Chapter Ten
Sam and Nick were almost to HQ when Sam’s mom called.
“Aubrey woke up crying. She’s got a fever and a sore throat.”
“Oh shit,” Sam said. “I’ll text Harry to come see her.”
“I hate to say that she’s asking for you.”
After she sent the text to their friend, the White House medical director, Sam closed her eyes against the start of a headache. “Can I talk to her?”
“Sure. Here she is.”
“Hi,” Aubrey said in a small voice.
“Hi, honey. Nana says you’re not feeling well. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Sam smiled. “I wish I was there to hug you and make you feel better. I’ll be home as soon as I possibly can, okay?”
“Okay. Is Nick here?”
“He’s with me.”
“Oh.”
Sam winced from the agony of needing to be in two places at the same time. “Dr. Harry will come see you, and he’ll fix you right up.”
“I like Dr. Harry.”
“I know you do. We all do. Call me if you need me, okay?”
“I will.”
“I’ll come right home the minute I can.”
“It’s okay. Nana said I can eat Popsicles and watch Frozen again.”
“That sounds like the perfect sick day to me. I love you, and I hope you feel better very soon.”
“Love you, too. Tell Nick, too.”
“I will, sweetie.”
Sam closed the phone and looked to Nick. “I hate that I’m not there with her.”
“She’s in very good hands with your mom and Harry.”
“I know, but it should be me. I’ll be her mother when the adoption is settled. Cleo would’ve been right there with her.”
“Don’t do that to yourself, Sam. If Aubrey knew Ethan was missing, she’d want us helping to look for him.”
The twins had massive older-kid crushes on Ethan and Abby, so he was probably right about that.
“I guess so.”
“Every day requires an ordering of priorities for both of us. Our marriage and our family is always the number one thing on our list, but there’re times, such as this, we have to give our full attention to something else because lives are at stake.
Public servants make sacrifices all the time that others never see or know about. ”
“That’s a fact. In this case, I’m a terrified aunt who has to put her own child’s needs second to her missing nephew.”
“And I’m a terrified uncle putting his own child’s needs—and those of the entire country—second to our missing nephew.”
“I feel a little better when you toss the entire country in there.”
His low chuckle made her smile for the first time all day as she rested her head on his sturdy shoulder, thankful for his presence for what promised to be another difficult day.
“Sometimes it’s all just too much.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Yeah, most of the time.”
Her phone rang with a call from Freddie.
“Hey, are you at the hotel already?”
“Yeah, I relieved Gonzo about twenty minutes ago. He learned from the victim’s sister-in-law that he was a recovering heroin addict. Evidence in the hotel room shows he’d relapsed. Our goal today is to figure out where he got the stuff and whether the dealer is the one who killed him.”
“Shit, that must’ve been a tough scene for Gonzo.”
“It was. He said he’d attend an NA meeting this morning and promised to check in with me after.”
“Keep an eye on that.”
“I will. I’d ask how you are, but…”
“Yeah, not so good, and now Aubrey is sick, too. Nick and I are almost to HQ to see what we can do to help.”
“I’m glad he’s with you.”
“As am I. It’s been a minute since I had a take-my-husband-to-work day.”
Nick tightened the arm he had around her.
“Sure has. Let me know if I can do anything for you today.”
“Keep working that case. That’s what I need.”
“I’m on it. I’ll check in after a bit.”
As Sam closed her phone, The Beast pulled up to the morgue entrance.
“Please stand by for a moment,” the lead agent said.
Sam desperately missed Vernon, who had no need to clear the way into the police station for her. This agent would follow protocol to the letter.
She vibrated with tension as she waited for the door to open.
Her mind raced with a thousand things she wanted to do before the meetings with the FBI and U.S.
Marshals. She sent a text to Dr. Trulo asking him to call her when he could.
As far as she knew, they hadn’t heard back from his daughter yesterday, which was one of several things she needed to discuss with him.
Sam leaned around Nick for a better view of the goings-on outside. “What’s taking so long? It’s a police station, for fuck’s sake.”
“I’m the problem,” he said, sounding pained. “You could probably go ahead.”
“I’ll wait for you.”
“Breathe, Samantha. Keep breathing.”
“Trying.”
Seven minutes later, the door finally opened as agents swarmed the vehicle, creating a barrier around them as they walked the short distance to the morgue door.
