“Be gone with you, and don’t let me see you around these parts until Wednesday.”

“Ahhh,” she said with a dramatic sigh, “bubble baths and bonbons for four whole days. Punish me please. Maybe Nick can punch the president and get himself suspended from the White House. I’ll have to ask him if he’s got any scores to settle, because this would be a great time to get it done.”

“You’re taking this surprisingly well, Lieutenant.”

“I almost died in that basement with Stahl. It takes a lot to rattle my cage after that.”

“Possible criminal charges are no laughing matter. You might want to talk to one of the union attorneys while you’re off, just in case.”

“I’ll think about that. Can you imagine the headlines? Vice President’s Wife Charged With Assault. Something tells me the White House communications people have never dealt with that particular headline.”

“Safe to say they’ve never dealt with the likes of you.”

“Aw, Captain, you flatter me. I’d better get out of here before someone hears I’m still here and I get in more trouble. Take care of my people for me.”

“I will.”

Sam pushed through the double doors and into cool, crisp winter air that smelled like snow. She’d had a conversation yesterday with her son, Scotty, about how air can smell like snow. Scotty said it wasn’t possible to smell snow, even after she got him to take a few deep breaths to see what she meant. He remained skeptical, but she had a few more weeks of winter to prove her point.

“Mrs. Cappuano.”

Sam turned toward the man who’d called to her. He was in his late twenties or early thirties, handsome with dark blond hair and brown eyes. The panic she saw in his expression put her immediately on alert. “That’s me, although they don’t call me that around here. And you are?”

“Josh Hamilton.”

Sam shook his outstretched hand. “What can I do for you, Josh?”

“I need your help.”

“Okay.”

“This... It’s going to sound sort of crazy, so bear with me.” He took a deep breath. “Today I was bored at work, so I started surfing the web, you know, just clicking around aimlessly.”

As a technophobe of the highest order, Sam didn’t know because she’d never done that and certainly not at work, where she was usually too busy to pee, let alone surf.

Josh took another deep breath, and Sam’s anxiety ramped up a notch. “I saw this story about a baby who was kidnapped thirty years ago. They had this age-progression photo showing what he’d look like now, and...” He gulped. “It was me.”

“Wait. What?”

With trembling hands, Josh retrieved his cell phone from his pocket and called up a web page, zeroing in on a digitally produced photo that did, in fact, bear a striking resemblance to him.