Page 124 of State of Grace (First Family 2)

“I’ll do it on my own time. Carisma’s family has waited eleven years for answers. They think it’s possible that Daniella has held her hostage all this time, that Carisma would escape from her if she could. How do I go on with my life knowing she might be out there somewhere waiting for someone to care enough to bother to rescue her?”

Sam’s head felt like it might explode at any second. “Go ahead with it, but report only to me. Don’t tell anyone else what you’re doing, but take Matt with you when you meet with the boyfriend. Tell him it’s about the Tappen case.” She was going straight to hell for defying a direct order from the chief and for encouraging Jeannie to lie to her partner. “We’re out on a huge limb here. We can’t let this blow up into a BFD that makes the department look like shit—again.”

“I understand. I’ll do everything I can to keep that from happening.”

“Since both our jobs may depend on it, see that you do.”

“We have a problem,” Christina said when she entered the Oval Office with Trevor Donnelly.

Terry was in the process of briefing Nick about the latest in the situation in the Gulf of Suez, which had deescalated in recent hours. That was a huge relief. Nick had been sick over the thought of sending in troops, especially right before Christmas. Terry stopped speaking in midsentence to turn to face his press secretary and communications director. “What’s the problem?”

“You and the first lady are suing a man named Bryson Thorn?”

“We were until he was murdered overnight,” Nick said.

“His distraught wife is on TV spouting off about how the president and first lady sued her husband, and then he ended up dead the next day.” Christina held up her phone. “Sam called both of us to try to warn us this was possible.”

Nick picked up the BlackBerry on his desk and put through a call to Sam.

She answered on the third ring. “Sorry, I couldn’t get this stupid thing out of my pocket. Did you get my message about Tiffany Thorn?”

“Nope, but I just heard from Christina that she’s on TV and making not-so-subtle accusations against us.”

“The wife is about to get her ass arrested for arranging her husband’s death,” Sam said. “She’s probably trying to sow some reasonable doubt before the evidence points right back to her.”

“Why do you think she killed him?”

“We think it was because he ruined her chances of being invited to the White House for the twins’ birthday next year.”

“Are you serious?”

“Afraid so.”

“Wow.”

“People are so fucked up.”

“We already knew that,” Nick said.

“Yes, we did, but this is further proof. How’s your day going?”

“So far so good. Things seem to be calming down in the Gulf of Suez, which is the big news. We’ve got a big meeting on cybersecurity at noon. And then a bunch of tech CEOs are coming in to talk about forming a public-private partnership to deal with the issue of hacking and ransomware attacks.”

“It’s very sexy when you use words like public-private and ransomware.”

His lovely wife never failed to amuse him. “I’ll have to remember that later.”

“You do that. Have a good meeting.”

“Thank you. Can you be here for the Henderson announcement? It’s at six thirty, so maybe aim for six?”

After another long pause, she said, “I’ll be there.”

“Take care of my gorgeous wife out there. She’s the sun and the stars and the moon and my whole world.”

“Swoon.”

“You’re set to go with me on Friday, right?”