Page 89 of State of the Union (First Family 3)

“I’ve been resting half the day—you just said so. Now give me my phone.”

“Is this what the next month is going to be like with you?” he asked as he fished her phone out of his pants pocket.

“I suspect it’ll get much worse than this before it’s over.”

“Oh joy. I can’t wait.”

“And just think, you’re working at home, so you can tend to me between meetings.”

As he handed her the phone, he leaned over the bed to kiss her. “I love nothing more than tending to my gorgeous wife regardless of her foul moods.”

Only he could make her giggle after having fucking surgery on her fucking broken hip. “Can you raise the bed?”

“They told me not to touch it yet.”

“I hate this place and everyone in it.”

“Even me?”

“Not yet, but I’m sure I’ll hate you, too, before long.”

“Good to know,” he said with a chuckle.

Flat on her back in a hospital bed, Sam put through a call to Gonzo.

“Hey,” he said. “How’d it go?”

“Fine. Where are we with Olsen?”

“Honestly, Sam. Take a day off.”

“Answer the question, Sergeant!”

“Lindsey has tied the DNA collected from Olsen to the case Lucas brought us and one other, and we’re checking it against several other unsolved sexual assaults in the region. Olsen’s mother is hoping to get here tomorrow and wants to see her daughter.”

“Ugh,” Sam said.

“I’ll take care of her. Don’t worry. We also had a visit from Jesse Best, who heard us talking about DNA for a suspect who’s not in the system and suggested we look into FDS.”

“They outlawed that in the District and Maryland.”

“Right, but as Jesse said, if we find a related case in Virginia, it’s legal there.”

“Ah, good thinking. We’d have to exhaust all other options before we could even consider making a case for FDS with the mayor.”

“Right, and the downside is FDS can take months.”

“Did we get anywhere with the cameras in the park?”

“They were covered with snow at the time of Olsen’s murder, so we got dick there. We’re going back tomorrow around the same time as the murder to canvass, hoping someone saw something. No one was out today because of the snow.”

“Today has totally sucked donkey balls in every possible way.”

“Yep. Finally, and I’ve buried the headline here, but Best told us that Jeannie’s bust has led to a child trafficking ring that’s possibly involved hundreds of kids over the years.”

“Oh God.”

“Jeannie is upset about it, that people ignored Carisma for so long and what we could’ve stopped if only Stahl had given a fuck about her.”

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