by Marie Force
“Uh, yeah. I gave her a ride to her mother’s place and hung out for a bit. Why?”
“Did you see Dani?”
“She was there when we first got Gigi home, but she had to leave for a birthday party for her niece. I haven’t talked to her since then.”
“What time was that?”
“Around three.”
“I’ve left two messages for her since then. She hasn’t returned either one.”
Sam could tell Cam thought that was strange too. On their job, if your lieutenant called, you took the call or returned it right away. “Let’s go to her place and do a welfare check. We need her address.”
“I know where she lives,” Cam said.
“Take backup,” Malone said. “Just in case.”
Sam had a sick feeling in her stomach as she signaled for Cruz to join her and Green as they headed for the morgue exit.
“I’m sure she’s fine,” Cam said.
“What’s going on?” Freddie asked, donning a trench coat as he tried to keep up with her.
Cameron filled him in, saving Sam from having to repeat her concerns.
“Crap,” Freddie said. “That’s not like her.”
“Cam, call Gigi,” Sam said. “See if she’s heard from Dani since yesterday.”
Cameron put through the call. “Hey, it’s me. How’re you doing?” He listened for a second, said a few words and then asked, “Have you heard from Dani since she left yesterday?”
Sam watched him closely.
He shook his head as he continued to talk to Gigi.
Sam’s stomach began to seriously hurt. What the hell was happening, and where in the hell was her detective?
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Where does she live?” Sam asked Cam when they were loaded into her car and headed out of the parking lot.
“Arlington.”
“Shit, fuck, damn, hell. That means we have to notify Arlington PD to request backup. Make the call, Cam.”
While he took care of that, Sam turned on her lights and siren and headed for the Memorial Bridge. She’d told Vernon they’d be moving fast. She hoped the Secret Service agents could keep up. On the ride across the Potomac into Northern Virginia, Sam tried not to think about the wide array of things that could’ve happened to Dani Carlucci.
“Are you scared?” Freddie asked in a low voice as Cam worked the phone in the back seat.
“Unsettled. Something has to be wrong for her to not return my calls. If I wasn’t so caught up in my own shit right now, I would’ve realized it sooner.”
“Don’t blame yourself. You’ve had a crazy few days.”
“It should never be so crazy that I don’t notice when one of my detectives goes missing.”
“You don’t know she’s missing. Anything could’ve happened.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
One thought niggled at her mind, sending a chill of fear to her bone marrow. What if some lunatic wanted to get at her, but couldn’t get near her due to the Secret Service, so they struck at someone close to her? Sam’s mouth went dry, and her pulse skyrocketed as anxiety gripped every cell in her body. Was Ramsey right? Was she selfish to think she could continue on like nothing had changed? Was she putting her team at risk simply by showing up to work the way she always did?
She’d felt queasy before, but now she felt downright nauseated.
That she could’ve put one of the detectives she loved like family in danger was unimaginable.
“You’re spinning,” Freddie said. “Don’t do that until we know what’s up.”
“Hard not to. If this has something to do with me and Nick…”
“Sam. Stop. Take a breath.”
“Arlington is sending backup,” Cameron said.
They rode in tense silence for another twelve endless minutes before pulling into a townhouse complex that was less than a mile from where Nick had lived at the time of their first night together. Thinking about that was way better than considering what they might find at Dani’s place.
“There’s her car,” Cam said, gesturing to a dark blue Honda Accord.
Knowing her car was there only made Sam more nervous. Did that mean they could rule out her taking off for some R and R and forgetting to check in? She wasn’t due back to work until tonight, so she wasn’t technically AWOL, but all of them knew they could be called in at any time. As Sam always told them, murder stopped for nothing and no one. Their plans were always being upended by the case of the moment, and Dani had never given her any reason to believe she didn’t understand the expectations of the job.
Two Arlington cruisers were already in the lot when they arrived.
Sam went over to brief the officers on what was going on and asked them to be ready to provide backup if needed.
Cameron knocked on Dani’s front door, which was painted a shiny black. The townhouse itself was white with black shutters that matched the door. “Dani, open up! It’s Cam.” He knocked some more, but there was no answer.
A shout from behind them had Sam reaching for her weapon and spinning around to see a tall, frantic-looking blonde woman practically dragging an older man behind her as they came across the parking lot.
“You’re her lieutenant,” the woman cried. “I can’t reach my sister, and I asked the super to let me in! It’s not like Dani to not answer her phone. Something’s wrong. Is that why you’re here?”
“We were concerned too,” Sam said, realizing the presence of the sister and the super would move things along.
The woman, who Sam could now see bore a resemblance to Dani, began to cry. “I’m so afraid something terrible has happened.”
She went to the woman, the way she’d want Dani to if her sisters were panicking about her. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
“She thinks the world of you,” the woman whispered.
“Likewise.” To the super, Sam said, “Can you please let us in?” She flashed the gold badge that went a long way toward getting things done.
“Uh, yes, ma’am, Mrs. Cappuano,” he said, clearly flustered to have the first lady in his presence.
