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tossing it on my desk.”
    “But it had been through the postage machine, so that rules out hand delivery.”
    “Baffling,” Sam said. She rolled up the paper towel she’d used as a napkin and sent it arching into the garbage can. “Let’s clean this up and get out of here. I need to go home and tend to these paper cuts.”
    “The hazards of this job never end.”
    “I hear ya. Thanks for staying late.”
    “No problem.”
    “So how’s it going with Elin?”
    “We’ve been seeing each other here and there since the wedding.”
    “Define ‘seeing each other.’”
    “Why do I have to define it?”
    “Are we talking going out to dinner or all sex all the time?”
    Flustered, he scowled at her. “None of your business.”
    “Ahhh, sex fest revisited. I get it.”
    “Whatever you say.”
    “Did you ever go out with that girl your mother fixed you up with? The one from church?”
    “Yeah. No spark. She just didn’t do it for me. She was a perfectly nice girl, though.”
    “I’m sure she was if your mother liked her.” As they talked, they boxed up all the cards and letters. “So let me get this straight—while you continue to burn up the sheets with Elin, you’re dating these girls your mother fixes you up with.”
    “Don’t make it sound like I’m cheating on Elin. She knows I’ve been out with other women, and she’s fine with it.”
    “And are you fine with her going out with other guys?”
    “As long as she doesn’t sleep with them, I don’t mind.”
    Except he looked like he minded. He looked like he minded quite a lot. “Freddie, come on. Of course you do. You’re playing with fire.”
    Throwing up his hands, he said, “What do you want me to say? My mother still hates her, and I’m sick of being in the middle of it.”
    “I thought you were ready to tell your mother Elin is the woman you want.”
    “I thought I was too,” he said, dejected. “Every time I try to broach the subject she comes up with another girl she wants me to meet. It’s like she knows what I want to tell her but doesn’t want to hear it.”
    “In the meantime, the woman you might or might not love is dating other guys. But as long as you’re fine with that—”
    “I’m not fine with it!” He ran his hands through his dark hair, leaving it disheveled. “I hate it! But how can I ask her to be exclusive when I’m not?”
    “You didn’t ask my opinion, but it’s high time you took control of this situation. It’s making you crazy.”
    “I know,” he said, slumping into his chair.
    “You’re almost thirty years old, Freddie. At some point you have to live your own life and not necessarily the life your mother has in mind for you.”
    “I’m not entirely a mama’s boy. If she’d had her way, I never would’ve stepped foot in the police academy.”
    “And what a waste that would’ve been. You just proved my point.”
    “Huh,” he said. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way before.”
    “Go home and get some sleep. I’ll see you in the morning.”
    “See you then.”

Chapter 5
     
    Freddie walked the boxes of cards to Sam’s office and piled them in the corner as she’d requested. As he was locking the office door, Lieutenant Stahl came around the corner.
    “You’re working late tonight, Detective,” Stahl said, his jowls quivering with every word.
    “As are you, Lieutenant.”
    “What’s kept you here so late?”
    “Nothing special. Just taking care of some paperwork.” Sifting through four thousand cards certainly counted as paperwork. Rather clever, if he did say so himself. “You?”
    Stahl glanced at the closed door to Sam’s office—the office that used to be his—and then back at Freddie. “Nothing.”
    “Did you need Lieutenant Holland for something?”
    Stahl’s fat face twisted into a scowl. “Absolutely not.”
    The animosity between the two lieutenants was no secret to anyone in the department. Stahl had made more than a few threats toward Sam,