Deadly Force by Beverly Long

Sam felt as if his insides were in a blender. “Just be alert,” he said as he pulled the door shut behind him. As he hurried down the steps, he waspushing buttons on his cell phone. When Cruz answered, Sam didn’t waste time. “I need you to meet me at the station. I’ve got a tape of a call that Claire got on her answering machine.”
    “Who has answering machines with tapes anymore?”
    “We’re lucky that Claire and Nadine did.” It was an old one, probably something the Fontaines had in their basement and insisted Claire take with her.They wouldn’t want their calls missed.
    “Who left the message?” Cruz asked.
    “I don’t know.” All he really knew was that he was a thread away from being completely unraveled. “Maybe from the robber? He knew about the panties. The guy also knew about Tessa. He said that Claire and Tessa were pretty, but that Tessa...that Tessa hadn’t been so pretty when she was dead and wouldn’t it be toobad if the same thing happened to Claire.”
    He heard Cruz suck in a breath, but his partner didn’t say anything.
    “Well?” Sam prompted, fighting the urge to slam his fist through his car window.
    “Are you okay, Sam?” Cruz asked.
    He was so far from okay that he could even remember what it looked like. “I need your help, Cruz. We have got to find this guy.”
    “How’s Claire?”
    Shocked. Scared, maybe. In denial, for sure. He hadn’t taken the time to really analyze it. He couldn’t stay. Every time he’d looked at her, he’d seen a young blond-haired girl, her head bashed in, her light extinguished. “She’s okay,” he said. “I’ve got her stashed at my house.”
    “If you want to stay with her, I’ll take the tape in.”
    “No.” Eleven years ago he hadn’t been able tofinish it. This time he would. Whatever it took, he’d do it.

Chapter Five
    Twenty minutes later, Sam pulled the investigation file on Tessa’s murder. It was yellowed with age and smelled like a file smells when it’s been boxed away. When it’s been forgotten.
    Never.
    He owed Tessa more than that.
    “You really think the person who called Claire had something to do with the robbery and Tessa’s murder?” Cruz asked. “And what doesthat have to do with Sandy Bird?”
    “I don’t know.” Sam opened the flap and pulled out the contents. Loose pictures of Tessa, facedown on the tile floor where she’d fallen, slipped out.
    Cruz reached over, picked one up, studied it, then put it back, facedown. “If that was Meg...” he said, his voice trailing off. “You know, Sam, no one would think less of you if you went home and let mereview the file.”
    “I can’t do that.”
    Cruz shrugged. “I didn’t think so.” He held out his hand. “Give me half of that.”
    A half hour later, Sam felt like he’d been sucked back eleven years, that it was the beginning of the summer between his junior and senior year in college, and he had the world by the tail. He had a calling—journalism. He had a great love—Tessa. He’d had it all.
    Then, in the blink of an eye, the time it takes to crush a person’s skull, he had nothing.
    He’d first seen Tessa Fontaine three weeks into his freshman year. They’d been at a dorm party, the kind where noise and guests and beer spill out into the hallway and the lobby. In the corner of said lobby, Tessa’s date for the night had seemed determined to stick his tongue down Tessa’s throatevery chance he got.
    Not that Tessa had seemed to mind all that much.
    And that should have been enough for Sam to turn the other way, to start looking for his own entertainment—in those days, it would have been the closest game of poker. But there’d been something about the long-legged, blond-haired beauty that had drawn and kept his attention.
    That had ended up being a very goodthing for Tessa. When her date had led her to an empty room at the end of the hallway, Sam had been close enough to hear the first scream. He’d gotten inside the room,