“We’re five minutes out.”

  “Please bring her to the main entrance.”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks so much.”

  Jeannie put her coat back on and stepped outside into frigid air to wait. She saw the flashing emergency lights before the car came into view. The officer killed the lights as he turned into the hospital driveway. She opened the back door and offered LaToya a hand getting out of the car.

  The other woman fell into her arms, sobbing. “I just can’t believe you found her. Thank you, Detective. Thank you so much.”

  “I have to warn you,” Jeannie said. “She’s in rough shape.”

  “But she’s alive. That’s all I care about. Take me to my baby.”

  Jeannie led her by the hand to the bank of elevators. As she passed Matt, sitting in the lobby, he gave her a thumbs-up.

  “Be right back,” she said to him.

  “Take your time.”

  In the elevator, she pressed the button for the fourth floor.

  “How bad is it?” LaToya asked.

  “As bad as it gets.”

  LaToya let out a whimper and began to weep again. “Why would she take her and then treat her like that?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  “And there were other children?”

  “Nine others.”

  “My God. Where did they come from?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out.”

  “You saved their lives,” LaToya whispered.

  “I wish it had happened a long time ago.”

  “Let us give thanks that it happened now,” LaToya said. “It wasn’t your fault it didn’t happen sooner. I’ll always be grateful for what you did for me and my family, Detective.”

  Jeannie had never felt hollower or more emotionally drained after successfully solving a case. She led LaToya to Carisma’s room, where a Richmond officer stood watch outside. “This is her mother,” Jeannie told the officer she’d met earlier.

  He opened the door for them.

  Jeannie followed LaToya into the room. Carisma, who’d been bathed and lightly sedated as her many wounds were cleaned, was asleep in the big hospital bed.

  LaToya’s hand covered her mouth as she looked at her daughter for the first time in eleven years. Tears streamed down her face when she approached the bedside.

  Carisma stirred, her eyes opening to blink her mother into focus. “Mama.”

  “It’s me, baby.” LaToya leaned over to kiss her and caress her face. “It’s me.”

  “Missed you,” Carisma whispered.

  “Oh, baby, I missed you so, so much, and I’ve never been happier to see anyone.”

  They hugged each other for the longest time.

  Satisfied to see them reunited, Jeannie tiptoed from the room, wiping away tears as she stepped into the hallway.

  “It’s unbelievable,” the Richmond officer said. “The way she kept those kids.”

  “Horrifying.”

  “I heard you were the one who led the marshals to that house. Great bust, Detective.”

  “Thank you.” Jeannie understood that this was the kind of bust that made cops into celebrities, that launched their careers into all-new stratospheres, but as she collected her partner and headed home to DC, all she felt was heartsick over the whole sorry mess.

  * * *

  While the kids slept in, Sam and Nick watched in horror as the story unfolded live on CNN. They’d woken to a text from Jeannie that said to turn on the TV. In all, ten children ranging from three months of age to Carisma at twenty-four had been found living in utter squalor in the Richmond house. So far, they’d publicly identified only Carisma as one of the victims and noted that Daniella Brown was facing numerous felony charges.

  Jesse Best stepped up to a bank of microphones outside the house where the ongoing operation proceeded behind him. As he briefed the media on the raid that had led to the rescue of the children who’d been held prisoner and detailed the conditions inside the house, Sam’s stomach turned, especially when he noted that the three dogs who were found in the house were obviously well cared for, unlike the children, who’d been starved and viciously abused.

  Sam noted that the usually stoic and unemotional marshal looked exhausted and ravaged by what he’d witnessed in that hell house.

  “I’ll take a few questions,” Best said.

  “What led you to the house?”

  “We were acting on a tip from DC’s Metropolitan Police Department.”

  “Oh shit,” Sam said on a long exhale. “Shit, fuck, damn, hell.”

  Her cell phone rang with a call from Captain Malone.

  “Hey,” Sam said.

  “This is a shit storm of such epic proportions,” he said without preamble, “I can’t begin to articulate them all. I know you’re on vacation, but I need you back here to help manage the fallout.”

  Sam glanced at Nick, who nodded. “I’ll be there later this morning.”

  “Thank you.”

  The call ended with a click that echoed through her brain like a shotgun blast. He and the chief were dealing with yet another potential PR disaster at a time when they could least afford it.

  Her phone rang again, this time with a call from Jeannie. “Hey.”

  “Hey,” Jeannie said, sounding subdued.

  “Are you still at the house?”

  “No, I’m home. I left after Carisma’s mother arrived. I know their reunion is worth the fallout coming our way, but I can’t help but worry.”

  “Malone just called and ordered me back to work immediately.”

  “Oh shit, Sam. Are you coming?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there this morning.”

  “I’d say I’m sorry about all this, but being there when LaToya and Carisma were reunited was one of the best moments of my career, even if I’m sick over the rest of it.”

  “You did good, Jeannie. You saved nine kids and Carisma from a nightmare.”

  “But I caused another one for the department.”

