Fatal Identity

by Marie Force

  Not that he felt that he had the right after the way he’d behaved, but he went to her anyway, put his hands on her hips and drew her in close to him.

  Sighing, she looped her arms around his neck and rested her head on his chest.

  Holding her this way reminded him of how perfectly they fit, like she’d been made for him and vice versa. “I’m sorry, baby. If I could take back what I said the other night, I would. I hate that I hurt you.”

  “I know it wasn’t you talking. It was the grief.”

  “Still...that’s no excuse.”

  She raised her head from his shoulder to offer a smile, but her eyes were still sad, and he hated that. “You’re forgiven.”

  “You’re better than I deserve.”

  She shook her head. “No,” she whispered, drawing him into a kiss that went from soft and gentle to desperate in a matter of seconds. “I love you so much, Tommy,” she whispered against his lips. “You’ll never know how much.”

  Her words, words he didn’t feel he deserved after the things he’d said to her, moved him deeply. Keeping his arms around her, he walked her backward toward their bedroom and came down on top of her on their bed. It had been weeks since he’d touched her this way, and all the love and desire he’d always felt for her came roaring back to life in a flashpoint of heat that left him breathless.

  He’d been so numb, so broken, that it was almost painful to feel so much all at once. And then to realize what could’ve been lost forever... He dropped his head to her shoulder, breathing through the ache inside him.

  She ran her fingers through his hair as she sprinkled kisses on his face. “Make love to me, Tommy. I’ve missed you so much. I’ve missed us.”

  He pushed up her sweater and helped her remove it, then she did the same for him. Reaching behind her, he unhooked her bra and pushed it aside, revealing sweet pink nipples. As he bent his head to tease one of them with his tongue, it occurred to him that Arnold would never have this. He’d never fall in love or make love to the woman he adored. He’d never know the joy of fatherhood. He would never again have anything. Ever.

  Those few thoughts were all it took to extinguish his desire.

  Dropping his head to Christina’s chest, he fought through the tsunami of emotions that hit him every time he remembered what had happened to his partner.

  “Tommy? What is it?”

  “I...” His throat closed and his voice broke. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”

  “It’s okay.” She tightened her arms around him. “We don’t have to do anything. I’d be perfectly happy if you held me for a little while.”

  As he wrapped his arms around her, he felt like a total failure—as a partner to her and to Arnold, as a cop, as a father, as a man. Trulo had said those feelings would fade in time. He only hoped that would happen before Christina wised up and realized she could do a hell of a lot better than him.

  * * *

  THE SUV DELIVERED Sam to the West Wing entrance, where Lilia waited for her wearing a classy red dress with a black blazer. “You look nice,” Sam said, grateful she’d taken the time to change before her trip to the White House. “I feel like an amateur next to you.”

  Lilia laughed. “You look great as always. Come on in.” She said that so casually, as if she weren’t inviting Sam into the most famous house in the world. “How’s the suspension going?”

  “It’s been eventful, as I’m sure you know. I’m headed to Knoxville this afternoon to follow a lead in the Hamilton case.”

  “So you’re working the case even though you’re suspended?”

  “Shhh,” Sam said with a grin.

  “I should’ve known. The West Wing has been buzzing all morning over the death of Troy Hamilton.”

  “What’re people saying?”

  “They’re shocked. He was so larger than life and so respected.”

  “Yes, he was.” It was all Sam could do not to tell Lilia the rest of the Troy Hamilton story. But that would come out in time, if Josh turned out to be Taylor Rollings.

  “The morning shows were one big tribute to him,” Lilia said. “People are stunned that someone like him could actually be murdered. It reminds me of how I felt when I heard Senator O’Connor had been murdered.”

  “When someone seemingly untouchable is taken from us, it’s a reminder that we’re all mortal.”

  “Yes, exactly. I hope you find the person who did it very soon.”

  “I hope so too.” As they reached her suite of offices, Sam’s phone rang and an out-of-state number appeared on the caller ID. Her heart leaped at the realization that the call was from Franklin, Tennessee. “I’m sorry, but I have to take this.”

  Lilia gestured to Sam’s office. “Please. Take your time.”

  “Thanks, I’ll be quick.” Closing the door behind her, she flipped open the phone. “Holland.”

  “Detective Watson from Franklin.”

  “Do you have news for me?”

  “I do. It’s a match. We’ve had two independent experts confirm it.”

  All the air left Sam’s body in a big exhale. While she’d expected the news, it was still a shock to have confirmation that the late FBI director had raised a kidnapped child as his own.

  “As you can imagine,” Watson said, “we’re extremely eager to reunite Taylor with his family.”

  “Yeah, about that... He’s, um... We don’t know where he currently is. We’re looking for him—”

  “What do you mean you don’t know where he is?” Watson asked, his tone tight with frustration that Sam could certainly understand. She’d be fucking furious if she were him.

  “After his father was murdered last night—”

  “His father was murdered? Who was his father?”

