State of Affairs

by Marie Force

  “You’re surrounded by the top minds in the world. They’ll tell you what to do.”

  “I’m surrounded by Nelson’s people with no idea whether they’re loyal to me, or if they think—like the vast majority of Americans probably do—that they’re stuck with a young, inexperienced president who doesn’t actually want the job.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t anticipate trouble. If you step up and do the job and handle the crises, they’ll see you’re more than capable. You’re just going to have to show them, one day at a time.” She kissed his cheek and got out of bed. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  “Where’re you going?”

  She went into the bathroom, got a melatonin from his medicine cabinet and returned to bed to give it to him along with the glass of water from her bedside table. Since he had to be back at the White House by seven, she only gave him one. “Take it. You’re going to have to sleep to survive this job.”

  He took the pill, downed it with a swallow of water and handed the glass back to her. “Not sure how I’ll ever sleep again.”

  “You will. Not every day will feel as crazy as the first one did.”

  “It’d better not, or I might flee the country.”

  “You’d never do that.”

  “No, but I wish I could.”

  “If you did, you’d never forgive yourself for running away.”

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “Come here.” Sam held out her arms to him, and he rested his head on her chest. She ran her fingers through his hair, wishing there was something she could say or do to soothe him. Since there wasn’t anything she or anyone could do to ease his burden, she could only love him as fiercely as she ever had while he made this transition and took on the awesome responsibility that came with his new office.

  She caressed his back with her other hand, keeping up both until she felt him start to relax as his breathing deepened. If she had to stay up all night rubbing his back, she’d do it if it meant he got some much-needed sleep.

  While she waited to be certain he was asleep, she forced her mind to think of anything other than the secretary of State being detained by the Iranians. It was still surreal that something of that magnitude was her husband’s problem. But it’s not yours, she told herself. In an effort to get her mind off Nick’s problems so she might sleep too, she thought about Gigi and the way Cameron Green had looked when he came into her hospital room earlier.

  Cam and Gigi weren’t a pairing she would’ve considered had she not witnessed a spark of something urgent coming from him when he saw Gigi in that hospital bed. What Sam had noticed went far beyond one colleague’s concern for another. She picked through memories of the two of them at work, looking for clues that simply didn’t exist.

  If something had happened between them, it had occurred outside of work. Both were consummate professionals, so she wasn’t worried about their ability to handle a romantic entanglement on the job. It was just odd that he and Gigi had been dating other people, and yet, Sam had witnessed his intense reaction to seeing Gigi injured earlier. Was the attraction—or whatever it was—mutual?

  Under normal circumstances, Sam wouldn’t give a potential attraction between two of her detectives even ten minutes of her attention until it affected her. Since nothing about her current circumstances could be considered “normal,” she was almost relieved to have something to think about other than Nick being president, the Iranians, the location of the man who’d hurt Gigi and her promise to Lenore Worthington to reopen her son’s case.

  Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln…

  She was used to her plate being full to overflowing, but lately, it had been nothing short of ridiculous, beginning with the home invasion that had left the twins orphaned, her father’s death and the subsequent closing of his four-year-old case, the murder of President Nelson’s former mistress and the ensuing scandal, the murder of the woman who’d defrauded her friends and family, the starting of Sam’s grief group at work… It’d been a lot, but then again, it was always a lot in her line of work.

  How in the world would she handle her caseload on top of being first lady while also raising three children? Granted, she had lots of help with her three “jobs,” but would she be able to do any of them well if she was juggling all of them? Probably not, which made her feel sad and overwhelmed.

  The press would be watching her, critiquing her, criticizing her for not being a conventional first lady. With so much weighing on her mind, she wouldn’t have thought she’d sleep, but she must have, because she woke with an awful crick in her neck when Nick’s alarm went off at six.

  He raised his head off her chest and looked up at her with those hazel eyes that slayed her every time he looked at her with so much love. “You have the magic touch, babe. On the way home, I thought there was no way I’d sleep.”

  Sam sat up while carefully trying to move her head, but her neck wasn’t having it.

  “Why are you crooked?”

  “Slept funny on my neck, and now it won’t move.”

  “Oh damn. Want me to massage it?”

  “You need to get going to rescue the secretary of State.”

  “I have time.” He arranged himself in front of her. “Where does it hurt?”

  She pointed to the lower left side of her neck, and he focused his attentions there.

  “How’s that feel?”

  “Good.”

  He kept it up until she could move without pain and then rested his forehead on her shoulder.

  Sam curled her hand around his neck. “When I first started on the job, my dad told me that no matter what happened, I should follow my gut and my heart and always try to do the right thing. That’s all you can do, Nick. It’s all any of us can do.”

  “Thank you for that,” he said, kissing her. “A little Skip Holland was just what I needed today.”

  “He’s available to both of us anytime we need him. I know exactly what he’d say about any situation.” She caressed his face and looked into his eyes. “He’d be as proud of you as I am.”

