"I don't care," she says.
"Look, don't worry about today. No one's going to bring any charges against you. He was resisting arrest. Not to mention he's pretty much a scumbag to start with."
"I don't care about that," she says.
"What's eating you, then?"
She can't tell him. She can't tell anyone. No one else would understand. She throws back the whiskey, feeling nothing except the burn of the alcohol on its way down. "It's nothing."
"You can't let guys like that get to you-"
"I wasn't worried about him," she says.
"I'm sure you weren't. You got a good head for this, kid, but it isn't going to be on your shoulders much longer if you go charging in like that. I know you think you're invincible like all people your age, but take it from one who knows, you aren't. I've seen it happen more often than I'd like." The joviality drains from his voice with the last sentence. He motions for another drink and then slaps a twenty on the counter. "Let me tell you something else: this stuff doesn't help."
Samantha looks down at her glass and concedes the point, pushing the glass away. Those eyes. So much like her eyes that night. Samantha wishes she could find a drink to wash the memory of that night away. And no matter how many times she beat up the Gutierrezes, the killers, of the world it wouldn't change anything. Nothing could bring them back. "You're probably right," she says.
"Of course I'm right." He puts an arm around her shoulder. "You want to crack skulls that's fine with me, but next time we do it together. As partners, capice?"
"Right. Partners," she said.
"I'm glad that's settled. Let's get out of here and get some sleep." He leads her out of the bar into the night.
Samantha folded up the newspaper article, stuffing it into her pocket. Fitzgerald had been her partner for three years before being reassigned to a desk job, a fate Samantha had vowed to avoid. No one stopped murders from behind a desk.
She went back up to her motel room, wondering who would have killed Fitzgerald. As a former agent he had plenty of enemies more than happy to take him out. She tried to remember if he ever mentioned anyone in particular who had it in for him. Her mind drew a blank.
The article had opened a door in her memory, but it was one of thousands or even millions. Whose eyes had haunted her? What had happened on that night in question? Try as she might, she couldn't think of any answers.