Page 14 of State of Retribution

When they arrived at HQ, Vernon held the back door for her and then followed her inside through the morgue entrance.

“I stop to say hi to Lindsey every morning.Do you have to come in with me?”

“I’ll wait out here.”

Sam walked through the automatic glass doors to the morgue, where Chief Medical Examiner Dr.Lindsey McNamara held court.“Morning.”

“Hey, how’s it going?”

“Just dandy.As a result of yesterday’s madness, I got me a shadow inside the building as well as outside.”

“Oh joy.I’m sure they’re being extra vigilant.”

“Yep.Still no clue on who sent the drones.”

“Jeez.That’s crazy.And scary.”Lindsey shivered.“To think of all those people I love being exposed to such a thing.”

Lindsey was due to marry Nick’s chief of staff, Terry O’Connor, in July.

“Thank God the Secret Service moved quickly to protect everyone.From what I heard, they had the whole event secured in a matter of minutes, which couldn’t have been easy with a crowd of that size.”

“I’m sure they have extra people and intense training for events like that.”

“Definitely.We’re thankful that everything worked the way it was supposed to.How was your Easter?”

“It was nice.We saw my sisters and nieces in the morning and then went out to the farm and had dinner with Terry’s family.Lovely day.How was yours at Camp David?”

“Relaxing and fun.The kids enjoyed the egg hunt the staff did for them.”

“Was it hard to be there?”

Her sister Angela’s husband had died of a fentanyl overdose during a visit to Camp David in early February.“At first.I avoided the cabin where Spencer died.”

“Understandably.”

“Nick likes being at Camp David so much that I’m trying to rally for his sake, but there’ll always be a bit of a dark cloud over that place now.”

“Of course there will.It’s still so hard to believe it happened in the first place.”

“For us, too.I mean, we had no idea he was reliant on pain meds or that he’d even been injured.It was such a shock.”Sam and the rest of their family had been stunned to learn that Spencer had become addicted to pain medication following a back injury.After his doctors had cut him off from the meds, he’d resorted to buying pills on the street and had gotten some laced with the deadly substance.Sam and her team had hunted down the source of the pills that’d also killed numerous other people.The perpetrators were now awaiting trial.

“How’re Angela and her kids doing?”

“They’re getting by.I don’t know how she’s going to do it with a new baby on top of everything.”A GoFundMe that Freddie had started for Angela, which Nick had shared to his vast social media audience, had given Angela a way to support her children for the time being.

“You’ll all rally around her and get her through it.”

“I suppose so.Well, I’d better get back to work after my four-day weekend that I enjoyed far too much.”

“No such thing.”

“Heard we caught a new case.”

“Yes, killed by a single blow to the back of the head.I’ll have more info for you guys shortly.”

“Thank you, and welcome back to me, where my prize is a body in the morgue waiting for me.”

Lindsey laughed.“We don’t want you to get lazy.”

---