Page 72 of State of the Union (First Family 3)

“Morning,” Dani said. “I was just about to call to see if you’re going to make it in today.”

As a rule, cops didn’t get snow days. “I was planning to, but I fell on the ice yesterday and can’t seem to sit or stand, so my husband is making me get it checked.”

“Oh damn. That sucks.”

“Yes, it does. Where are we with Olsen?”

“Lindsey ran the DNA, and it matched the case Lucas brought us yesterday, but of course, the owner of the DNA isn’t in the system.”

“Because we never get that lucky.”

“Right? However, we have his DNA from another case that dates back almost two months. It’s like Lucas’s case, where the woman fought back hard and managed to get away, but not before he raped her.”

“So, we have a serial rapist on our hands who’s just escalated to murder.” Sam wanted to talk to his previous victims to get as much information as she could, which was what she’d be doing today if not for these goddamned injuries.

“With no way to know if that’s his first murder.”

“Right. Where was the older case from two months ago?”

“Dupont Circle.”

“Which is not far from the park. Talk to Malone about putting out a warning.”

“Will do. We also went through everything on Audrey’s phone, and nothing stood out except an exchange on Slack with a coworker who disagreed with her approach to a parent and told her so in no uncertain terms.”

“What’s Slack?”

“An internal messaging app that companies use for their employees to communicate.”

“Ah, okay. Was the coworker male or female?”

“Male.”

“I want to talk to him.”

“I figured you would, so I tracked down his info. The school is closed because of the holiday break. He’s probably home today.”

“How much snow did we get?”

“Fourteen inches.”

“Seriously? Everything must be closed.”

“It is, and the mayor is asking nonessential personnel to stay off the roads.”

Nick came back into the room. “All set. The Secret Service will take us to GW.”

“Hang on, Dani.” To Nick, she said, “You have your security briefing.”

“I put it off until eleven.”

“You don’t have to come.”

“Yes, I do, or you’ll have Vernon take you to HQ rather than GW.”

She scowled at him and then heard Carlucci cracking up. “You’d better not be laughing at what he said.”

“I heard nothing.”

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