“It’s Lieutenant Holland, and could you please hurry it up? We’re very concerned about Detective Carlucci.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He spooled through a huge ring of keys. “Pretty one, that detective.”
Sam wanted to punch him in the face, but that wouldn’t get them inside any quicker.
Freddie put a hand on her arm, probably to keep her from actually punching the guy.
Only because she was so tempted did she let him keep his hand there and not shake him off the way she normally would.
Finally, the guy found the key and had the door open a minute later.
“Stay here,” she said to Dani’s sister. “Let us check it out first.”
“Please…”
“I know. Cam, stay with her.”
Weapons drawn, Sam and Freddie went inside the townhouse. A sour smell greeted them. She couldn’t immediately identify what it was, but at least it didn’t smell like blood. For that much, she gave thanks. “Dani!”
No response.
They checked the first floor of the townhouse, which was decorated in a sleek, modern style that suited Dani, before venturing upstairs, where the smell was noticeably worse.
Sam nudged a door open and found what looked like a guest room. A second room was an office, and the third was a full bathroom. At the end of the hallway, she stepped into the largest bedroom, where a foul odor hit her in the face. “Dani?”
A low moan from an adjoining room had them moving quickly to get to her.
Dani lay on the floor of the bathroom in a war zone of vomit and other bodily fluids.
“Dani! Oh my God! What happened?”
“Food poisoning,” she whispered. “I think.”
“Call for a bus,” Sam said to Freddie, who ran from the room.
The smell nearly made Sam vomit herself, but she found a towel on the counte
r, wet it and used it to bathe Dani’s face.
“Sorry.”
“Shh, don’t be sorry. As long as you’re okay, we are too.”
Twenty minutes later, with Dani and her sister on the way to the hospital in the ambulance, Sam eyed the Secret Service SUV. She handed her keys to Freddie. “I’m going home to change. Get back to HQ and pick it up with Lopez. I want everything you can find on him before I talk to him about Calvin.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Green said for both of them.
As she walked over to the SUV, she couldn’t believe she was going to do this, but it would get her back to work faster than if she took Freddie and Cam to HQ and then went home. She cut through the next-door neighbor’s lawn, using the grass to clean the puke off the bottoms of her shoes. Poor Carlucci had been so dreadfully ill. Sam hoped she was going to be okay.
Vernon lowered the window and raised an eyebrow. “May I help you, ma’am?”
“I could use a ride home to change.”
He jumped out of the car and opened the back door for her.
“Sorry, I’m a little fragrant. My colleague has a bad case of food poisoning.”
“Is she all right?”
“She will be.” And thank God for that. As she got into the back of the SUV, Sam couldn’t stop thinking about the possibility that she was putting her colleagues in danger by continuing to work. That hadn’t occurred to her before now. It hadn’t been an issue when she was second lady, but would her new, higher profile put her beloved colleagues in even more danger than they already faced on the job every day?
She couldn’t bear to entertain that thought.
“Hey, Vernon,” she said when they were on the way back to town.
He met her gaze in the rearview mirror. “Ma’am?”
“Could I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
She hesitated for a second, reluctant to give voice to her fear. “Do you think I’m endangering my squad by staying on the job?”
“How so?”
“Does my higher profile make them targets too? The whole time we were driving out here, all I could think about was what if someone harmed her because of her proximity to me.”
“I don’t think the danger to them now is more than it was when you were second lady.”
“Were there threats against them then?” Sam asked, horrified that she’d never thought to ask before.
“Not that I’m aware of, ma’am.”
“And you’d know, right? Because you’re assigned to me.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” After a long pause, Sam said, “Do you think I’m crazy to try to do this? To keep my job while I’m first lady?”
“I don’t think you’re crazy, ma’am. You’ve devoted your life to your career, and it means a lot to you—and many other people.”
“Thank you,” Sam said, strangely touched by the agent’s kind words.
“You didn’t ask me,” Jimmy said, “but my wife and I think it’s really cool you’re keeping your job, ma’am.”
“You’re married? How’s that possible? You’re, like, twelve.”
Jimmy laughed. “Actually, ma’am, I’m thirty, and I’ve been married for five years.”
“Wow. Didn’t see that coming.”
“He has a baby face,” Vernon said.
“Everyone tells me that,” Jimmy added.
“Will you guys do me a big favor?”
“If we can, ma’am,” Vernon said.
“If you ever hear of specific threats toward any member of my team, will you tell me?”
“We’ll do whatever we can to help you keep them safe, ma’am.”
With those words, Vernon had made a friend for life in Sam. She shouldn’t be surprised that they’d understand her concerns as fellow law enforcement officers. “A big part of me is fairly certain I’m insane for trying to make this work.”
“A big part of me is certain that if anyone can make it work, you can, ma’am,” Vernon said.
Sam met his gaze in the mirror and saw respect, admiration and maybe a bit of affection. “Thank you, Vernon. Thank you both for what you do.”
“It’s an honor and a privilege, ma’am.”
