Flowerbed of State (9 page)

I sat up and sucked in a quick breath as the water clinging to my skin quivered in the sudden chill. “In the bathroom,” I called.

“I brought home gado-gado salad.”

“Really?” I reached for my towel and, rising like Venus from the ocean, wasted no time drying off. As I pulled on a floral pink satin pajama set, a decadent gift from Aunt Willow, my mouth watered at the thought of devouring the Indonesian vegetable salad of potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, and boiled eggs drenched in a spicy peanut sauce.

I loved it. Alyssa didn’t. She must have purchased my favorite dish in hopes of bribing me.

Now don’t misunderstand me. Alyssa, who hailed from bustling New York City, was the perfect roommate. I loved her to pieces. She always paid her half of the rent on time. She kept the apartment meticulously clean. And as a congressional aide to the elder statesman Senator Alfred Finnegan, also from New York, her hours at the office tended to run longer than my own.

But her idea of getting back to nature was watching a wildlife documentary on TV. And like the senator who’d employed her, she was somewhat ruthless in everything she did. So the fact that she’d brought home my favorite peanut-buttery Indonesian dish had me wondering. What did she want?

“I saw on the news there was some excitement at the White House this morning. A mugging-turned-murder in Lafayette Square? Finny seems to think there’s more to the story than what the reporters are saying,” Alyssa said as I entered the kitchen.

She leaned over a white take-out box and plunged a large serving spoon deep into the box’s depths. Her shoulder-length black hair fell over her face like a curtain.

Her suit—very similar to the one she’d picked out for me, except hers was black and mine was gray—still had that fresh from the dry cleaners look despite the long day she’d put in at the senator’s office.

She was about my height, five years younger, and constantly complaining about the fifteen extra pounds she’d gained since moving to D.C. three years ago.

She glanced up from the gado-gado she’d been spooning onto two plates from the take-out box. Her light brown eyes filled with expectation. “I don’t suppose you know more about what happened than what’s being reported on the news, do you?”

“Hmm, that smells delicious,” I said. The cozy kitchen with its soaring ten-foot ceilings soaked up the exotic peanut and coconut scents. My stomach gurgled in happy anticipation. I took two forks from the silverware drawer and napkins from the holder next to the microwave.

“Good Lord.” Alyssa dropped the serving spoon. It clattered on the counter as she lunged toward me. “What happened to you? You look as if you’ve been in a fight.”

“The Secret Service asked me not to talk about it.” I grabbed a plate of the gado-gado salad before she could hold it hostage.

“Ah-ha! Then you
do
know something,” Alyssa crowed. “I told old Finny that you’d know. You’ve got a nose for finding things out. I bet no state secret goes unnoticed at the White House now that you’re around.”

“That’s not true.” I wasn’t
that
nosy. I’m sure lots of stuff happened that I knew nothing about. Take for instance the trouble with the protestors. The Secret Service had acted truly worried about them. But did they tell me why? No. They’d stayed stubbornly close-mouthed about the whole affair.

I could have used that argument to make the case that I wasn’t a busybody. I didn’t need to stick my nose into everyone’s business. But I had no intention of arguing with a graduate from Yale Law School, especially not one who’d graduated at the top of her class.

Alyssa followed me into the living room with a tiny serving of the salad on her plate, proving how much she really didn’t like the dish. She rarely skimped on meals.

On the occasions when we were both home for dinner, like tonight, we liked to eat our meals while vegging out in front of the TV.

I went straight for the TV’s remote. Alyssa moved a bit faster. She snatched it up and then settled on the sofa next to me. Sending me a sly glance, she set her plate of food on the coffee table in front of us and tucked the remote control under her hip—and here I’d been looking forward to catching up on my favorite game shows. I huffed.

She snorted and turned toward me. Her wide, goofy smile did the talking for her.
You know you’re going to tell me everything, so get on with it
.

I shoveled a forkful of gado-gado into my mouth. She couldn’t twist information out of me if I kept my mouth full.

It wasn’t as if I wanted to keep secrets from my own roommate. Senator Finnegan regularly trusted Alyssa with all sorts of sensitive information, information she sometimes hinted at, but never talked about. I knew I could trust her, too.

I also knew she’d pester me until the cows came home, fully expecting me to spill my guts.

My stomach clenched at the thought of rehashing the events of this morning. I’d much rather spend my time working a fresh bed of warm fertile soil, letting the rhythm of the work soothe me as I helped life spring forth from a tiny seed.

Perhaps then I wouldn’t see death when I closed my eyes, and I’d stop hearing that scream the killer must have silenced in Pauline Bonde’s throat.

Suddenly my favorite blend of fresh vegetables soaked in my favorite spicy peanut sauce lost its appeal. I set the plate on the coffee table next to Alyssa’s. She still had that goofy grin of hers trained on me. And damn, I don’t know why, but it was persuasive. I decided to throw her a juicy tidbit to tide her over until I was ready to talk about the rest.

“I met Tempting Templeton today,” I said, and raised my brows expectantly.

Alyssa didn’t disappoint. “You didn’t!” She leapt to her feet. “Is he as hot in person as he is in pictures? How did he look? More importantly, how did
you
look?”

This was the same Alyssa who wore only designer clothes and believed that venturing outside without makeup was as obscene as running through the streets naked.

Just this morning she’d fervently protested my decision to walk to work in the drizzle wearing a top-of-the-line Ann Taylor suit. Not to mention the damage I’d inflicted on her eyes when I’d pulled my yellow slicker over the brand-new suit to protect it from the wet, freezing weather.

