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“She’s from a wealthy family.”
“Good Lord.”
“We plan to charge them both with capital murder.”
After a long moment of quiet, she said, “I thought maybe knowing why and how would help, but it doesn’t. My daughter was a beautiful person, inside and out. She didn’t deserve this.”
“We’ll make sure they pay for what they did to her.”
“Thank you to you and everyone working to get justice for my Rachel.”
“I’ll be back in touch after charges are filed.”
“Thank you again.”
“I wish there was more we could do.”
“What you’re doing is very important to us.”
After they said their goodbyes, Gonzo sat for a moment behind Sam’s desk, thinking about people like Caroline Fortier and Graciela Blanchet and how they showed such enormous grace during the darkest time in their lives. People like them made this awful job so rewarding. Though justice would never bring back their loved ones, it would at least give them some answers.
With Mrs. Fortier in mind, Gonzo went to the pit to grab Cruz. “Let’s get this sewn up.”
Joe Farnsworth had spentmost of his adult life dealing with the worst the world had to offer. Murderers, rapists, child abusers, animal abusers, drug dealers… You name it, he’d seen it. After the revelations about his former deputy chief had come to light, that Conklin had sat on information that would’ve solved Skip Holland’s shooting years ago, he thought he’d seen the lowest of the lows within his department.
More than anything, Joe had been hurt by what Conklin had done to Skip and the rest of them by not coming forward with what he knew. In the case of Leonard Stahl, anger was his primary emotion. He had never been this angry. Not once in his entire life had he burned with this kind of rage or wished another person dead the way he did that guy. He’d never imagined wrapping his hands around another person’s throat and squeezing until the life seeped out of him until recently. Now he dreamed about choking the life out of Stahl for what he’d done to so many innocent people while pretending to be a police officer.
It had all been for show. Joe realized that now. Stahl had never done the job the way he should have, but the rest of them had been too damned busy to notice. Who had time to police their fellow officers when the crime outside their building was more than enough to keep all their four thousand officers working nonstop to keep their city safe? He took his department’s responsibility to the District residents as seriously as he took anything, not to mention the millions of tourists who visited DC every year. It was Metro PD’s job to keep the public safe.
They had failed at that mission because of one man.
Stahl wasn’t the only one who’d disappointed Joe. There’d been others. More than he cared to admit. Overall, however, the good had far outweighed the bad.
Until now.
They’d had a serial killer in their midst and hadn’t had the first clue.
No matter how his Public Affairs team tried to spin it, there’d be no escaping the dark cloud that Stahl had put over him and the department. Everyone who was anyone was calling for Joe’s head on a stick. He’d been so stressed that his wife, Marti, had insisted he see his cardiologist to make sure he wasn’t about to have a fatal incident.
His heart had checked out fine, but not surprisingly, his blood pressure was higher than it should’ve been.
Joe leaned forward and pressed the intercom that connected him with his faithful admin, Helen. “Can you please ask Jake to come in?”
“Yes, sir, right away.”
He’d repeatedly told her she didn’t have to call him sir, but she insisted on affording him the respect of his position.
Even if he didn’t deserve it.
Five minutes later, he was still staring at the far wall of his office, not seeing anything but the red haze of pure rage.
A knock on the door forced him to blink as Jake came in.
“Hey, you wanted to see me?”
“I want to go to Jessup.” Stahl was serving his two life sentences at the state prison in Maryland.
Jake stood with both hands on his hips. “Why?”
