A favorite author from my childhood who wrote adventure stories set at the White House perched on the edge of a chair at the center of the reading corner and read from his latest book to a small group who listened in riveted silence. I stood outside the bright green snow fencing, reveling in the moment. My dream of having adventures of my own at the White House had actually come true.
A little too true.
The back of my neck tingled. Thanks to Turner and the bottle of pepper spray tucked up my frilly sleeve, I didn’t feel safe at what had to be the most secure place on earth.
As the crowds moved toward the area around the South Portico to where President Bradley was scheduled to make a short speech, I perfected a spinning hop-dance across the South Lawn while twirling my lacy white parasol, figuring if I had to look foolish, I might as well put my heart into it.
The First Family, with Milo yipping his approval, were received with a roar of relieved applause when they emerged on the first floor of the South Portico to welcome the Easter Bunny and declare an official start to the celebration.
It had been the first time since the shooting that anyone had seen Mrs. Bradley. I was relieved to see that she was looking well.
While the First Family mingled, I continued to entertain the kids who flocked to me. An hour later, my dance had slowed a bit, so I retreated to the bottom of the lawn and to the gardening display under the green tent.
“Oh. My. God. Casey, you look”—Lorenzo snorted—“stupid. Really and truly stupid.”
“Thank you. That was the look I was after,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster, and started to hand out the small paper cups for use as temporary planters for the seedlings.
While Lorenzo, who got along surprisingly well with the kids, gave instructions on the proper way to plant the seedlings, I stood back and watched the crowd. Senator Pendergast, her arm in a dark blue sling, chased after three of her grandchildren, a toddling boy and girl and an older boy, as they charged up to the Easter Bunny.
The six-foot white fleece bunny had a fixed, slightly surprised, gaping smile. Small wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his terminally cute pink nose. He hopped in delight when the senator’s grandchildren ran up to greet him.
He patted the tops of their blond heads with his oversized paw, messing up their hair. He then lifted his hands to his mouth in a broad cartoonish gesture, pantomiming laughter. The youngest boy giggled.
The bunny moved to mess up the senator’s hair. Laughing, she batted his oversized paws away. I’d never seen her look so relaxed.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” I told Lorenzo. After handing a paper cup to a smiling little boy, I set the remaining stack of cups on the table. Waddling as fast as my huge egg body would let me, I made a beeline toward the senator. Seeing how she was already set against both the gardening plan and my position at the White House, I couldn’t see how it would hurt to try to convince her to change her mind.
Before I could reach her, the Easter Bunny bent down and whispered something in the children’s ears. The kids jumped up and down with excitement.
The bunny put his paws over his mouth and shook with laughter as the children darted over to take part in the next heat of the egg race.
The senator started to head in that direction as well, but the Easter Bunny tapped her shoulder. Like the bunny did with the children, he leaned over and whispered into the senator’s ear.
Instead of laughing, Edith Pendergast violently jerked back.
The Easter Bunny, giving a dramatic shrug, bounded away.
I hurried toward the senator to find out what that was about, but before I could reach her, she chased after the giant white bunny as he wove through the crowd, patting curly-headed tots on their heads as he went.
The two of them were moving much faster than I could while wearing the stupid egg suit. And with the large number of families milling about, I was afraid I’d lose sight of them.
There was one way to catch up. The hop-dance I’d perfected made much better time than slow waddling. So I did my spring dance, twirling my parasol, as I followed the odd pair.
First the Easter Bunny and then the senator skirted behind the gardening display and toward a thick planting of trees and bushes that formed a barrier between the South Lawn and the back part of the secluded Children’s Garden.
Secret Service agents had blocked off the entrance to the Children’s Garden using the bright green snow fencing. No one should have been back there.
The bunny reached a line of hedges and stopped. He waved at Senator Pendergast, pantomiming that she should hurry up. Using his giant rabbit’s feet, he blazed a path through the thick branches that skirted the edge of the tennis court.
The senator followed.
More curious than concerned, I ducked under a low-hanging tree branch and blazed my own trail through the bushes.
In addition to the thick planting of trees and bushes and the tennis court, the Children’s Garden was blocked off with an eight-foot-tall, semiopaque black fabric fencing intended to create a secure and private space within. I figured the bunny would hit that fence and be forced to turn back.
I hadn’t expected to find a tear in the fencing encircling the Children’s Garden tall enough for a man—or giant bunny—to pass through. I stepped into the slit in the fence and started to slide through.
I got halfway into the Children’s Garden. The bottom part of the egg costume had wedged itself into the fence and refused to budge. I was stuck like a bug in a spider web. As quietly as possible, I tugged at both my costume and the fence, hoping to tug myself free before either the senator or the bunny noticed me.
“I don’t know what you want.” I heard Senator Pendergast’s tense whisper from inside the Children’s Garden. “Money?”
The bunny, with its eerily fixed smile, shook his head. Moving with amazing speed considering the weight of that costume, he grabbed the senator by the neck.
Oh, Lordy, he was going to kill her!