I’d committed such a vile fashion sin that the usually dignified Alyssa had actually blocked the front door until I threatened to walk to work without the rain slicker and let my suit get soggy.

“Well?” she asked. She’d adopted a very lawyerly stance with her hands clasped behind her back. She bounced lightly on her heels. “Tell me everything that happened, beginning with how you looked.”

When I didn’t answer her question right away, she rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed loudly. “Don’t tell me you met him after you ended up battered and bruised.”

“I did,” I admitted.

Her gaze narrowed. “And what else?”

“I was caked in mud”—my voice dropped to a dramatic whisper—“from head to toe.”

“Not in your brand-new Ann Taylor!”

I nodded.

She weaved as if on the verge of collapse. Alyssa knew how to put on a good act. With one hand pressed to her forehead, she cried, “You’re killing me, Casey. Didn’t I warn you that you shouldn’t venture out in the wilderness while wearing new clothes? You should have taken a cab to work.”

I laughed. “The D.C. streets are hardly the wilderness. And that’s not where it happened.”

Thanks to her overblown dramatics, the events of the day poured out of me. I told her everything, including my unfortunate assault on Special Agent Jack Turner.

“He sounds hunky,” Alyssa said. “You should ask him out.”

“I don’t think he’d be interested.”

“Why not?”

“Pepper spray. Remember? In his face? He didn’t exactly think it was cute.”

“That’s nothing,” Alyssa scoffed. “Most men I know would consider a little pepper spray a kind of kinky foreplay.”

“Really? Remind me not to let you arrange any blind dates for me.”

“You’re missing out. I know some really interesting guys who would—”

“No,” I said. “No. No. No.”

“Okay. Let’s talk about something else, like why anyone would attack you so close to the White House. Either he’s really stupid or that gutsy.”

“The Secret Service seems to think that he’s plotting to attack the President and that he murdered Pauline to get something. Perhaps a White House employee’s security credentials?”

“That doesn’t make sense. It’s not like he could use them to get into the White House, right?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I said.

“Besides, there are still guards to get past. And why not steal a security pass instead of killing someone so visibly and violently?”

“That’s true.”

“I don’t think the Secret Service is being frank with you. There has to be a better explanation,” Alyssa said, tapping her chin.

“I agree.” All of this seemed to point back to that curious
something
that none of the agents were willing to talk about.

“I bet what happened today doesn’t have anything to do with some sinister plot to assassinate the President. You know I recently read an article that said almost ninety percent of all murders are triggered by personal motives. Spurned and angry lovers topped the list.”

“Really?” I wasn’t sure it was true. Alyssa liked to spout “official statistics,” even if she had to make them up. “Then why was I attacked? I’m not even dating anyone.”

“I was just thinking the same thing.” Alyssa wagged her finger in the air. “But you are a witness.”

“Of sorts. I don’t really remember having seen anything. He knocked me on the side of my head pretty hard.” I rubbed my sore temple. “The Secret Service has asked me not to talk to anyone about what I do know. They want to keep a tight lid on the investigation.”

“Good.” Alyssa flopped back down on the sofa next to me. The cushions jumped. “If the press finds out you exist, we’ll become prisoners in this apartment. News trucks will camp out on the street, reporters will call in the middle of the night in search of unguarded statements, and photographers will take unflattering pictures of us.” She shuddered. “There should be a law against unauthorized photographs. I’ll have to talk to Finny about that.”

As if expecting a member of the paparazzi to pop through the window, she reached for her handbag, pulled out a small makeup case, and quickly reapplied her lipstick.

“So only your coworkers, the investigators, and the Secret Service know you’re a witness?”

“I did call my family this afternoon. You know how they worry about me. But I didn’t tell them about being a witness or finding the body, just that I’d been in the park around that time and that I was okay. I think Aunt Willow might have suspected I was holding back on them, but she didn’t press me for more details.”

“And that’s it? No one else knows?” Alyssa thoughtfully tapped her chin again.

“No, there is someone else.” I suddenly wondered whether the front door was locked. “The killer would know.”

T
HAT night I’d hoped to dream of Tempting Templeton. I wanted to hear his liquid smooth voice, to see his rakish smile, to pretend he’d turn a blind eye to the supermodels of the world and take notice of a plain Jane like me.

Heck, I’d have even welcomed a dream featuring that grumpy Jack Turner. Not as polished as Tempting Templeton, but Turner possessed the kind of rugged good looks that made me think of the mighty-fine models that regularly climbed their way through the pages of outback adventurer magazines.

Thinking about Turner that way made my heart race . . . just a bit.

Unfortunately I’d never had much luck controlling who showed up in my nighttime world. As I slept that night, no handsome men appeared, brandishing swords in valiant efforts to protect their fair maiden—namely, me. Instead, a faceless figure lurked in the shadows of downtown D.C. wearing a pair of black-and-white leather shoes with a lightning bolt blazed down the side.

The latest fashion for the guilty?

I realized almost immediately I was dreaming, since all of the buildings appeared to be listing slightly to the left, as if they were slowly melting ice cream cones. It was a mental cue I’d learned shortly after Grandmother Faye took me into her home and the nighttime monsters started to come calling.

In the dream, the bustling D.C. streets bristled with danger. The swell of pride from being part of something bigger than myself had been pushed aside by a dark presence that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

I felt like a bug caught in ajar, unable to breathe.

“Nerves. Nothing more than overactive nerves,” my dream-self whispered. Even so, I hugged my arms to my chest and picked up my pace. Where I was headed, I didn’t know.

I frantically searched the faces of the people passing by. Would my memories kick in if I saw the killer’s face? For all I knew, he could be walking beside me right now.