State of Unrest

Chapter 1

Sam awakened suddenly, unsure of where she was or whether her disturbing thoughts were reality or dreams. She blinked several times, ensuring she was fully awake. Something was wrong, but she couldn’t recall what it was.

Ethan… He was missing.

She needed to find him before it was too late. As she started to get up, Nick’s hand on her arm stopped her.

“What’s wrong, babe?”

“Ethan…”

“Is home safe with Tracy.”

His words brought comfort, but the feeling of impending doom didn’t go away. “Mike.”

“Is with Angela.” Sam’s other sister had invited Mike to stay with her while things were tense between him and Tracy.

“He got arrested.”

“Yes, but he’s home now. Everyone is safe, sweetheart. You can stand down.”

Whenever she was on full alert like this, something was wrong. That was almost always true, and she couldn’t be convinced it wasn’t true now.

“I need to check the kids.”

“Okay…”

Sam never did that in the middle of the night, as they were great sleepers and rarely woke before morning. After grabbing the robe she’d left across the end of the bed, she put it on and went to look in on them.

Scotty, who was fourteen and turning into a young man before their very eyes, had kicked off his covers, so she tucked him back in, kissed his forehead and then went to see the twins. Their six-year-old “Littles,” Aubrey and Alden, were sleeping wrapped up in each other as usual, two angels sent straight from heaven to make their lives complete.

She kissed them both and stroked their soft blond hair, delighted that their adoption was now official. What a relief that was after their maternal grandparents had made numerous plays for the money their wealthy parents had left them, without once asking after the children’s welfare or trying to see them. That ordeal was in the past now, and she, Nick and Scotty could enjoy their family without the threat of the twins being ripped away from them.

Thank God for that, because none of them would’ve survived losing those sweet babies after having spent months loving and caring for them. She returned to the suite she shared with Nick in the White House residence and sat on the sofa, still unsettled.

Nick joined her, wearing only flannel pajama pants and looking sexier than any man or president had a right to look with his hair mussed and whiskers on his jaw. After tossing a blanket over them, he drew her into his embrace.

She rested her head on her favorite chest in the world. “You should go back to bed and get some sleep while you can.” His insomnia was horrible at the best of times, and the last few months had been a long way from that.

“Not while my love is upset about something.”

“Did you check in? Is anything going on?”

“I checked both our phones, and all is quiet for once.”

Hearing that, she relaxed ever so slightly, but the anxious feeling remained. “I’m not sure what has me so wound up.”

“I have a theory.”

“Are you planning to share it with me?”

“You might not like it.”

“Try me anyway.”

“If you ask me, your entire nervous system is in hyperdrive because of Ethan’s kidnapping, Mike’s arrest and the uproar between him and Tracy.” Her beloved sister and brother-in-law had fallen out over Mike allowing Ethan the freedom that had led to his abduction. Tracy had objected to their eleven-year-old being allowed to move freely about the capital city and blamed Mike for what’d happened to their son.

“I can’t believe Mike got into a bar fight,” Sam said.

“Someone accused his son of killing another child. I would’ve punched the guy, too.”

The men who’d kidnapped Ethan and his friend Tomas had sexually assaulted and murdered a thirteen-year-old girl named Luna, who’d been friends with the boys. Ethan and Tomas hadn’t seen Luna during their captivity and were devastated by her death. The innuendo floating around online that the boys had been involved in her murder had made a bad situation a thousand times worse.

“I suppose I would’ve punched him, too,” Sam said.

“You were so upset about it that I didn’t want to ask how much trouble Mike might be in.”

“He’ll be charged with misdemeanor assault at his court appearance on Monday, but it may be tossed when the judge hears the circumstances.”

“Let’s hope so. What did Tracy say about it?”

“She felt terrible that someone said that to him. She was going to text him to check in.”

“It’s good news that they’re talking.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Real trouble between Tracy and Mike, who’d been in Sam’s life since she was in high school, was unfathomable.

