I took comfort knowing Jack and Thatch were hidden somewhere out there, ready to spring to action at the first sign of danger.
The digging was slow going. I had to break through several thick roots. But then, when I thrust the shovel in the ground again, there was a thud.
Not the thunk of a water line. But a wooden thud.
I put the shovel down and, kneeling, reached into the hole. I used a trowel to dig around the dirt-encased wooden box in order to break it free from the two hundred years of packed earth and roots. I had to lie flat on my stomach to get a good grip on the box in the hole. It wasn’t small. About two feet across and about a foot wide. And firmly wedged under a fat root.
I felt rather than saw the shadowy figure emerge from the underbrush to stand behind me. I pretended not to notice him and continued to pull and tug at the stubborn box. The shadow knelt beside me, reached into the hole, and helped me lift the wooden casket from the earth. “It’s heavy,” he said. “And larger than I’d expected.”
I pushed up from the ground to crouch next to the box and the man holding it. “Nadeem! What are you doing out here?” I demanded, but his eyes were glued to the treasure chest.
“It’s not so heavy that it could be packed with gold, though,” he said as he caressed the dirt-encrusted box’s rough surface. “Do you think we’ll find diamonds?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “What are you doing out here?”
He fingered the corroded latch. “Frida would have killed to be here right now, to take the glory.” He paused. “It’s ironic and a little sad that she was killed because of this, don’t you agree?” He finally lifted his gaze to meet mine.
“What are you doing here?” I asked for a third time.
“You didn’t think you could keep me away, Casey? Not after everything I did for you, everything I went through.” He struggled with the corroded latch again. “Now let’s crack this box open and see what’s inside.”
“You need to leave,” I said quietly. Marcel wouldn’t make an appearance with Nadeem practically sitting on top of the treasure chest. “You need to leave now. I’m—”
That had been the wrong thing to say to the assistant curator.
He dropped the wooden casket and swung toward me. “I have to leave?” He grabbed my shoulders. His voice tightened. “I put up with that damn woman as she belittled my work, and then as soon as I’d turned my back, she stole my notes. My notes. Sure, she was brilliant. She was a brilliant thief. I was the one who started to wonder about those letters Dolley Madison had written. They’d been in the archives for centuries. And no one cared to look at them. Not until I arrived. And the moment I find something interesting, Frida locks up the filing cabinet and tells me to mind my own business.” In his frustration, he shook me. “And now you’re telling me that I have no business being here?”
Jack burst from the bushes with his gun drawn. “Let go of Casey. Now!”
Instead of doing as he was told, Nadeem’s fingers tightened on my arms.
Mike Thatch burst out of the bushes from the other side, his finger on the trigger of his gun. “Put your hands in the air.”
Nadeem glared at me. “You set me up?” His fingers dug painfully into my arms.
“You’re bruising me,” I said just as Jack swung the butt of his assault rifle and knocked Nadeem unconscious.
I jumped to my feet. “Why’d you hit him?”
“Because you’d never forgive me if I shot him,” Jack said as he secured Nadeem’s wrists with plastic zip ties.
“But he didn’t confess.” The treasure forgotten, I started to pace. “He didn’t even give us any clues to what happened on Monday. You should have waited.”
“He was about to hurt you,” Jack said.
“He was a threat,” Thatch agreed as he helped haul Nadeem, who was already semi-awake, to his feet.
“I’m not a threat. Casey, tell them.” Nadeem slurred his words. “I’m not a threat.”
“Tell that to Manny,” Jack said as he unceremoniously marched Nadeem up the hill toward the White House. “You have a lot to answer for, including Frida’s murder. You have one hell of a motive there, buddy.”
The sun was just starting to lighten the sky as Thatch and I stood side by side staring at the wooden casket I’d unearthed.
“Because of a box, Nadeem killed Frida?” Thatch nudged the wooden box with his toe. “Do you even know what’s inside it?”
I shook my head. None of this made any sense.
Where was Marcel?
“Come on, I have work to do.” Thatch bent down and picked up the box. “Not too heavy. Can’t be gold,” he said, echoing Nadeem’s earlier comment.
Thatch carried the casket to the grounds office and dropped the filthy piece of history on my desk. He then put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry so much. I’m sure Manny will be able to get this sorted out. What we saw this morning should, if nothing else, delay the DA’s action against Gordon. And it should convince the envoy from Turbekistan that it’s safe to meet with the President. Heck, we can show Aziz that we have not one, but two suspects in custody. Gordon and Nadeem. Not only that, your dad has been wining and dining Aziz for several days now. Apparently, the two men worked together years ago on bringing down the Berlin Wall. He’s an amazing man, your father. And the only guy Aziz would talk with. So don’t worry, everything is working out.”
So that was the Calhoun whom Aziz had wanted to talk with? I was starting to wonder if I was the only one in D.C. who didn’t know about my dad or that he was in town.
And none of that mattered. Not really. I paced the length of my office. What mattered was Gordon. Whoever killed Frida—Nadeem?—had made sure all the evidence pointed to Gordon. And nothing we’d done this morning counteracted that.