  Sam released her hair from the clip she’d secured it in earlier and ran her fingers through it, trying to collect her thoughts. “The man who raised him was FBI Director Troy Hamilton.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “Dead serious.”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “I told you this case would be too hot to handle if the DNA was a match.”

  “There’s hot and then there’s thermonuclear.”

  “We were moving Josh Hamilton to a secure location last night when he and one of my detectives were overtaken by three men with assault weapons. They were taken from the scene in a van. We were able to trace the plates on the van and recover my detective, who’d been beaten. Josh wasn’t with him. We’re continuing to search for him.”

  Watson’s deep sigh echoed through the phone line. “Did you get the guys who took them?”

  “We have three men in custody who are demanding lawyers before they’ll talk to us. We’re hoping to learn more from them today. I promise you we’re doing everything we can to find him.”

  “If we’ve come this far only to lose him now...”

  “We’re not going to lose him,” Sam said with more confidence than she felt. “We’re going to find him, and we’re going to give the Rollings family the reunion they’ve been praying for the last thirty years.”

  “If it’s just the same to you, I’m going to refrain from telling them he’s been found until we know where he is.”

  “I think that’s a wise move.”

  “It kills me to keep this from them.”

  “I understand. We’re working as fast as we can to locate him and to figure out how he ended up in Hamilton’s custody.”

  “Hamilton’s murder has to be related to the kidnapping,” Watson said.

  “We’re operating under that premise. I’m heading to Knoxville later today to speak to a potential witness.”

  “What witness?”

  “I’m not at liberty to disclose that yet.” The last thing she needed was Wat
son beating her to the punch with the administrative assistant in the FBI’s Knoxville office. “I will as soon as I can.”

  “The kidnapping is my case, Lieutenant. If you have information that I should be aware of, it’s professional courtesy to share it.”

  “I’ll share it as soon as I have something. You have my word.”

  “I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with that for now, but I’m not going to sit on this news for more than twenty-four hours. The Rollings family has a right to know their son has been found.”

  “Agreed. I’ll be in touch.” Sam ended the call, her chest tightening with stress. No pressure much. Sam placed a call to Malone.

  “Didn’t I just see you?” he asked.

  “The DNA is a match.”

  “Hot damn.”

  “The detective in Franklin is giving us twenty-four hours to locate Josh before he tells the Rollings family. It’s killing him to sit on it that long.”

  “I understand. We’re doing everything we can to find him.”

  “That’s what I told him.”

  “Let me get back to it. Keep me posted.”

  “You do the same.”

  Sam closed her phone, put it in her pocket and took a series of deep breaths to ground herself in the moment, to remember why she was in her White House office and what needed to be done before she left for Knoxville. She went to the door and opened it. “Ready whenever you are.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  SITTING ALONE IN her office, Sam read the speech her staff had drafted for her, dabbing at her eyes when the emotion behind the beautifully crafted words made her throat tighten. How would she ever say these beautifully crafted words out loud in front of two thousand people in a few short days?

  Good morning, and thank you for inviting me to be your speaker today. I have to say at the outset that the subject matter I’m covering today is very difficult for me to talk about as I’m sure it’s difficult for a lot of you to hear. I know that so many women have traveled a path similar to mine, and I’m here today to shed some light on the need for greater understanding of the challenges many women face in achieving what should be the easiest and most natural thing we’ll ever do. For many of us, myself included, there is nothing easy or natural about having a baby.

  I’ve had a lot of titles in my life—Samantha, Sam, Ms. Holland, Lieutenant Holland, Mrs. Cappuano, Second Lady. But only recently did I have the most important of all titles bestowed upon me—Mom. I am mom to my son, Scotty, the thirteen-year-old Vice President Cappuano and I adopted earlier this year. Scotty had spent the last seven years, since his mother and grandfather died months apart, as a ward of the Commonwealth of Virginia. My husband met Scotty on a campaign stop at the home where he lived, and their bond was instantaneous. It took a while for the three of us to realize we were slowly but surely becoming a family. Last summer, Scotty took a tremendous leap of faith by leaving his longtime home to come live with us. His adoption was finalized in December, and we’re delighted to be his parents. Being Scotty’s mom is the greatest joy of my life.

  My journey to motherhood was long and perilous, filled with more lows than highs. The first time I became pregnant—accidentally—as a college student, I still believed that it was a matter of when not if I’d have a baby. I wasn’t ready to be a mother then and went to a clinic intending to end that pregnancy. I look back at that decision now with the wisdom and hindsight of maturity and wonder how I ever could’ve been so cavalier with something so precious. My husband and I support a woman’s right to choose and the rights of all women to control their bodies and their fertility. I was grateful then and I’m grateful now that there are services in place to help women who aren’t able—for whatever reason—to take on the enormous responsibility of bringing a child into this world.

  I miscarried that baby before I could decide not to have it. That was the first of four miscarriages, one of them ectopic and so severe I nearly bled to death. After my third miscarriage, doctors told me I most likely wouldn’t conceive again. I believed them and resigned myself to the reality that I would be the best aunt ever to my beloved nieces and nephews and that would be more than enough for me.