  “We’ll get through it. Try not to worry and instead celebrate the enormous accomplishment. You trusted your gut and followed your heart. Missing kids will be reunited with heartbroken parents. I don’t care what anyone else says, there’s no downside here.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I say so, and I’m the boss. I’ll gladly take any hit that comes our way for this outcome.”

  “Thank you for always having our backs,” Jeannie said, sounding emotional and exhausted.

  “That’s my job. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “See you then.”

  Sam closed the phone.

  “How is she?” Nick asked.

  “Devastated and worried about the fallout.”

  “I have to believe that when the dust settles, the MPD will be seen as heroic for cracking this case.”

  “That may be true, but first they’re going to drag us through the mud asking why it took so fucking long for us to care about a missing Black girl. It’s been a lot lately… I just keep wondering what’s going to send the mayor and the city council over the top, and they start demanding the chief’s resignation.”

  “You need to advocate for him every chance you get. Use your first lady bully pulpit to talk about what a great chief he is and how much he’s done for the department.”

  “I’ll do whatever I can for him, but I’m worried. If this is the straw that breaks the camel’s back, it leads right back to me and Jeannie. This is exactly the kind of thing he was hoping to avoid.”

  “But Jeannie rescued nine little kids and Carisma from hell on earth. I have to believe that’s going to take precedence over the rest.”

  “It won’t, Nick. She’s been missing eleven years, and this is the first time the department made a sincere effort to find her. This is going to blow back on us big-time.”

  The phone rang on the bedside table.

  He let out a deep sigh as he got up to answer it. “Yes?” After a long period of silence, he said, “I’ll be right there.” After he put down the phone, he said, “I have to go over to Laurel for a briefing. North Korea is at it again. They’ve fired yet another missile test.”

  Sam looked up at him, offering a wan smile. “We suck at vacation.”

  “We sure do.”

  “Maybe we can salvage the second half.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  Chapter Eight

  They left Camp David aboard Marine One at eleven. The plan was for the helicopter to land on the South Lawn long enough for Sam to disembark before lifting off again to return Nick to Camp David.

  Earlier, she’d explained to the kids that she had to go into work for a day or two, but would return to pick up the vacation already in progress. With Tracy, Angela and their families due to arrive at the camp that day, the kids were looking forward to some cousin time and had plenty to keep them occupied.

  If Sam was bitter to be missing the time with her family, she kept that to herself. The story of her life going forward would be the push-pull between work—including her “job” as first lady—and the desire to spend more time with her children and family. It was the conundrum of working mothers everywhere, and she was no different. Well, except she was managing the push-pull on a much larger stage than most mothers—and with much more help.

  Nick held her hand during the flight and gave it a squeeze as the White House complex came into view.

  “This is my stop.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Be careful with my wife. She’s my whole world.”

  “Don’t worry. I’m going back to fight a PR battle more than anything.”

  “If there’s a way to injure yourself doing that, you’ll find it.”

  Sam snorted out a laugh. “True, but I’ll do my best to avoid the paper cuts.”

  “Call me later?”

  “You bet.”

  He kissed the back of her hand and then released it as Taco brought Marine One to a soft, easy landing. “Love you.”

  “Love you, too. Try to relax and have some fun with the kids in between North Korean missile launches.”

  “I’ll try. But it won’t be any fun at all until you get back.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The door to the air stairs opened, and Sam leaned in to kiss him before she stood. “Thanks for the lift, Mr. President.”

  “Anything for you, babe. Be safe out there.”

  “Always.” She gave him a jaunty wave and headed down the air stairs as her lead Secret Service agents, Vernon and Jimmy, deplaned from the back.

  As soon as they were clear of the landing area, Marine One lifted off again.

  Sam turned and gave a wave, hoping Nick could see her, before heading inside to grab what she needed for work. Since they hadn’t been expected back, there were no reporters outside screaming questions at her. But there would be at HQ. She nodded to the usher who greeted her at the door. “Morning, Harold.”

  “Morning, ma’am. Welcome back.”

  To her agents, she said, “I’ll be down in two minutes.”

  “We’re ready when you are, ma’am,” Vernon said.

  Sam rushed up the red-carpeted stairs to the residence to retrieve her weapon, cuffs, badge wallet, notebook and keys from the locked drawer in her bedside table and was on her way back down in under a minute. Though she felt terrible about leaving the family vacation, something akin to euphoria came over her when she was heading to do the job she loved so much—even when the shit was hitting the fan.

  She had no idea what to expect when she got to HQ, which was a rare feeling. Usually, she knew exactly who and what she was when it came to the job. She knew who her friends were and kept them close while monitoring her enemies, of which there was one less with Ramsey fired—for now, anyway. If they let him come back to work after he’d ransacked her office and threatened her more than once—with witnesses—she might lose faith in the system designed to weed out those who didn’t belong among their ranks.