  “That’s good to know. I guess I’m off to see what fresh hell awaits me today.”

  “That expression is trademarked, but in deference to current events, I’ll allow you to use it as you see fit.”

  “Gee, thanks. I think for the next three years, my fresh hell is going to top your fresh hell, and that’s saying something.”

  Sam laughed and gave him another kiss before he got out of bed. “You win.”

  “I usually like to win, but in this case, not so much.” He headed for the shower while Sam made the mistake of using his phone to scroll through the morning headlines, which were full of news about the situation in Iran as well as all kinds of speculation involving her husband and family. She quickly put the phone down, determined to avoid the news so she could focus on the twins and their birthday party.

  Nick came out of the master bathroom fifteen minutes later, wearing a navy suit, a white dress shirt and a blue-and-white-striped tie.

  Sam had gotten up and put on a robe. She went to him, slid her arms around his waist under his suit coat and gave him a hug, while breathing in the fresh, clean scent of home. “Good luck today. I’ll be thinking of you and the secretary of State and hoping for a quick, peaceful solution.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  “Follow your heart and your gut. Your heart is the best heart I know. It’ll never steer you wrong.”

  “Thanks, babe. Tell the kids…” His grimace said it all.

  Sam went up on tiptoes to kiss him. “I’ll tell them. They’ll be fine. They’re going to have a wonderful day.”

  “Save me some cake.”

  “I will.”

  “When we get a break in the action, we need to talk to the twins about the upcoming move. Probably before Eli goes back to school.”

  “We’ll do that tonight or tomorrow morning. I agree he needs to be there to reassure them.”

  Sam walked him downstairs, where B
rant and the rest of his much-larger detail waited for him. “Do you ever take a day off?” she asked Brant.

  “I almost had a full day off on Thanksgiving, ma’am. Are you ready to go, Mr. President?”

  Nick cast a longing eye toward the dining room, where Shelby had been making preparations for the party all week. “I’m ready,” he said to Brant.

  “Have a good day, love,” Sam said.

  “You too.” He gave her another quick kiss and was out the door. God only knew when she’d see him again.

  Chapter Nine

  Nick hadn’t been gone even a minute, and Sam was already lonely for him and worried about what he’d have to contend with over the course of the day. When he’d agreed to be Nelson’s new vice president, neither of them could’ve imagined a day like this one, when he would be heading to the White House, as president, to negotiate the release of the secretary of State from Iranian detention. It sounded more like a plot out of a spy movie than real life.

  Sam went to the kitchen to brew coffee and check the to-do list Shelby had left for her when she insisted on helping with the party. Before kids, Sam would’ve been inclined to delegate the whole thing, but now she wanted to be as involved as she could be and was determined to make sure the twins had the best possible day on this, their first birthday without their beloved parents.

  She spent the next hour and a half assembling thirty goody bags from the items Shelby had ordered. They’d invited all the twins’ classmates as well as several of their former neighborhood friends—and their parents—all of whom had been vetted by the Secret Service weeks ago.

  Of course, both parents in each family had RSVP’d to attend a birthday party at the vice president’s home. How excited they must be to tell their friends they were now going to a birthday party at the home of the president. The thought of having sixty strangers in her house, all of them gawking at the new first lady, was enough to give her hives. Thankfully, they’d also invited their personal friends and family, who’d hopefully provide a buffer to the gawkers.

  Shelby came in a few minutes later, carrying her son, Noah, and followed by her husband, Avery, who was hauling multiple containers. “You can put that in the dining room,” Shelby told Avery, already in party-planning-general mode.

  Sam had learned to stay out of Shelby’s way when she was in general mode. She held up her hands to take Noah, and Shelby gratefully transferred him to Auntie Sam, as Shelby referred to her.

  “He suddenly weighs a ton,” Shelby said, shaking out her arms as she followed Avery to the dining room.

  As Sam ran her lips over the soft silk of the baby’s blond hair, an irrational yearning overtook her. It’d been a while since that particular yearning had shown up to remind her of the fertility issues that had plagued her adult life. What in the name of all that was holy would she ever do with an infant in the midst of the madness that was their life? Especially now, when everything had changed. But the yearning was there just the same, impossible to ignore as she snuggled the sweet-smelling baby.

  Avery came back to the kitchen. He was tall and handsome, with golden-brown hair and eyes and cheekbones to die for. “How’re you holding up?” he asked in the honeyed accent of South Carolina.

  “We’re doing just great, especially since the Iranians decided to detain the secretary of State.”

  “What the hell is that about?”

  “Great question, Agent Hill. We believe it may be to test the mettle of the new president, or some such thing.”

  “By risking war?”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “How is Nick? I mean… Jesus, Sam. You guys must be reeling.”

  “It’s been an interesting couple of days.”

  Avery snorted out a laugh at what had to be the understatement of the decade. “Listen, before Shelby comes back, she’s been really tired lately. This pregnancy is kicking her ass, though she’d never say so. Keep an eye on her today?”

