"I'm going to write him a letter. When we get home, I'm going to write to him and tell him I don't blame him. Accidents happen, even to Major League ballplayers."

Nick's heart swelled with love. "I think that's a brilliant idea, buddy."

They shared a smile that made him so very grateful for the boy who was now his son. Soon enough the adoption would be official. Nick couldn't wait for that day.

Sam arrived at HQ pissed off about being called into work on a night she'd planned to spend with her guys. They got so few free nights together, especially during Nick's campaign, that she tended to be greedy about every one. She sauntered into the situation room where Chief Farnsworth, Deputy Chief Conklin and Detective Captain Malone were consulting with the lieutenants who ran the Special Response Team and Patrol Division.

She took a seat next to Detectives Dani Carlucci and Giselle "Gigi" Dominguez, the two third-shift officers under her command. "Well, this blows, huh?" Sam said.

"You said it, LT," Gigi said. "All over a stupid baseball game."

"Too bad people don't go nuts over homelessness or something that matters," Dani added.

"I was just saying that same thing to Christina," Gonzo said as he took a seat behind them.

Freddie came in with Detectives Arnold, McBride and Tyrone.

"The gang's all here," Sam said, nodding to each of her detectives.

"The Feds have lost the game," Farnsworth announced to groans. "The Special Response Team is handling crowd control in and around the stadium along with the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies who were already on standby in case we needed them. It's my belief that we're going to need them tonight. Everyone listen up as Deputy Chief Conklin hands out assignments."

Conklin gave out the special radio channel the Operations team would monitor during the night and mentioned the cameras the Special Response Team had trained on the stadium were showing increasing unrest in the area. He went through the roster, doling out orders. Everyone became a patrol officer on a night like this, when the city was overtaken by the unruly masses working out their frustrations over a game gone wrong.

"That's it, people," Conklin concluded, after he'd given other tactical instructions. "Let's hit the streets and be careful out there."

Sam waited until the others filed out of the room to approach the brass. Her partner, Freddie Cruz, had been sent out with McBride and Tyrone, leaving with a quizzical look for Sam.

"You forgot someone," Sam said to Conklin.

"No, I didn't." He glanced at Farnsworth. "I'll let you handle this one, sir."

Farnsworth waited until Conklin and Malone left the room before he met Sam's intent gaze.

"What gives?" she asked.

"I need you here, helping with command and dispatch."

"With all due respect, sir, that's a bunch of happy horseshit. Tell me what's really going on."

His steel gray eyes hardened. "I could point out that you're being insubordinate, Lieutenant Holland. Again."

"You could but you won't. What's the real story? Why am I being wrapped in swaddling clothing all of a sudden?"

"You know why."

"Arnie Parsons is in jail! This is getting ridiculous! My husband and son have Secret Service agents following them around everywhere they go. I'm being kept off the street."

"Because you refuse to take the threats seriously. Whether you choose to believe it or not, Parsons has a ton of supporters. Your investigation squashed their dream of seeing him in the White House. They blame you."

"Um, hello, he's a murdering, scheming scumbag, and he squashed their dreams."

"You know that, and I know that, but try and tell them that."

Arnie's disciples had taken to the internet and social media since his arrest to denounce the detective who'd tied the murder of Victoria Kavanaugh to Arnie Parsons and his sons. Most of their vitriol had focused on Sam as the detective who'd uncovered the scheme, even though the FBI had made the actual arrests.

"Until the furor dies down," Farnsworth said, "you're off the streets."

"Even if there's a homicide?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

"I need a nice juicy murder to sink my teeth into. It's been weeks and weeks with nothing good to work on."

"You're sick, Holland, you know that?"

"That hurts my feelings."

"What feelings?" he asked with a laugh. "Help with dispatch, help with command, help with the reports and don't step foot outside this building without my knowledge, you got me?"

The man she'd once called Uncle Joe rarely pulled rank on her. In fact, he let her get away with everything except murder itself in running her investigations and her division. Because he was often so accommodating, she decided to accommodate him. For now. But this coddling shit couldn't continue much longer without her losing her mind.

"Fine," she said to his back as he left the room. "But after tonight, we're having a conversation about my clipped wings."

He waved to indicate he'd heard her, and Sam kicked the trash can out of frustration. She hated being sidelined due to worries about her safety. Why didn't anyone think she was capable of taking care of herself? She'd been a cop almost thirteen years! And here she was relegated to desk duty on one of the most intense nights the department had seen in years. It wasn't fair.

And while it might not be fair, it was happening, so she put aside her frustration to go figure out where she was needed. In the dispatch area, she was drawn to the bank of televisions repeatedly broadcasting the ball sailing over Willie Vasquez's head as the commentators talked about a moment that would land in the baseball history books, right next to Bill Buckner's famous bobble that cost the Boston Red Sox a World Series victory in 1986. "This might even be worse than Buckner," one of the broadcasters said grimly.

Her gaze shifted to the next television where Metro Special Response officers were in crowd control formations outside the stadium. Other images included a car on fire, another lying on its side, a shattered storefront and angry mobs of people in the streets.

All over a freaking baseball game.

Choking back her dismay over what was happening to her city as well as her inability to do anything about it, she buckled down to help out in central processing, which was overwhelmed with people being dragged in off the streets by increasingly irritated police officers.

Wanting to drown out the roar of the voices in the station as well as the disturbing images coming from the TVs, she put in her earbuds and let Bon Jovi take her away from it all as she typed reports and tried to stay focused on the menial tasks involved with processing hundreds of arrests.

