href="#ub7d7df48-6984-5949-9a03-c4d69a948875">Dedication
“‘WHAT DID THE president know and when did he know it? That will be the question Congress faces as members return to Washington from the summer recess. Hearings begin next week, investigating President David Nelson’s potential involvement in his son’s sinister scheme against Vice President Nick Cappuano and his family.’”
Listening to her brother-in-law Spencer read from the morning edition of the Washington Star, Sam looked across the breakfast table at her husband, Nick, and saw a flash of dismay cross his handsome face. He dreaded the hearings, the attention, the renewed interest in the scandal that had rocked the nation’s capital earlier in the summer. Sam and her Homicide squad had uncovered the nefarious plot hatched by Nelson’s son Christopher in a failed effort to discredit Nick, all because Christopher had presidential aspirations of his own.
The sitting president claimed to have no knowledge of what his son had been up to and continued to proclaim his innocence throughout the dog days of summer. In the meantime, Nick was left hanging, waiting to hear if Nelson would be impeached or forced to resign.
Sam knew exactly what Nick was thinking. As much as they wanted Christopher Nelson to fry for what he’d put them through, the last thing Nick wanted—the last thing they wanted—was to see the president forced from office. Because that would mean... No. It was too much to even think about, and Sam refused to allow that stress to creep into her relaxing vacation. Standing, she said, “I’m going to take a walk.”
Nick jumped up. “I’ll go with you.”
“Was it something I said?” Spencer asked.
“Duh,” his wife, Sam’s sister Angela, said as she fed their daughter, Ella, who was seated in a high chair at the end of the long picnic-style table. “You think they want to talk about that BS?”
“Sorry, guys,” Spencer said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“No worries,” Nick said. “It’s not going away, as much as we wish it would.”
“But