  Until Nick Cappuano came back into my life six years after I first met him, and resurrected my desire for a family—mostly because he’d never had much in the way of family growing up. My infertility struggles took on new meaning after we were married. I desperately wished the doctors had been wrong, that I might conceive after all.

  Sam wiped away tears that flowed freely down her cheeks as they usually did when she thought or talked about this subject. She was thankful that Lilia and the others had left her alone to read the speech for the first time. Wiping her eyes with a tissue, she forced herself to continue through the most difficult part of her story, the devastating miscarriage she’d suffered last winter in the midst of the Lightfeather investigation.

  Here I thought I couldn’t get pregnant, and I was miscarrying again, before I’d even officially confirmed I was pregnant. That was a tough one. Perhaps the toughest of all. But there was a silver lining, if you can call it that. The doctors had been wrong. I could conceive again—and if I’d done it once, chances were I could do it again. The aftermath of that fourth miscarriage was one of the lowest points in my life. While mourning the loss of a baby I wanted desperately, I faced a tremendously difficult decision—should I try again, one more time, knowing the odds were stacked against me, or should I accept that it just wasn’t in the cards for me to carry a child of my own? I thought about this dilemma constantly. I worried I wouldn’t bounce back from another devastating loss, so I feared taking the risk. Nick and I talked about it, and as always, he said he’d go along with whatever decision I was most comfortable with. He’s been amazingly supportive on this subject from day one. I’ve never felt any pressure from him. Before we adopted Scotty, he said he’d be completely satisfied if our family was only the two of us. Our family feels far more complete with Scotty now part of it, and since he came to live with us, I’ve found myself thinking about my own fertility struggles far less often than I used to.

  I shared my dilemma with my stepmother and sisters, who counseled me to try one more time or spend the rest of my life wondering what might’ve happened. I listened to their advice and decided to let nature take its course. So far we haven’t been successful, but we sure are enjoying all the practice.

  Sam smiled, imagining the frenzy that line would unleash, but appreciating the moment of levity.

  Some of you may wonder why the vice president and I would choose to publicize our fertility struggles this way, and let me say, it certainly doesn’t come naturally to either of us to air out our personal business in public. However, we realize we are in a unique position to bring light to issues that have touched our lives and shaped who we are. In addition to fertility, we care deeply for people, like my father, who live with spinal cord injuries. We are committed to my brothers and sisters in blue who sacrifice so much to keep our communities safe, and to children who struggle with learning disabilities, such as the undiagnosed dyslexia that plagued my childhood.

  Despite the office my husband holds, we are regular people just like the rest of you. We have had our struggles, our share of joy and heartbreak. We both come from humble beginnings, so we relate to the concerns of middle-class families who are trying to make ends meet. We’ve been where you are. We understand and we want to help. I hope we can begin a national dialogue on these and other issues that matter to us and to so many of you too. We hope that by sharing our story, we can bring comfort to others who face similar challenges. And we hope that by bringing attention to these matters, we’ll see an increase in federal funding to effect real and lasting change.

  Thank you for having me today, and thank you for listening to my story.

  Sam blew out a deep breath and wiped her eyes again. Thank
fully, she hadn’t bothered with mascara this morning or it would be all over her face by now. Lilia and the staff had done a brilliant job of capturing the story she had conveyed to them, but it was never easy to relive her devastating losses. She also appreciated that they’d managed to tell the story without mentioning her first husband, as she’d requested.

  When she’d gotten herself together, she went to the door to invite in the staff. They filed in, gathering in the sitting area.

  “Well?” Lilia asked, taking a close look at Sam. “What did you think?”

  “It’s brilliant. Thank you.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful to hear! Most of the credit goes to Andrea,” Lilia said of Sam’s communications director.

  “I’m so glad you’re happy with it,” Andrea said. “We can make any changes you need—”

  “I wouldn’t change a word,” Sam said, dabbing at her eyes again. “My only concern is how I’ll get through it without bawling my head off.”

  “Practice,” Keira said. “You may cry the first few times, but maybe you’ll get it out of your system before Friday.”

  “I’ll try that.”

  “Do you want to practice on the teleprompter?” Andrea asked.

  “There’s going to be a teleprompter?”

  “Unless you’d prefer to memorize it?”

  “Yeah, that’s probably not happening by Friday.”

  “With the teleprompter,” Andrea said, “you can look out at your audience as you speak. It makes the talk more personal and engaging.”

  “I suppose I should practice since I’ve never used one before.”

  Andrea got up from her seat. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll set it up in the briefing room.”

  Sam rubbed a hand over her belly. “This is very big-time.”

  “Well, it is the White House, after all,” Lilia said with a teasing smile.

  Sam laughed. “I keep forgetting that.”

  “For what it’s worth, I think you’re going to be a huge hit, and people will love you for sharing your story—more than they already do.”