Fatal Deception Read Online Free

hair was mussed, and he looked sleepy-eyed and rumpled. Ever since he moved in with his girlfriend Elin a few months ago, he always looked like he’d just rolled out of bed—and he usually had.
    “What’ve we got?” he asked, taking in the spacious bedroom.
    Sam walked him through what she knew so far. “Crime scene is on the way,” she said. The detectives would go through every square inch of the home looking for evidence.
    “She was a friend of yours, wasn’t she?”
    Sam looked down at the photo. “We socialized occasionally. Her husband and Nick are good friends, but I didn’t know her all that well. She always had the baby with her, so it wasn’t easy to chat about anything other than Maeve.” Sam didn’t add that she’d been jealous of Victoria because she had the baby Sam had been denied.
    “I need to get Mr. Kavanaugh to HQ and get to work. Can you take care of the canvass and wait for crime scene?”
    “I’m on it.”
    “Thanks.” Sam went downstairs as Lindsey was overseeing the removal of Victoria’s body from the house.
    Derek’s keening wail at seeing the body bag broke Sam’s heart. She simply couldn’t imagine what he must be feeling—and didn’t want to. The thought of losing her wonderful husband so violently didn’t bear considering.
    Her wonderful husband was, at the moment, holding his friend up as he cried his heart out.
    Across the street, photographers from the city’s newspapers took photos of the two men.
    “Get rid of them,” Sam snapped at Freddie. “Heartless bastards.”
    Darren Tabor from the Washington Star crossed the street. “What’ve you got, Lieutenant?”
    “Why do you vultures have to take pictures of a husband’s unimaginable grief?”
    “Because he’s deputy chief of staff to the president, and he’s being comforted by one of the nation’s most popular senators.” Darren shrugged. “That photo will sell a lot of papers tomorrow.”
    “It’s sick.”
    “Maybe so.”
    Thinking of the promise she’d made to Victoria, Sam forced herself to make eye contact with the earnest young man who’d once done her a huge personal favor—one she was not likely to ever forget. “Put the word out that Kavanaugh’s daughter, thirteen-month-old Maeve, is missing and presumed kidnapped from the scene.”
    “Holy Christ.”
    “Do it, Darren. The sooner we have everyone looking for her, the faster we’ll find her. Cruz, go back inside and get a photo of the kid. Hurry up.”
    “On it.”
    “Get it out on the wires as fast as you can,” Sam said to Darren, who looked a little paler than he had initially.
    “I will. If you have anything else you can tell me, you know where to find me.”
    Sam left him with a quick nod and went back to Derek and Nick. Their friend, Dr. Harry Flynn, had joined them and was hugging Derek.
    “We need to find Maeve,” Derek said, hiccupping on a sob. “Whoever did this to Vic took her.”
    “We’ll find her, but we need your help. I’d like to take you downtown to HQ now, but before we go, you need to call your folks and anyone who shouldn’t hear about Victoria’s murder and Maeve’s disappearance from the media.”
    “Oh God, my parents,” Derek said. “When I called to see if they might have Maeve, I told them I couldn’t reach Vic... I didn’t tell them anything yet...because I couldn’t...I couldn’t get the words out...”
    “Do you want me to call them for you?” Harry asked.
    “Would you?” Derek seemed relieved by his friend’s offer. “I don’t think I could say the words... That would make it real...”
    “What about Victoria’s family?” Sam asked.
    Derek shook his head. “She doesn’t have any. Her parents died years ago, before I met her, and she was an only child.”
    “Aunts, uncles, cousins?”
    “None that I knew of.”
    Sam thought it was odd that Victoria had no one, but she kept her expression blank so as not to add to his distress.
    “Go ahead and make the call to his