“I worry so much about something happening to you on the job,” Tracy said tearfully.

Sam turned to her. “You do? Really?”

“So much.”

“Since when?”

“Always, but even more so since that creep Stahl tried to kill you—twice.”

“All this time, almost sixteen years, you’ve been worried sick about me?”

“Not every minute of every day, but a lot of the time. Yes.”

“I don’t want that for you. I’m fine. I’m going to be fine.”

“Arnold thought he’d be fine. Dad and Steven Coyne did, too. The crap with Stahl freaked me out, and then the thing with Ramsey’s son, which makes Ramsey even more dangerous than he was before. It’s a lot on top of my brother-in-law being the president and people hating him just because of the job he has.”

Sam was shocked to hear how anxious Tracy was. “Has it gotten worse since Dad died and Nick became president?”

Tracy shrugged. “I guess. Maybe a little.”

“Would you consider asking your doctor for anxiety meds? I hear they work wonders.”

“I’ve talked about it with the doctor. After this with Spence, I might be desperate enough to do it.”

“You should, Trace. Why suffer needlessly?”

“All the medication in the world won’t keep me from worrying about my baby sister out there chasing murderers, especially now that the whole world knows who she is.”

“I don’t want you to worry about me. I’m very good at what I do, and I have Secret Service with me all the time. Vernon and Jimmy won’t let anything happen to me, and neither will Freddie.”

“That brings me some comfort, but I can’t help but worry about you. You were my first baby.”

Sam leaned into her sister’s embrace and let her squeeze her the way she had her entire life. Tracy had been like a second mother to Sam. She and Angela were her closest friends. That such a disaster had befallen one of them was almost too much to bear. “You’re going to have to keep the closest eye on Ang,” Sam said.

“I know.”

What neither of them had to say was that when Angela eventually returned to her own home, it would be easier for Tracy to keep tabs on her.

“And you have to keep me in the loop on what she needs,” Sam added.

“I will.”

“We’ll get her through this. One way or the other.”

“Yes, we will.”

Chapter Four

While her sisters talked about how they would support Angela through the most devastating loss of her life—and that was saying something after losing her beloved father—Angela lay awake in the fancy White House guestroom trying to picture life without Spencer.

Try as she might, two days after he died, she still couldn’t conceive of going forward with three little kids and no Spencer there to make it all work.

He’d been the glue that held them together—that was, until the last year, when his life spun off the tracks, taking her down with him. It’d been a massive shock to realize he’d become addicted to the pain medication he’d taken after his back injury and that he was breaking the law to acquire them after multiple doctors cut him off.