  Human nature being what it was, there were going to be bad apples in any organization, but the disappointment when those things happened was profound nonetheless. How could Stahl live with knowing that murders and kidnappings in their city had gone uninvestigated for years? And yes, that was a rhetorical question considering the many other ways Stahl had turned out to be morally deficient. But how could you be paid to do a job and then just not do it? In their line of work, not doing the job allowed kidnappers and murderers to run free to terrorize innocent people.

  As she considered Stahl’s many fuckups, she also had to accept that her dad and others in command had either turned a blind eye or had been unaware of his lack of effort. Or they’d been so overworked during times of tight budgets that they hadn’t noticed. Whatever the reason, the blowback could put a dent in Skip’s legacy, and that possibility made her sick.

  As she approached HQ, she was shocked to see media trucks lining the road a half mile from the building. “Holy shit,” she whispered. This was even bigger than the turnout right after Nick had become president, and they’d come looking for scoops on the first lady police officer.

  If she was looking for proof that this would be a day unlike any other, the media crowd was her first clue. She could only imagine how furious the chief must be. As she always did in times of intense press coverage, she drove around to the morgue entrance in the back, but even that was staked out. “Shit.”

  She was thankful for the presence of Vernon and Jimmy, who would get her inside without being accosted. Vernon signaled for her to wait for them. No problem, she thought. Not that she couldn’t defend herself, but this was a whole other level of intense.

  When the agents were in position outside her car, Sam opened the door to a barrage of questions that were every bit as brutal as she’d expected.

  “What took so long to find Carisma?”

  “Were you called back from vacation at Camp David?”

  “Did your father know that no one bothered to look for Carisma?”

  “What else has the MPD ignored?”

  “Does the MPD have a racism problem?”

  That, right there, was why the chief had ordered them to stop investigating Stahl’s cold cases. Motherfucker.

  “Did the president give you a ride back to DC on his helicopter?”

  Sam ignored the questions and let Vernon and Jimmy move her through the throng into the morgue door, where Lindsey waited to greet her.

  “I knew from the roar coming from outside that it had to be you.”

  “You must’ve gotten up early.”

  “Four a.m.,” Lindsey said with a yawn and sleepy grin. “I heard you were coming in, and I’m very sorry to see you here when you’re supposed to be on vacation.”

  “I’m sorry to be here,” Sam said. “I meant to ask you at the camp why you were coming in on a Sunday?”

  “With Byron away for his brother’s wedding, I needed to be back in town, so I came in to do some paperwork that I can’t ever seem to get ahead of. And P.S. the Brown bust is amazing.”

  “Even if it’s eleven years too late.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s being said online?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “And the word on the street here?”

  “Also not great.”

  “Fucking hell.” Sam used her chin to gesture to the morgue. “You got a minute, Doc?”

  “For you? Always.”

  They went through the sliding glass doors into the antiseptic-smelling morgue, Sam’s least favorite room in the building. “There’s a very good chance I could get fired for this.”

  “No way. For one thing, the chief would never fire you, because he loves you. For another, having the first lady working for us is the best PR we’ll ever get. And third, you guys did the right thing pursuing those leads. No one knew it would blow up into something like this.”

  “The chief was afraid of this very thing.”

  “You know what? Who cares if it’s a media shit storm? Jeannie saved the lives of ten people, nine of them little kids and babies. That’s what matters here. That’s the only thing that matters, and if you say that, over and over, eventually people will hear you.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right. I’m worried about this blowing back on my dad and his legacy.”

  “I know,” Lindsey said with a sigh. “I thought of that, too. Where was the brass when Stahl was ignoring these cases?”

  “There’s no way my dad would’ve stood idly by while he did that, so all I can think is that Stahl talked a big game, filed bogus reports and made them believe he was doing everything he could.”

  “Find those bogus reports. That’ll help to make a case that Stahl’s incompetence was deliberate and strategic.”

  “That’s a good idea. We’ll look into that.”

  “Fight back, Sam. Keep reminding people, including the chief, that you aren’t responsible for the sins of the past, and by trying to make them right, you’re saving lives. She was starving Carisma and the others. They were living in filth the likes of which none of us can begin to imagine. You guys did good, no matter what anyone says.”

  “Jeannie gets all the credit, but I needed this pep talk. Thank you.”

  “It always helps to address an issue with action.”

  “Wait, I think that’s one of my trademarked lines.”

  “No, that one’s all mine.”

  “Thanks, Linds. I owe you one.”

  “You don’t owe me anything. Do what you do. That’s all you need in this or any situation.”

  Sam gave her friend a quick hug. “Thanks again.”

  “Anytime. Go kick some ass and take some names.”

  “On it.”

  Sam left the morgue feeling energized by Lindsey’s support. Her friend was right—they had done good, and screw anyone who said otherwise, even her own bosses. While that thought worked in her own mind, she wasn’t sure how that attitude would be met when she put it into action.

  Her squad was hard at work when she stepped into the pit. “Hey.”

  At the sound of her voice, they all turned to her in surprise.

  “What’re you doing here?” Freddie asked.