We needed a confession. I dropped into my desk chair. My stomach clenched as I stared at the box. Because of this hunk of dirt and wood, Gordon may go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.
Everything about this morning just felt . . . wrong.
I dug around in the desk’s top drawer until I found a digital camera. The curator’s office should be in charge of opening the box, but since Frida was dead and Nadeem was in custody, I supposed it wouldn’t hurt if I pried the lid open. But before I did that, I thought I should take some pictures to document the outside of the box. And the opening process.
Once I’d finished taking pictures from every angle, I rattled the old brass lock. It was encrusted with two hundred years of dirt and corrosion. Even if I had a key, I doubted it would work. I dug around in my desk drawer again, searching for something I could use to pry the lock open.
“Do you need a knife?”
I whirled my desk chair around just as Marcel—or should I say Mac, since he no longer feigned a French accent—stepped into the room. The large messenger bag slung over his shoulder bounced off his hip.
“You!” I lunged for the phone. I managed to get my hand on the receiver and off the hook, but Marcel moved with amazing speed for the amount of weight he carried on his body. He used that weight to slam me back into my desk chair. His leather-gloved hand slapped across my mouth before I could scream.
From his jacket pocket he produced that dirty handkerchief I had seen several days earlier and stuffed it into my mouth and slapped a pre-cut piece of tape on it. Before I had a chance to react, he had pulled out a roll of duct tape and had taped my wrists to the desk chair’s armrests and my ankles to the rolling chair’s center support, wrapping the duct tape layer upon layer to keep me from being able to pull free. I twisted and turned, kicked and wiggled to no avail while he locked the office door.
“Now, let’s see what we have here.” Marcel stuck his knife in the casket’s corroded latch. “Don’t look so surprised, Casey. I know you and your lover planned this morning’s outing to trap me. But everyone underestimates poor, bumbling Marcel, n’est-ce pas?” He played up his false French accent for only a moment. “Who do you think tipped off Nad
eem about the treasure? I did! I sent the lovesick fool running to your side. Pretty clever of me, don’t you think?”
Marcel twisted the knife’s blade against the lock. With a crack, the old brass latch broke. He set his messenger bag on the desk next to the box and opened it. Clearly, he meant to walk out of the White House with the treasure in that bag. His mouth twisted into an odd grin as he pried loose the wood lid, swollen from the rains, and opened the box.
“I have your treasure, Dad,” he said, beaming up at the ceiling with a look of triumph. “I didn’t let anyone get it. Mom was wrong. She should have never let you leave us. Because here it is. It’s yours. It’s all—”
He froze as he stared into the box.
I leaned forward, straining against the tape holding my arms in place, trying to look inside the box.
“What’s this?” he picked up the box and tossed its muddy contents at me. What landed on my lap and spilled over onto the floor wasn’t gold or diamonds or pearls . . . but parchment sleeves.
“What have you done?” He moved with lightning speed as he swung out his thick arm and slapped me across my face. “Is this a joke?”
I blinked furiously, trying to tell him that it was no joke. Knowing how much Thomas Jefferson loved his gardens, I should have known envelopes of seeds would be his treasure. And oh, what a treasure it was! Not that the seeds were viable anymore. But the packets holding them were elegantly illustrated with color renderings of each plant along with written descriptions and their Latin names. And all of this had been done by Thomas Jefferson’s own hand? It was a treasure more wonderful than anything I could ever have imagined, truly priceless.
Clearly, Marcel didn’t agree. He pressed the steak knife to my throat. Its razor-sharp blade bit into my skin. “Where is the treasure?”
I don’t know how he expected me to answer with this sour-tasting gag in my mouth. He seemed to realize the problem. “If you scream, I’ll slice open your throat. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
He removed the tape and dirty handkerchief. And stared at me.
“Why?” I whispered. “You have a successful career. Why are you doing this?”
“It’s my father’s legacy. His dream. He abandoned his family and ultimately died in search of this treasure. This worthless treasure. I had to do something, something to prove to him that he shouldn’t have left me. If he had stayed, I would have found his treasure. You wouldn’t understand.”
Wouldn’t I? I’d lived most of my life without a father, and still his presence haunted me. What if I had done something differently? What if I’d been a better daughter? Perhaps then he wouldn’t have run away. Perhaps then my mother would still be alive.
Those ghosts turned round and round in our heads. Never letting up. Never letting go.
I suppose my penchant for sticking my nose into trouble could be considered a kind of madness.
But I never felt the pull to kill anyone.
“Is that why you pretended to be someone else?” I asked. “So no one would suspect you?”
He looked confused by my question. “Oh, you mean Marcel.” He put on his French accent like some people don a hat. “Mon Dieu. That fool, he was my ticket into the designer world. No one would hire Mac from New Jersey. But Marcel from the fashionable Paris is a natural, non? Where is the treasure most magnificent? Tell me before I am forced to kill you.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall. Lorenzo should be arriving any minute.
“It’s—” I started to say when the doorknob shook.
