LITMIR.BIZ

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wouldn’t have thought she could laugh right then, but Angela proved her wrong. Then she was crying again, her head propped on Nick’s hand. Her cell phone rang, and Angela took it from her to answer it. Sam heard her sister talking, but couldn’t bother to care who she was talking to.

      “Hey, Sam, Freddie really needs to talk to you. I told him where we are and what’s going on. He said it’s urgent.”

      Sam took a deep breath, wiped away her tears and stood to take the phone from her sister. “Hey, what’s up?”

      “Angela told me about Nick. I hope he’s okay.”

      “He will be. What’s going on?”

      “Director Hamilton is calling Josh every fifteen minutes like clockwork.”

      “Since when?”

      “Early this morning. Josh says he’s called him more today than in the last five years combined.”

      “Shit, he’s probably tracking the phone by now so he knows where Josh is.” Sam’s brain was so muddled with worries about Nick that it was hard to think about anything else. “Get him out of there right away. Move to another hotel outside the city and have him power down the phone. Tell him to let work know he’s got an emergency to contend with and won’t be in this week. Don’t let him make any contact with the outside world until we say otherwise.”

      “What do I do with him when I have to go to work?”

      “Leave him locked in the room and tell him he has to stay off the radar until we know what’s going on. The fact that his father is looking for him has me thinking he knows about the photo. If they had anything to do with taking him, that photo will send them into a panic. If they panic, they may do something stupid that might involve him getting killed. You see where I’m going with this?”

      “Yeah, I do, and I don’t like it, Sam. This has the potential to blow up like a nuclear bomb in our faces, and frankly, after recent events, neither of us can afford that.”

      He was right. She knew he was right, but what was she supposed to do? As if she’d conjured him, she heard her father’s voice in her head. Go to Farnsworth. Go directly to Farnsworth.

      Sam blew out a deep breath. “Listen, if you don’t want to be involved, I understand. Let me know where you stash him, and I’ll take it from there.”

      “I didn’t say I don’t want to be involved. I merely mentioned the potential for nuclear-level fallout.”

      “I’ll take it to Farnsworth and turn it over to the department.”

      “Um, before you do that, you should know that Josh told me last night that if anyone but you—and me by extension of you—is involved, he’s going to disappear. He seems really agitated since his father started calling. So you might want to hold off on involving the department.”

      “Rock, meet hard place.” Sam glanced at Nick, who was still sleeping. She rarely found herself at a loss for what to do in any given situation, but this was a tough one. She was torn between what she should do to look out for herself—and now her partner too—and what was best for Josh. “What do we do?”

      “My better judgment is saying go to Farnsworth, but if Josh bolts, this could get really complicated, especially when it comes out that we had him in custody.”

      “Shit, fuck, damn, hell.”

      “What you said.”

      Sam was well aware that Freddie would take his lead from her, even if it meant venturing into murky gray area. “Get him settled somewhere else and then punch out of this situation. I’ll take it from here.” As she said the words, she didn’t have a plan beyond getting through the next hour with Nick. She’d figure something out for Josh. She always did.

      “I don’t want to punch out. I’m in it for better or worse at this point. I’ll do some digging and see if I can get anything useful from him.”

      “I can’t protect you if this goes nuclear.”

      “I don’t expect you to.”

      “If you’re going to dig, dig carefully.”

      “Don’t worry. I will. I’ll let you know if I get anything, and I’ll shoot you a text about where Josh is. Keep me posted about how Nick is doing?”

      “Yeah, I will, and thanks.”

      “No problem.”

      Though he said it was no problem, this situation could turn into a huge problem for both of them unless they managed it carefully. But what was she supposed to do at this juncture? Go to her brass with the possibility that FBI Director Hamilton’s son could or could not be a child kidnapped from a family in Tennessee thirty years ago? She was already on thin ice with the department. If she opened that can of worms only to find out it wasn’t true, what then? And if Josh found out she’d taken his claims to the department, he’d bolt.

      “What the hell is going on?” Angela asked when Sam had stashed the phone in her back pocket.

      “A really weird new case.”

      “I thought you were suspended.”

      “Heard about that, huh?”

      “Everyone knows. It was in the paper this morning.”

      “Ugh, goddamned Darren.”

      “It wasn’t just him. It was all over the place—in the papers, on TV, talk radio.”

      “Great.” Her phone rang and she removed it from her pocket to check the caller ID. Her White House chief of staff, Lilia Van Nostrand’s name showed on the screen. Since Nick was still asleep, Sam took the call. “Hi, Lilia.”

      “I just heard about the vice president. Is he all right? Are you?”

      “He’s been felled by a nasty bout of the flu. I’m told he’s going to be fine. My nerves are shot, but otherwise, I’m okay.”

      “Oh, thank goodness! I couldn’t believe what they were saying on the news about him being transported by ambulance to GW.”

      “Jeez, nothing gets by the Washington press corps, huh?”

      “No, and that’s the other reason for my call.”

      “I heard my name is above the fold today.”

      “It is, and I’m wondering how you wish to handle it.”

      “Why do I have to handle it?”

      “We’re getting slammed with requests for statements, as is the vice president’s office.”

      “I spoke to Terry a few minutes ago, and he didn’t mention it.”

      “Probably because he’s concerned for the vice president’s health at the moment, as am I. We wouldn’t want you to think our priorities lie anywhere other than with both of you.”

      “I understand, and I appreciate the fact that you’re being slammed. You could say that the second lady has no comment on the suspension, which is an internal MPD matter.”

      “How about the fact that U.S. Attorney Forrester is considering assault charges?”

      “You can get a statement from him about that. If or when it happens, I’ll have no choice but to deal with it. Until that time, it’s speculation, and I don’t comment on speculation.”

      “Can we say that in the statement?”

      “Sure, knock yourselves out.”

      “I’ll have Andrea put something together for you,” Lilia said of Sam’s communications director. “We’ll run it by you before we release it.”

      “No need. I trust you guys to handle it.”

      “We’ll

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