Fatal Scandal: Book Eight of the Fatal Series by Marie Force Read Free Book Online Page B

then.”
    “What did he say?” Gonzo asked the second Sam ended the call.
    “He’s getting the warrant. Does the building have a super or a manager?”
    Gonzo nodded. “He’s on the first floor. A guy named Tony. I can’t remember his last name.”
    “He’s in 1A,” Christina added.
    “I’m going down to talk to him,” Sam said. “Sit tight and try not to worry. If you didn’t do anything, you have nothing to worry about.”
    “
If?
” Christina asked, incredulous. “You really don’t believe us when we say we had nothing to do with this, do you?”
    “I do believe you. But I need to prove that as fast as I possibly can so no one has a chance to ruin your lives with innuendo.”
    “Go ahead, Sam,” Gonzo said, sounding resigned. “We’ll stay here.”
    “Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t take any calls. Don’t make any. Got me?”
    “Yeah,” he said. “I got you.”
    She certainly didn’t have to tell him how important the next few hours would be to maintaining control of this situation. She went down the stairs to find the super, stopping short at the sight of several men working on something inside the main door. “Is one of you Tony?”
    “That’d be me,” a tall, muscular black man said. “What can I do for you?”
    Sam flashed her badge. “Lieutenant Holland, Metro PD.”
    “Ahhh, the VP’s wife,” Tony said, smiling. “We got a celebrity in our midst, fellas.”
    The men with him stopped what they were doing to take a good long look at her, which made her skin crawl. She hated when people brought up her personal life when she was on the job. Why did everyone have to make such a BFD out of who she was married to? What did it matter?
    “Right now I’m a cop, and I have questions,” she said brusquely.
    “What can I do for you?”
    “The building has security cameras?”
    He gestured to the other men. “It does. They’re fixing them as we speak. Why?”
    Sam’s stomach sank at that news. “How long have they been broken?”
    “Since about noon yesterday. I noticed it this morning. That one there?” He pointed to the camera that monitored the vestibule. “It was hanging from its wires when I came home from my girl’s place. I called these guys in and paid extra since it’s a holiday. We take security seriously around here.” He paused, glancing up the stairs. “One of your guys lives here.”
    “That’s right.” If she could get a look at who disabled the system, it might help. “I’ve requested a warrant for the security footage.”
    “How come?” he asked, suspicious now.
    “It’s part of an ongoing investigation. I’m not at liberty to discuss the details. Am I going to have to wait for the warrant to receive your cooperation or can you help me?”
    “I’m not really sure I’m allowed to just hand over the video. I’d need to check with my boss.”
    “Can you do that now?”
    “Sure.” He stepped into his apartment and closed the door behind him.
    “What happened to the cameras?” Sam asked the workers.
    “Someone unscrewed it from its anchor and left it to dangle,” one of them said. “The only footage you’re gonna get is of the floor.”
    And of course they’d had their hands all over it as they fixed it, wiping away any prints that might’ve been left behind. Sam felt increasingly queasy as the implications set in. Without the camera, they’d have no way to prove that Gonzo and Christina never left the building last night.
    Sam’s phone rang and she took the call from Freddie while she waited for Tony to return. “What’s up?”
    “Lindsey is about to transport the vic to the morgue. Crime Scene is here, and they’re looking for the okay to take the car back to the lab.”
    Stepping out of earshot of the workers, Sam said, “Let them take it. We need a thread to pull. I’ll take whatever I can get.”
    “You talked to him?”
    Sam appreciated that he didn’t name names. “Yeah, he’s shaken but adamant. Neither of them left the