Fatal Series 01 - Fatal Affair

anyone.”
    “Whoever it is, Mrs. O’Connor, we’ll find them,” Sam assured her.
    “See that you do.” As if she couldn’t bear to sit there another second, Laine got up and made for the door with Lizbeth and Carrie following her. At the doorway, Laine turned back to Nick. “You know you’re welcome to stay. You’re a part of this family, and you belong here. You always will.”
    Touched, Nick said, “Thank you, but I’m going to head back to the city. I need to spend some time with the staff.”
    “Please tell them how much we appreciate their hard work for John.”
    “I will. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
    “Mrs. O’Connor,” Sam said, rising to face Laine. “I’m so sorry to have to do this now, but in this kind of investigation, the first twenty-four hours are critical…”
    “We’ll do whatever we can do to find the person who did this to John,” Laine said, her tear-stained face sagging with grief.
    “I need to know the whereabouts of you and the other members of your family between the hours of ten p.m. last night and nine o’clock this morning.”
    “You aren’t serious,” Laine said stiffly.
    “If I’m going to rule out any family involvement—”
    “Fine,” Laine snapped. “The senator and I entertained friends until about eleven.” She glanced at Carrie, who nodded in agreement.
    “I’ll need the name and number of your friends.” She handed Laine her card. “You can leave the information on my voicemail. And after eleven?”
    “We went to bed.”
    “You, too, ma’am?” Sam asked Carrie.
    “I watched television in my room until about two. I couldn’t sleep.”
    “And you?” Sam asked Lizbeth.
    Her expression rife with indignation, Lizbeth said, “I was at home in McLean with my husband and children.”
    “I’ll need a phone number for your husband.”
    Lizbeth met Sam’s even gaze with a steely stare before she stalked from the room and returned a minute later with a business card.
    “Thank you,” Sam said.
    The three women left the room.
    “You really had to do that today?” Nick asked Sam when they were alone. “Right now?”
    “Yes, I really did,” she said, looking pained. “I have to play by the book on something this high profile. Surely you can understand that.”
    “Of course I do, but they just found out their son and brother was murdered. You could’ve given them fifteen minutes to absorb that before you went into attack cop mode.”
    “I have a job to do, Nick. When I make an arrest, I’m sure they’ll be relieved that his killer is off the streets.”
    “What the hell difference will that make to them? Will it bring John back?”
    “I need to get back to the city. Are you coming?”
    Taking a long last look around the room, remembering so many happy times there with John, Nick followed her out the front door.

Chapter 4
    Feeling as if the world had quite simply come to an end, Graham O’Connor leaned against a white split-rail fence to look out over the acres that made up his estate but saw nothing through a haze of tears and grief. John is dead. John is dead. John is dead.
    From the moment Carrie called them to say Nick was waiting at the house, Graham had known. With the most important vote of John’s career scheduled for that day, there was only one reason Nick would have come. Graham had known, just as he had always known there was something shameful about a father loving one of his children more than the others. But John had been extraordinary. From the very earliest hours of his youngest child’s life, Graham had seen in him the special something that inspired so many others to love him, too.
    His face wet with tears, Graham wondered how this could have happened.
    “Dad?”
    The sound of his older son’s voice filled Graham with disappointment and despair. God help him for thinking such a thing, but if he’d had to lose one of his sons why couldn’t it have been Terry instead of John?
    Terry’s hand landed on Graham’s shoulder, squeezed. “What can I do for you?”
    “Nothing.” Graham wiped his face.
    “Senator?”
    Graham turned to find Nick and the pretty detective approaching them.
    “We’re going back to Washington,” she said, “but before we do I need to confirm your whereabouts last night. After ten.”
    He somehow managed to contain the hot blast of rage that cut through him at the implication that he could have had something to do with the death of the one he loved above all others—except for