“Let’s keep it to one agent inside, guys,” Nick said. “No need for the full complement.”
“We’d need approval from headquarters for that, sir,” the young agent said.
“I’m giving you approval. One agent. That’s it. I’ll take the heat if there is any.”
“There’ll be heat, sir.”
“I’ll make sure it doesn’t burn you.”
“Yes, sir.” He signaled to the other agents to stay put while he accompanied them inside, looking around as if he expected a shooter to jump out at them at any second.
Sam acknowledged that it had to be nerve-racking for the agent to bring the president into a building full of armed officers with no advance notice and none of the usual preparation that preceded the president’s arrival at any destination.
“Let’s stop to check in with Lindsey,” she said, taking a right into the morgue, where her friend was completing an autopsy.
“Do you want to wait out here?” she asked Nick.
“That’s okay. I can handle it.”
“Morning,” Sam said to Lindsey when they were inside the room that smelled of antiseptic and other chemicals. “Is that our vic from the hotel?”
“Morning. Oh, and hello to you, too, Mr. President. Yes, it’s Dale Carver, age thirty-four, from Washington state. Stabbed in the chest, which severed his aorta.”
Nick winced.
“Did you get the word that Gonzo suspects a drug deal gone south?”
“I did. I’m running a tox screen, as I always do.” She glanced at them. “What’re you hearing about your nephew?”
“Nothing new yet today. Hoping to make some progress soon.”
“Are you on the case, then?”
“Not officially. Just helping out.”
“I wondered because I heard there was a screaming match between Ruiz and Malone first thing, and your name came up.”
“Great,” Sam said with a sigh. “That’s just what I need.”
“Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I thought you should have a heads-up.”
“I appreciate it. Better go see what’s up.” She glanced at Nick. “Aren’t you glad you came with me?”
“Any day with you is a good day.”
“Aw, good answer, my love. See you later, Linds.”
“Praying for Ethan and your family.”
“Thank you. We appreciate it.”
She took Nick’s hand to lead him from the morgue to the pit, which was all but deserted today as most of her team had worked overnight at the hotel.
As she was unlocking her office door, Captain Malone approached, looking aggravated.
“A moment, please, Lieutenant.” He nodded to Nick. “Mr. President.”
“Captain.”
The three of them went into Sam’s office and closed the door.
“Ruiz is furious that you called in the Feds and the marshals without discussing it with her first.”
“I didn’t technically call in the Feds. I called some of my friends for advice, and they offered to come in to help.”
“Fine line, Lieutenant, and Ruiz is rightfully annoyed. This is her case.”
“We’re looking for my nephew, Captain.”
“I’m aware, and that’s why I told you to stay in the background on this case.”
“Which is what I’ve tried to do.”
A loud knock sounded at the door before Ruiz walked in, loaded for bear. She stopped short when she encountered the president of the United States standing in Sam’s office.
“Captain Michelle Ruiz, this is my husband, Nick.”
Ruiz nodded to him and then turned her ire toward Sam. “What part of ‘stay out of my case’ did you not understand yesterday?”
Already exhausted with a day that’d barely begun, Sam took a seat behind her desk while Nick leaned against her filing cabinet, directing a steely stare at the captain that would earn him some extra favors at home.
Sam stared at a spot on the wall as she began to speak.
“My sister Tracy was twenty-one when she had my niece Brooke. I was seventeen and had no interest whatsoever in kids or babies until Brooke arrived.” Sam gave a small smile as she remembered the life-altering birth of her niece.
“I was obsessed with everything she did and was so in love with her, I started thinking for the first time that I might someday like to have kids of my own. Prior to that, I would’ve said kids were the last thing I wanted. ”
“What does this have to do—”
“I had a miscarriage in college,” Sam went on, ignoring the interruption.
“I’ve talked about that so often, I feel like the whole world knows.
” As she continued to stare at the wall, her eyes became unfocused as she took a painful trip down memory lane toward some of the most devastating events of her life.
She hoped she could keep her composure. “I was relieved when that happened, because I was in no way ready to be a mother. Like most people in their early twenties, I thought I had all the time in the world to have kids. The miscarriage was one of the worst things I’ve ever been through.
I ended up having issues for years afterward and was later diagnosed with endometriosis.
The theory was that it’d been dormant until I got pregnant, and the hormones triggered it, or some such thing. Who knows?