  “I will. Thanks for sharing her with me. I couldn’t survive without her.”

  “Me either.”

  His heartfelt statement was a testament to how far they’d come from the days when the FBI agent had convinced himself he was in love with Sam. They’d traveled a million miles from that unfortunate situation. He was now happily married to Shelby, and they were expecting their second child.

  “I’ll take him,” he said of Noah. “We’ll be back for the party.”

  Sam reluctantly turned the baby over to his daddy.

  “We need to talk on Monday.”

  “What about?”

  “I don’t want to disrupt your weekend.”

  Sam laughed. “My husband became president of United States this weekend. There’s nothing you can say that’ll disrupt my weekend any more than that already has.”

  “It’s about the investigation, which I probably shouldn’t even talk to you about since your husband’s Justice department oversees my agency.” The FBI had been brought in to investigate the Metropolitan Police Department after a series of high-profile officer arrests. Those arrests included the deputy chief, who’d been charged with withholding vital information pertaining to the shooting of Sam’s father.

  “What about it?”

  “You sure you want to do this now?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “And we’re acknowledging the potential conflict of interest here?”

  “Duly noted.”

  Avery shifted his weight to better accommodate the baby. “Someone mentioned we need to take a closer look at what went down with the Johnson case.”

  “Someone mentioned that, did they?” Sam made an effort to hide the blast of rage she felt at knowing one of her colleagues was trying to drag that painful incident into the FBI’s probe of the MPD. Two years ago, a child was killed in a shootout after she gave the order to raid a crack house. She’d been haunted by that child’s death ever since. “I’m sure it was one of my good friends. Was it Ramsey? Or maybe Offenbach. He’s still pissed at me for outing his affair. Apparently, the mother of his five children doesn’t want to be married to him anymore, and it’s my fault because I’m the one who figured out that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.”

  “I’m just saying it came up in the context of black marks on the department.”

  “An internal investigation has already determined Quentin Johnson was killed because his deadbeat father took him to that crack house, not because I ordered our people to invade it. He shot at us. We shot back. His son was killed.”

  “I understand this is a sore subject—”

  “Do you? When was the last time you gave an order that got a kid killed? I spent months undercover with the Johnsons, and never once did I see either of them do anything to endanger Quentin. Why in the world would he be at that house late at night when he’d never been there before?”

  Sometimes when she closed her eyes at night, she could still hear Marquis Johnson’s anguished screams following his son’s death. “Are we really going to revisit that case? I’d imagine that after recent events, the department has much bigger problems than a crack house shooting from two years ago, especially when everyone involved was already found to not be at fault.”

  “I’m not planning to revisit it,” Avery said. “I just wanted to give you a heads-up that it’s been mentioned.”

  “Noted. I’ll be disappointed if that case gets relitigated in the media. The first time was more than enough for me.”

  “We’re getting a lot of press inquiries about the investigation, but we’re stonewalling them for now. Our job is to provide a report to the U.S. Attorney at the end of this, and I’ve got no intention of mentioning the Johnson investigation in that report.”

  “Thank you for the heads-up. It’s appreciated, even if it doesn’t seem so.”

  Shelby came back into the kitchen, carrying a plastic bag full of plates and other paper products.

  “I’ll get out of your hair, ladies. Call me
if you need me to grab anything on the way back, and don’t overdo it, Mrs. Hill.” He kissed his wife and held the baby so she could kiss him.

  “You boys have fun at the park,” Shelby said, “and try to make sure he gets a nap, or he’ll be a bear at the party.”

  “Will do.”

  “What can I do?” Sam asked Shelby.

  “Start unwrapping the plates and napkins while I finish the goody bags.”

  “I finished the goody bags.”

  “Um, no, you started them.”

  “What’s the secret?”

  “To what?” Shelby asked.

  “To knowing how to do all this stuff.”

  “You know how to do stuff that I’ll never know anything about. You have your gifts, and I have mine. You don’t need to worry about knowing how to do any of this, because you have me, and I’ve got you covered.”

  “You’ll never know how thankful I am to have you, Tinker Bell. Especially on days like today. You’re going to come to the White House with us, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am. I can’t let you make a hot mess of it.”

  Sam cracked up laughing. “I don’t want you to overdo it today. Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I took the liberty of consulting with Lilia about how best to deal with the curious parents, and she suggested we draft something to hand each of them as they arrive. I wanted to run it by you to make sure you approve.”

  Sam took the sheet of paper that Shelby handed her.

  * * *

  Thank you so much for attending Alden and Aubrey’s birthday party! We hope you and your children have a wonderful time. We ask that you please keep the focus on our birthday boy and girl and refrain from asking President or Mrs. Cappuano to pose for photos or provide autographs. We sincerely appreciate the friendship and support provided to Alden and Aubrey during this difficult time in their lives, and we thank you for joining us today.

  Sincerely,

  Nick and Sam Cappuano

  * * *