Forget being quiet—with a grinding rip, I forced my way through the fabric fencing to stumble through the knee-high pittosporum bushes and onto the stone walkway. With a grand swing, I walloped the Easter Bunny over the head with my parasol. The wooden handle snapped in two.
The bunny didn’t flinch.
The senator’s face turned an alarming purple tone. Her head fell forward and her body went limp.
With a shout of panic, I jumped on the oversized bunny’s back and pulled at his arms. Numerous self-defense courses guided my motions as I delivered a chop to a spot on his arm where several nerves converged.
It disabled him long enough that he dropped the senator. She landed like a rock on the hard stone walkway.
He threw his hands up and spun around with enough force to send me flying off his back. I landed facedown in the garden’s small goldfish pond. The icy water stung my cheeks.
Before I could pull my cumbersome egg-self back onto my feet, he landed on top of me. His large paws pressed on the back of my head, forcing my face into the water.
Gurgling, I reached behind me and grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on—his long bunny ears—and gave a hard yank.
Instead of knocking him off balance, the costume head came off in my hands. I hit my attacker with the giant rabbit head and twisted out from under him.
“Richard!” A burst of adrenaline got my feet under me in record time despite the weight of the soggy costume.
I could barely believe what I was seeing. The incredibly handsome human head sticking out the top of the bunny suit belonged to Tempting Templeton, with his untamed rock star hair as slick and tempting as ever.
“What—what are you doing?” I still couldn’t believe Richard had tried to kill me just now. With my hands raised defensively in front of me, I inched toward the long winding walkway that led out of the garden, prepared to make a dash for help. “Is this about the banking audits and what was on Pauline’s laptop?”
“Y
ou already know it is. You’ve been hinting for days how you suspected Pauline had found evidence that I’d been shuttling toxic assets into dummy accounts. She knew that if she took that information to the Senate Banking Committee, Pendergast’s draconian bill would fly through the Congress without debate and I’d find myself facing indictment. So she held it back to use for blackmail.”
“So you killed her?”
“Not me, Wallace.”
The senator, I was glad to see, had sat up. I reached down to help her to her feet. She looked too weak to manage it on her own. With an irritated grunt, she waved me away. “Go,” she rasped. “Get help.”
She was right. I needed to get the Secret Service down here. Shouting for help, I made a mad dash toward the walkway.
Richard lunged forward and grabbed my neck before much of a squeak escaped my lips. Those large bunny paws were more powerful than they looked as he squeezed, cutting off the air and blood flow to my head.
“I should have let Wallace kill you.” His grip tightened. “He wanted to, you know. He knew you saw him. But every extra body would only increase the chances he’d be caught.”
“So . . . why . . . now?” I managed to get out.
“Don’t be conceited. I didn’t come here to kill you. It’s the senator I’m after. Thanks to your prodding, she won’t give up on that damn legislation of hers.” He pressed his face to mine. “I never lose.”
My oxygen-starved brain suddenly remembered the pepper spray. I reached up my sleeve searching for the bottle.
“As for you, you’re an afterthought, a footnote. Did you really think I was attracted to you . . . to you?” His grip on my neck tightened despite those silly fleece bunny paws covering his hands and my attempts to pry him loose.
“I had hoped we could be friends,” I wheezed.
He laughed. “You’re constantly covered in dirt and mud. I wasn’t dating you. I was keeping an eye on you, making sure you didn’t get your memories back. But I’m glad I get to kill you, because you, Casey Calhoun, repulse me.”
My fingers curled around the small plastic hairspray bottle I’d tucked up my sleeve. With a yank that ripped the sleeve and cracked the egg open, I pulled it out and squirted.
And missed.
I pressed the plunger again. I had to get away so I could get help and save the senator.
The world around me disappeared as I began to lose consciousness.
I kept pressing the plunger, praying he’d let go.
Richard finally shouted an ear-blistering curse and dropped me.
“Some dream guy you turned out to be,” I whispered as I crumbled to the ground, thrilled that the pepper spray had actually worked this time.
Frantically rubbing his eyes with his giant rabbit’s paw, he hopped around blindly. I tried to roll out of his way, but I couldn’t move fast enough. He stumbled and fell on top of me.
His grasping hands grabbed my arms in a bruising hold, pulling me toward him. I kicked and fought, but his determination gave him a maddening strength that was no match for my woozy half-strangled self.
I could feel the cold hand of death in his ever-tightening grip. He’d worked his way up my arms and had grabbed my neck again.
“Die, dammit, die already,” he groaned in my ear.
In a desperate move to protect myself, I hugged my legs to my chest and tucked my head between my knees, to make myself as compact and small as possible. Too late, too late, though. His fingers pressed against my windpipe in a crushing grip.
“Take your hands off the gardener or I’ll blow your damned head clean off your neck,” a low, unnaturally calm voice warned.
Richard’s grip around my neck loosened.
Shivering from head to toe, I slowly uncurled my body and raised my head. The first thing I saw was a shiny black combat boot grinding into Richard’s back, the barrel of an assault rifle pressed menacingly against his temple.
My gaze traveled a little higher.
“Turner,” I whispered. “Thank God.”