He covered her cold hand with his much warmer one. “Maybe your anxiety is due to the rift between them. He’s been a very big part of your life for all the most important years. Of course trouble between them would rock you.”

“They’re my gold standard, you know?”

“I get that. One thing I’m sure of is that they love each other very much, and while this is a difficult, upsetting situation, I have to believe they’ll find their way back to each other.”

“What if they don’t?”

“Let’s cross that bridge if or when we come to it. There’s no sense making yourself sick over something you have no control over.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Your family has been through hell in the last six months. No one would blame you for being traumatized by it all.”

“Sometimes I think it’s all my fault.”

“What? How in the world did you come to that conclusion?”

“My high-profile life has put the people I love in danger.”

“You had nothing to do with Brooke being attacked at a party or your dad’s shooting and subsequent death or Spencer overdosing on bad pills or Ethan being kidnapped by people who had no idea who he was to you.”

“When you put it like that…”

“While these things are deeply personal to you, none of them was caused by you or our high profile.”

Sam wallowed in his familiar scent and the sound of his voice, which was incredibly comforting. “Dr. Trulo says that blaming myself for things outside of my control is a response to trauma.”

“Which makes a lot of sense. Christina said something to me the other day that really resonated.” His press secretary was married to Sam’s sergeant, Tommy Gonzales. “She was talking about when Tommy found out he had a son and how deeply that affected their early relationship. She said after going through that experience, she has no idea how you and I stay sane with everything that happens in our lives on a weekly basis.”

“It’s been a lot.”

“You need a break. A real break, not just a day or two to regroup, but a few weeks or a month or whatever it takes to heal from the trauma.”

“I wish I had the luxury of taking that kind of time, but there’s always another case coming at me, people who need me, a team to lead.”

“We need you. Your family needs you. If you’re burnt out or suffering from PTSD or not taking care of yourself, you can’t take care of anyone else.”

“I hear you, and I don’t disagree.” Taking weeks or a month away from work seemed impossibly daunting to her, even if she had the time on the books. Part of her feared if she stepped away, even for a short time, she might never return to the job that had defined her adult life. She couldn’t express that fear out loud, even to him, because that would make it real.

“Do you think you could get some sleep now?” he asked.

“I suppose I can try.”

“We’ll talk more about this in the morning.”

“If we must.”

“We must, Samantha. We absolutely must.”

She took the hand he offered and let him help her up. “Yes, dear.”

He put his arm around her and guided her to the bedroom, helped her out of the robe and tucked her in.

“The only way I’ll sleep is if you snuggle me.”

“I’m coming.”

He got into bed and curled up to her back, infusing her with his warmth and his love as he wrapped an arm around her. “Let it all go for now, love. Get some rest.”

“Will you be able to sleep?”

“I’ll try.”

“I’m sorry I bothered you.”

“Oh, babe, don’t ever be sorry about that. Being bothered by you is my favorite thing. You know that.”

“You need your rest.”

“I need my love even more.” He kissed the back of her neck and made her shiver. “I have a few days of travel coming up this week. I want you to think about coming with me. Use it as a break from everything here. You can chill while I work, and then we’ll have time together at night.”

“As lovely as that sounds, I can’t leave right now. Not with Tracy and Mike in an uproar and everything with Ethan and—”

“Samantha, honey… I know how much you love them, but they have to work out their issues as a family. You’ve already done everything you could. The next steps are up to them.”

“She needs me.”

“You’d be a phone call away. Take some time for yourself, Sam. You never do that. You’re so busy taking care of everyone else that you never take care of yourself. Come with me. Let me take care of you for a few days. You can nap and read and watch movies and eat room service with nothing to do but whatever you want. Doesn’t that sound good?”

“It sounds heavenly.”

“Not to mention it’d be some much-needed alone time for us, as away from it all as we ever get these days.”

“Where are you going?”

“Leaving late afternoon on Tuesday for a NATO summit in Greenland on Wednesday, Thursday and part of Friday, followed by events in Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin on Saturday and Saturday night. I’ll get back early Sunday morning for Maisie’s baptism.” Their friends Avery and Shelby Faircloth Hill had asked Sam and Nick to be their baby daughter’s godparents.

