Page 99 of State of Affairs (First Family 1)

Terry smiled. “Yes, sir.”

“I asked Derek to join us for this. He’s got the inside scoop on everyone who’s anyone.”

“Good call.”

“He’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, what’s the latest on Ruskin? There was no mention of him in this morning’s intelligence briefing.”

“We’re still working on putting together what actually took place,” Terry said. “We have a team meeting the plane at Andrews. They’ll be taken to a secure location for the night and brought to the White House to be debriefed in the morning. We’ll get Ruskin in to see you as soon as we have all the info you need.”

“Thank you for handling that, Terry.”

“That’s my job, sir. Next up is vice presidential vetting.” Terry put five eight-by-ten photos on the table in front of Nick, all women he recognized. The first was Evelyn Hodges, the Transportation secretary, followed by Michaela Johnson, a congresswoman from Maryland; Inez Cortez, the governor of New Mexico; Jessica Sanford, the senior senator from Illinois; and Gretchen Henderson, a well-respected political operative who’d done an outstanding job of turning out the young adult vote in the last presidential election.

“The Nelson team thoroughly vetted Johnson, Hodges and Cortez when he was considering them before his first election. He ended up going with the safe choice in Gooding and then with you because he wanted your approval ratings to transfer over to him. We all know how that worked out.” Nick had only become more popular as vice president, which had annoyed Nelson—and his murdering son, Christopher.

“So we’d only need to vet Sanford and Henderson, then?”

“Right. I’ve got people working on both right now, with orders to keep it low-key. We don’t want to tip our hand in any direction until we have a front-runner.”

“Johnson would be my first choice. I’d love to have the first woman and first Black vice president.”

“And she’d be an excellent choice, but I’m actually more interested in Henderson myself.”

“How come?”

“Roll with me here. Your youthfulness is going to be a big part of what your administration is remembered for, and the way I see it, we have an enormous opportunity to engage young people in government service, voting, activism, etc. That plays nicely with the work you’ve already been doing in engaging kids and young people in government. That’s why I think Henderson is the ideal choice.”

Nick picked up the photo of the dark-haired, dark-eyed beauty who was a Rhodes scholar, a fellow Harvard graduate and a former Miss New Jersey. “I don’t know much about her beyond her successful get-out-the-vote work in the last two presidential elections.”

“She’s a go-getter,” Terry said. “Her story isn’t all that different from yours. She was raised in public housing in Newark, won an academic scholarship to Harvard. She’s worked for a number of New Jersey governors and members of Congress and is very well regarded by everyone who knows her.”

Nick was aware that whoever he chose to be his vice president would also be the party’s heir apparent, like he’d been as vice president. He was also painfully aware that this first major decision as president would be thoroughly dissected, which further amplified the need to get it right.

Derek joined them a few minutes later. “Sorry I’m late. My parents came to stay with Maeve for a few hours, and they got caught in football traffic.”

Washington’s football team had a home game that afternoon.

“No worries,” Nick said. “We were just talking about Gretchen Henderson. Any thoughts?”

“I like her, but her personal life has been messy.”

“How so?” Nick asked. “We don’t have any formal vetting on her yet.”

“She’s been divorced twice. The second divorce was ugly, from what I heard, with restraining orders filed on both sides.”

Nick winced. “Both sides, huh?”

“I don’t know all the details,” Derek said, “but we’ll need to take a deeper dive before we seriously consider her. Or, I should say, before you seriously consider her.”

Nick glanced at Terry, who smiled and nodded, agreeing with him that this was the perfect time to tell Derek they hoped to retain him in their administration. “I was hoping you’d consider sticking around.”

“Oh,” Derek said. “Really?”

“Of course,” Nick said, laughing. “You can’t be all that surprised that I want you on my team.”

“I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“I’d love for you to stay as deputy chief of staff, continuing your role as our liaison to Congress,” Nick said. “If you’re willing, that is.”