened the file she’d brought with her to the interrogation room. “A run of your credit cards and ATM records shows you were in the city that day.”
    “What’s that prove? I live here.” He slouched into the chair, an arm hiked up on the back as if he was hanging out in someone’s living room. “What’s so important about that day anyway?”
    That day, Sam thought, changed my life more profoundly than almost any other. She withdrew her father’s department photograph from the folder and placed it on the table in front of Gardner. “That was the day Deputy Chief Skip Holland was shot on G Street.” Pulling out a second photo of her father in his wheelchair, she placed it next to the first one. “That’s him today.”
    Gardner gave the photos about three seconds of his attention. “I still don’t see what