“You can stop calling me ma’am when it’s just us. That makes me feel eighty.”
“We’ll try to remember that, ma’am.”
“Ugh, try harder.”
When they arrived at the Ninth Street checkpoint, she was shocked to see an even larger media presence than had been there earlier. The Secret Service had them contained behind metal fencing.
“I bet the neighbors can’t wait to be rid of us,” Sam said. “I’ll be quick.”
When she got out of the car, the roar of reporters shouting questions had her wanting to put her hands over her ears to drown out the noise. Nate was working the door and opened it for her.
Inside, Sam came to a dead stop at the sight of a room full of boxes and people. Shelby was in the middle of it, with Noah strapped to her chest as she barked out orders.
“What the hell, Tink?” Sam said.
“The White House doesn’t mess around. They were here thirty minutes after Gideon called me.”
“Wow.” Standing in the midst of the packing frenzy, she had another reality check. They were moving. To the freaking White House. How was this her life?
“What’re you doing here, and what’s that smell?”
“I rescued one of my detectives from the horrors of food poisoning, so I came home to change.”
Shelby wrinkled her little nose. “Bring your clothes down and put them right in the washer.”
“Yes, Mom. Should you be carrying Noah and running around?”
“I’m fine. Don’t worry.”
“I will worry. I don’t want you overdoing it.”
“Yes, Mom.”
Smiling, Sam said, “I’m going up to shower and change. Be right back.”
“Hey, Sam?”
Sam turned to her. “Yes?”
“Were you serious about the social secretary thing?”
“Hello? Of course I was serious. Who else would I ask?”
“I just…” She blinked furiously as if trying not to cry. “I can’t believe everything that’s happened since the day you guys asked me to plan your wedding. The White House social secretary is the pinnacle, Sam. The absolute pinnacle, and as long as I can still be involved with my precious Scotty and the adorable Littles, I gratefully accept your kind offer.”
“You do? Really?”
Shelby dabbed at her eyes as she nodded. “Avery and I talked about it, and we’ll hire a part-time nanny to help with the kids and maybe make use of one of those rooms in the residence you mentioned so they can be close by while I’m at the White House.”
“Whatever you need. Thanks, Tink. I couldn’t do it without you.”
“No, you really couldn’t.”
“Haha, and of course we want you to stay involved with the kids. None of us would have it any other way.”
“You’re going to need more help with them than I can provide if I’m the social secretary.”
“I know, and I already have a plan.”
“What’s that?”
“Celia.”
“Oh, yes. That’s brilliant.”
“I’m going to pop in to see her before I go back to work. Fingers crossed she’ll want to do it.”
“She will. She told me she’s spinning her wheels alone in the house without Skip. She’ll jump at the chance to shake things up.”
“I hope so. Be right back.” Since the day was getting away from her, Sam rushed through a shower and changed her clothes, bringing the soiled ones to the washer downstairs as directed by Tinker Bell. Thankfully, the moving team hadn’t gotten to the second floor yet. After starting the wash, she found Shelby in the kitchen.
“Don’t let them pack our beds and stuff. We need them for two more nights.”
“I’ve got you covered. Don�
�t worry.”
“Thanks for everything, Tink. We love you.”
“Love you too.”
Sam left the house and signaled to Vernon that she needed a minute at her stepmother’s home. She went up the ramp they no longer needed and gave a short knock on the door before she poked her head into Celia’s house. That the house was no longer her dad’s made her ache for him, as did walking into the familiar space he used to occupy. The pain of his loss was as fresh today as it had been the day of his sudden death.
“Celia? Are you home?”
“Up here, honey.”
Sam followed the sound of her stepmother’s voice to the second floor and found her in the room that’d been Skip’s before he was shot. “What’s up?” Sam asked, surprised to see piles of clothes on the bed and cardboard boxes on the floor.
“I’m starting to pack up your dad’s clothes. He’d want me to donate them so someone can use them. I put a few things aside for you girls and the grandchildren.” She gestured to a stack of shirts and sweatshirts. “Things I thought you might want.”
“You… You don’t have to do this by yourself, Celia.”
“I don’t mind. It gives me something to do. Your dad hated waste, and he’d want his things to go to someone in need.”
“Yes, he would.” Sam could barely swallow over the enormous lump that settled in her throat. “I can still catch a faint hint of the Polo cologne he used to wear.”
“Me too. When we were first together, I had to tell him that half as much as he normally wore would do just fine.”
Sam laughed and swiped at a tear that slid down her cheek. “We tried to tell him that for years.”
“Thankfully, he listened to me, so I could continue to date him.”
“We’re all thankful for that.”
“I miss him so much.”
“I do too,” Sam said, “especially this week. He’d be losing his shit over Nick becoming president.”
“He would! He’d want to be the first to visit you at the White House.”
“I’m so sad he can’t be part of it.”
“He’s part of it, honey. I like to think he’s close by, enjoying his new freedom from the limitations of his injury and hosting ragers in heaven for all his friends and family while keeping an eye on the goings-on around here.”