His jaw was set. His gaze locked on Richard’s face. His finger held at the ready on his rifle’s trigger.
“What took you so long?” I asked as I wiggled out from under Richard.
“It took some time to chase down and secure the senator’s grandchildren,” Turner explained in his deadpan voice. “And then we had to figure out where you’d disappeared to.”
The entire CAT team flanked Turner, their rifles held at the ready, their expressions as deadly as his. What a wonderful sight.
“Thank you for saving me,” I said to them. My voice sounded as if I’d swallowed a bag of gravel. “Now, could you please get out of the flowerbeds? Y’all are crushing my grape hyacinths.”
Epilogue
A week had passed since Richard’s arrest. The newspapers still buzzed about his meteoric rise and violent downfall as the SEC took apart his bank’s books piece by piece. As a result of the scandal, Senator Pendergast’s banking legislation sailed through the Senate without much debate and looked as if it’d soon pass the House as well.
Gordon and I silently flanked Lorenzo as we sat in the back row while Pauline Bonde’s family and friends hugged and cried after the graveside service. Gradually, everyone left the cemetery.
Lorenzo remained, so we stayed with him.
“I know she would have never married me,” Lorenzo said. He sat with his hands clasped between his knees and stared at the lightning bolt down the side of his leather shoes. “It was over between us. I knew that, but that doesn’t stop me from loving her or grieving the life we might have had if she hadn’t been married to her job or grasping so desperately for the next powerful man to head her way. But isn’t that what we’re all doing in this town? Grasping for power?”
“Not all of us.” I gave his clasped hands a gentle squeeze.
“Thank you, Casey.” He turned toward me. “Thank you for finding out why this happened. I’m grateful for that.”
I nodded with a lump in my throat.
“Let me take you home,” Gordon said to Lorenzo. “I’ll fix you my secret recipe for macaroni and cheese.”
Lorenzo nodded jerkily and rose from his chair.
“You’re welcome to come, too, Casey,” Gordon said as he stood as well.
“I think I need to be alone for a bit.”
“If you change your mind, you know where I live,” Gordon said. He put his hand on Lorenzo’s shoulder and led him toward the cemetery’s parking lot.
Tears stained my cheeks as I gazed at the open grave and lonely granite marker, an inadequate reminder of the life that had left this world too soon. I’d cried not only for Pauline and for her family, but also for my mother and the questions surrounding her murder that would never be answered.
A piece of me had believed that if I could find Pauline’s murderer, if I could find justice for her, a piece of my heart would be healed and I’d begin to be whole again. And yet on this crisp clear spring morning I felt worse.
This tragedy had only forced the grief I’d buried deep in my heart to bubble up to the surface. It tore at me as raw and real as the day I’d lost my mom. I turned my stinging face to the pale blue sky and inhaled the cool fragrant air.
I needed someone to hold me and to tell me that it was okay to feel lost and alone and frightened. My grandmother, with her gentle wisdom and strong embrace, would know the right words to say to soothe my battered heart. Too bad she was a day’s drive away. Too far.
I should have never left Charleston or the loving embrace of my family at Rosebrook.
The white plastic folding chair the funeral home had set up at the graveside creaked as I stood. When I turned around, I discovered that I wasn’t alone.
Special Agent Jack Turner stood underneath a poplar tree a hundred feet away. Dressed in a black suit and matching tie, he looked trim and professional and not at all like the knight errant image he played so well.
My heart raced at the sight of him. Now that Pauline’s murder
had been solved, I’d assumed Turner would disappear back into the shadows with the rest of the secretive CAT agents.
We stood there staring at each other for I don’t know how long.
The corners of his lips kicked up into a half grin.
That got my legs working again. The thick fescue grass swished under my feet as I crossed the distance between us at a careful, measured pace.
“Don’t tell me you’re still on babysitting duty,” I said.
“No reason to be. Everyone who was involved is either dead or in jail. I even heard that Senator Pendergast is now campaigning for your organic gardening program.”
“She was awfully grateful that I’d saved her life.”
He nodded.
“If you’re not on assignment, Turner, what are you doing here?”
“Don’t know. Bad habit, I suppose.” He crossed his arms over his chest and bumped his shoulder against mine. “Do you mind that I came?”
“Not at all.”
“How about I buy you a coffee?”
“That would be . . . would be . . .” A sob tore from my throat.
Why did he have to go and pull this nice act? It was just too much.
Turner pulled me close and wrapped his arms around me. I pressed my cheek against his strong chest and wept. As soon as I felt safe and strong again, I pushed him away and wiped at my eyes, trying my best to pretend that nothing had happened.
“Brace yourself, Casey,” he said as we walked toward the road. “I do have some bad news.”
My muscles instinctively tightened. “What now? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
We walked a little farther.
“Okay. I can’t stand it. Spit it out. What happened?”
“Milo got into the Rose Garden again this morning. He dug up two more rosebushes.”
“No! I hope whoever was supposed to be watching him gets fired.”
“Now that’s unfair. He was being watched.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I was watching Milo. I watched him dig up the one bush and then the other.”
Flowerbed of State Page 29