“So three days and four nights?”

“Yes.”

“Am I twitching? I feel like I might be twitching. I’m not sure if it’s from the thought of being away from here or you leaving without me.”

Nick’s low rumble of laughter made her smile. “You can do four days away, babe. I have faith in you.”

She yawned. “I’ll see what I can do.”

“Keep me posted on whether you can come, so I can look forward to the trip rather than having to dread being away from you for four whole days.”

“That is a good incentive to make this happen. I hate when you’re away.”

“Not as much as I hate being away from you.”

“I bet that’s not true.”

“I’ll fight you for it.”

That was the last thing she heard before she fell asleep, waking only when she felt Nick moving away from her. She reached for him. “No.”

“I’ve got my briefing in thirty minutes. Go back to sleep for a while.” He kissed her cheek and got out of bed to shower.

Sam closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep, but her mind was fully awake and once again spinning through the events of the last few days, from the terror of hearing Ethan was missing to the desperate search for him and his friends to the disturbing things they’d learned about online misogynistic culture during the investigation. The horror ran on a constant reel as she revisited every detail and move they’d made to solve the case before it was too late.

Ethan and Tomas had managed to free themselves, but Luna had been assaulted and killed by the monsters who’d taken all three kids.

She felt sick any time she imagined what Luna had gone through in the final hours of her life, or when she recalled the heartbreak of Luna’s parents. Every murder case was brutal, but those involving kids were the absolute worst.

As they had many times in recent days, tears rolled down her cheeks whenever she thought of Luna and her family. The tragedy of her death would haunt everyone who’d worked on the case, but Sam felt personally responsible for not finding her in time to save her. And yes, she knew it wasn’t her fault and there was nothing more she could’ve done, but that didn’t change how she felt.

If her bosses knew she was having these thoughts, they would sideline her and order intensive therapy, so she’d kept it to herself. She should probably get with Dr. Anthony Trulo, the department psychiatrist, who’d patched her back together after previous traumatic incidents, but the thought of picking through the rubble of this latest nightmare made her queasy.

Not to mention, she was probably facing disciplinary action for her involvement in Ethan’s case after she’d been ordered to stay out of it. As if she ever could’ve sat idly by without using her considerable skills and experience to help save one of the most precious people in her life.

The incident had also brought home how little time she’d spent with her nieces and nephews since her life—and Nick’s—had spun out of control last Thanksgiving when President David Nelson died suddenly and Nick became president. She’d barely had time to breathe between juggling three young kids, her work, first lady duties and marriage.

It pained her to think about what she’d missed with the kids who’d saved her sanity during the years when she’d thought she’d never have children of her own. Her nieces and nephews had been her kids, and she needed to spend more time with them before they took off to live their own lives.

Brooke was already grown and flown, finishing her sophomore year of college at the University of Virginia and preparing to transfer to Princeton for her final two years so she could live with her boyfriend, Nate, lead agent on their bonus son Elijah’s Secret Service detail. Elijah would be a senior at Princeton this coming fall and was planning to stay for graduate school since his younger twin siblings were thriving with Sam, Nick and Scotty.

Their lives were complicated, busy and often extremely stressful. Sam hated to admit that Nick might be right about her stepping off the merry-go-round for a minute—or two—to regroup and recover from an intensive period of nonstop trauma.

She and Nick had plans to spend this rare Sunday with no official commitments with the kids, her sisters, nieces and nephews for swimming, bowling and pizza at the White House. The kids loved being together, and Sam would get to spend the afternoon with her sisters, which was a win-win. Tomorrow, she’d see what she could do for Mike. Depending on the vibe, she’d consider asking her boss, Captain Jake Malone, for permission to take some time off to accompany Nick on his trip.

Having a plan helped to ease her anxiety ever so slightly, as did the thought of spending the day with her favorite people for some much-needed fun. Tomorrow would be soon enough to figure out her next move.