An hour later, a nearby flurry of activity caught her attention as a man wearing a navy blue jacket with bold yellow FBI letters on the back scuffled with an unruly prisoner who continued to resist arrest right up to the last minute. Sam tugged out her earbuds and went to offer assistance in subduing the man.

The agent caught her gaze, and Sam gasped at the sight of Special Agent Avery Hill's golden brown eyes.

"Agent Hill," she said, haltingly after they succeeded wrestling the man into central booking. "We meet again."

"Unfortunate circumstances."

"Are there any other kind in our line of work?"

That drew a slow, sexy smile from the man who'd been less than circumspect about his crush on her. Sam cleared her throat as a flurry of nerves made her feel stupid and dismayed. She hated the effect he had on her as she had absolutely no interest in him. "What're you doing here? I thought you were relocating to the West Coast or Outer Mongolia or some such place after we closed the Kavanaugh case."

"That was the plan," he said in the honeyed Southern accent that made the toughest of women want to swoon. Not Sam, though. She liked to think she was immune. "Director Hamilton had other plans for me." His self-deprecating smile exposed an adorable dimple on his left cheek. "Meet the new agent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division at headquarters."

"Oh," Sam said, thunderstruck by the news. "So you're staying in town?" And closer now than he'd been when he worked out of Quantico. Awesome. Wait until Nick heard this news. He'd tuned into Hill's interest in Sam the first time he met the agent and was none too happy about it.

"Appears that way." He gestured to the guy he'd brought in. "I offered to transport for Officers Beckett and Dempsey. They had a full car. They should be right behind me with the paperwork."

"Lots of that to do tonight."

"I'm surprised to find you here and not on the streets."

"You and me both," she said with a snarl. "Freaking Arnie Parsons and his freaking threats have gotten me a pair of severely clipped wings."

"Oh, that sucks."

"No kidding. You helped to nail him too. I don't see him threatening you."

"You're much more famous than I am," he said with a teasing grin.

"Screw you."

He raised a brow and seemed to be considering the offer. "Well, I'd better get back out there. Word is the president is calling in the National Guard to help with crowd control. Never seen anything like it in my life."

"All over a baseball game."

"I know. It's insane."

"Congrats on the promotion."

"Thanks." He headed for the main door, but stopped and turned to find her watching him go. That was embarrassing.

"Could I ask you something?" he said, zeroing in on her in that intense way he did so well.

"I guess."

"Your assistant, Shelby."

"What about her?"

"A while back, she asked me to have coffee with her. Since I'll be sticking around, I was thinking I might take her up on the invite."

Sam had no idea what to say to that. "Oh."

"Would that a problem for you?"

"I, um... I don't see why it would be." As long as Shelby kept him far, far away from Sam and Nick's house, that would be fine, right? Sam made a mental note to address that with their assistant pronto.

He nodded. "See you around, Sam."

"Right," she said as he went out the door and into the night. "See you." As she went back to her workstation to continue processing arrest reports, she also tried to process the latest info on pesky Agent Hill. She'd thought him long gone to assignments out West, but instead he was not only staying in town but also thinking about going out with their assistant.

Far too close for comfort, she decided.

A few minutes later, Hill came back into the station, seeming a bit shaken. He came right over to the bull pen where she was working. "Lieutenant, I need a word in private, please."

"My office."

They walked in silence to the detectives' pit where Sam gestured for him to go into her office. She shut the door behind them. "What's up?"

"I just got a call from my friend Ray Jestings, the owner of the Feds."

"You're friends with the guy who owns the Feds?"

"We grew up together in Charleston. He married Elle Kopelsman."

Sam blew out a low whistle at the mention of one of Washington's most illustrious families. The Kopelsman family was the closest thing Washington had to royalty. As the owner of the Washington Star newspaper, Harlan Kopelsman had campaigned tirelessly for years to bring Major League Baseball to the nation's capital and then died of a massive stroke midway through the team's first season.

Elle was Harlan's daughter, a blonde-about-town who'd made a name for herself as a socialite and philanthropist. When her father died, she took over the Star and her husband took control of the team.

"Anyway, Ray told me that Vasquez's wife is frantic because she can't reach him, and according to the team, he left the stadium quite some time ago."

"They let him leave without security? Are they for real?"

"Apparently, he refused the offer of security, and Ray didn't argue with him in light of what they're dealing with in and around the stadium."

"Can you get me the make and model of his car and the plate number? I'll put our people on the lookout for him."

"That's what I was hoping you'd say. I'll get the info for you."

While he called Jestings, Sam tried to formulate a plan for how to go about looking for the missing ballplayer without adding to the unrest in the city.

"Okay," Hill said when he ended the call. "It's a black Lincoln MKZ." He rattled off the D.C. plate number.

Sam relayed the info to dispatch and asked for an all-points bulletin for the car.

"No APB for him?" Hill asked when she put down the phone.

"You know the rules about 'missing' adults. Until they're missing at least twenty-four hours, there's not much we can do, unless we're dealing with a mental health condition or something like that. He might've gone underground until the furor dies down. I wouldn't blame him if he did."

"Without telling his wife or team where he'd be?"

"Maybe he doesn't want them to know. He's probably embarrassed as all hell and going off to lick his wounds."

"Do you really believe that?"

Exasperated with the cat-and-mouse game, Sam propped her hands on her hips. "Why don't you tell me what you believe, Agent Hill?"

"I believe this guy is single-handedly responsible for the Feds losing the game and their first trip to the World Series. I believe there're a lot of people in this city who'd love to get their hands on him. I believe the fact that he's missing and not answering calls from his wife is a sign that he's in some sort of trouble."

"If we put out the word he's missing, it might make things worse."