“So lucky. Our four kids and a bonus daughter.”
“Mmm, hard to believe sometimes.”
“Nice to hear about Candace finding her groove in Princeton.”
His comment was met with silence from his love, who had fallen asleep. Nick smiled as he nuzzled her hair, hoping she’d immediately go back to her regular shampoo. Funny the things that became necessary in a long relationship, he thought as he yawned.
What a fucking day…
He needed a new VP.
Just what he felt like dealing with.
Had Gretchen been sleeping with Ivanov? How had he been able to regularly visit the vice president’s official residence without setting off alarm bells in the intelligence community or among her staff members? Who dropped the ball? Who else would he have to fire and replace? What had Ivanov been trying to achieve by cozying up to the vice president? Why in the world hadn’t Gretchen told him that she’d spent time with Ivanov?
What was he missing about all this, and what would it mean for his administration as the full story came to light?
For a long time after Sam fell asleep in his arms, Nick stared up at the ceiling, thinking this situation through from every angle, picking over the details, the conversations, the chain of events. No matter how hard he tried to put the pieces together, he couldn’t get any of it to make sense.
He worried things would get much worse before they got better.
That fear kept him awake the rest of the night.
* * *
The morning headlines were brutal.
Henderson Fired
Cappuano’s New VP Is Out
Don’t Let the Door Hit You
Breakdown at 1600
White House Short on Details About VP Departure
Why Was Henderson Fired?
Cappuano Statement Leaves More Questions Than Answers on VP
On social media, pundits were demanding the details behind Henderson’s ouster, and speculation was all over the place, feeding a narrative that something smelled bad at the White House.
Nick didn’t disagree with that conclusion. If he’d been on the outside looking in, he would’ve thought the same thing.
People were also talking about who might take her place and how fast that would happen.
Conservative speculation was especially harsh. “Our unelected president has fumbled the most important decision he’s made yet by choosing a person who’d replace him in a worst-case scenario only to fire her months later. How can we trust him to make other decisions on our behalf if he can’t even pick a vice president without it blowing up in his face?”
He deserved all the criticism coming his way. Gretchen had done him, and the entire country, dirty, and he was determined to find out why, even if he didn’t like the answer.
At five thirty, he headed for the shower to get ready for what promised to be another brutal day. He’d forgotten to ask Sam if she’d requested the time off to go on the Greenland trip with him. He couldn’t wait to get to the NATO meeting to answer questions about the situation with his VP and to face off with world leaders who’d want answers.
He was startled out of his thoughts when Sam stepped into the shower behind him and wrapped her arms around him. “Where’d you come from?”
“I was looking for you. Did you sleep at all?”
“Not really.”