“Casey?” Lorenzo called out. The door shook. “What’s wrong with the door?”
“Don’t answer him,” Marcel rasped.
“What are you going to do?” I whispered back. “That’s Lorenzo. This is his office, too. He’s not going away.”
“Casey!” Lorenzo pounded on the door.
Marcel seemed to hold his breath, waiting. I discovered I was holding my breath, too.
Much to my disappointment, Lorenzo did give up. Silence seemed to press against my ears. Marcel whirled back toward me. He pressed the knife to my throat again.
“I have to get out of here. And sorry, Casey, but you know too much.” The blade dug deeper into my neck. I felt a hot trail of blood as it dripped down my neck.
“Wait!” I needed to stop him. “The treasure. You’re right. It was gold. We dug it up last night. Right after you left. This old box, it’s just a decoy. The real treasure is in Gordon’s office. It’s under his desk. You can fill your bag and get out before anyone is the wiser.”
His gold-flecked eyes glittered with madness. “In Gordon’s office.”
“Under his desk,” I said, careful not to move my head with that knife too close to my neck’s important arteries.
“Thanks, but unfortunately, I’m still going to have to kill you.”
Oh, no he wasn’t. As soon as he lifted the blade from my neck in order to make a slashing motion, I gave a hard jerk to the left side on the chair. It tipped up onto two wheels and then dropped again. I jerked hard to the left again.
This time the desk chair toppled over. Marcel’s blade nicked my neck right before I landed hard on the concrete floor.
I shouted at the top of my lungs while wiggling like mad, desperate to break free from my restraints. My foot popped out of its shoe and sock and was suddenly loose. I used the opening to kick Marcel hard in the knee.
He cried out in pain. As I kicked him again, the door splintered open.
Jack and the rest of the Counter Assault Team came pouring into the grounds office. They moved like a tidal wave, washing over Marcel, disarming him, and pulling him to the ground.
“Oh God, Casey! Her neck’s been cut.” Jack dropped to his knees beside me, his face going pale. “Get the doctors in here. Now!” He pressed his hands against my neck.
“Jack, I’m fine. It’s a scratch.” He didn’t listen. “I’m not bleeding to death, but the arm of my chair is digging into my side. Can you cut me loose?”
He tentatively lifted his hand. “The bleeding is slowing. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I nodded. “I will be as soon as I’m no longer taped to this chair.”
He used the same steak knife Marcel had used to threaten me and sliced through the layers of duct tape. As soon as I was freed from the desk chair, Jack pulled me into his arms and hugged me so tightly I heard my ribs creak. “I love you, Casey. I love you so much it hurts.”
I drew a long breath. This was the Jack I knew . . . and trusted. He never lied. He would never try and hurt me. I wanted Jack in my life. I drew in another deep breath.
He was waiting for me to tell him how I felt. “Uh, Jack, there is something I’ve been wanting to tell you.”
“Yes?” he said.
Like removing a bandage, I told myself and took a deep breath. “I, um—” I screwed my eyes closed and said with a rush, “I love you, too, Jack. I do. I really do.”
When I opened my eyes, I found Jack smiling at me. “See, that wasn’t so hard to say,” Jack said. And then with all his buddies watching, he kissed me silly.
• • •
THE SUREST WAY TO SCARE YOUR RELATIVES IS to have your face show up on the evening news. Since I dearly loved my grandmother and aunts and had no desire to frighten them, as soon as Dr. Stan had stitched up my neck and Manny had finished taking my statement, I dialed the number to Rosebrook.
While Grandmother Faye listened and my aunts babbled questions in the background, I told her all about the excitement we’d faced at the White House and she in turn relayed what I’d told her to Aunt Willow and Aunt Alba.
“Goodness gracious, child, trouble has always beat a path to your doorstep. You weren’t terribly hurt?” she asked when I’d finished.
“Of course not.”
Jack, who had stayed by my side the entire time, squeezed my hand.
“Um, there is something else I need to tell you.” I took a deep breath. “It’s about James Calh
oun.”
“What about him?” Grandmother Faye’s voice grew tight with worry. I could picture her timeworn fingers closing around the plain golden cross necklace she always wore.
“He’s living in D.C. He contacted me the other day.” I told her about his service to the nation, about why my mother had died, and the secret life my father had lived. “Even today, he made sure the President’s meeting with an oil-rich country went forward. I—I thought you should know.”
Grandmother Faye fell silent.
“What’s happening?” Aunt Willow shouted onto the line. “Mama dropped the phone. And she’s crying. I’ve only ever seen her cry one other time. And that was when she’d learned about you.”
“I told her about my dad, that he’s—”
“Oh Lordy, he’s dead, isn’t he?” Aunt Willow cried. “I knew it. He’s been dead for years. He would have called Mama if he could. But he’s dead. Poor Jimmy. Poor Mama, she never gave up on that boy.”
“He’s not dead,” I said. “He’s living in D.C. And he contacted me.”
“He did? Did you see him? You’ll bring him home,” Aunt Willow implored. “You must bring him home.”
“You mean to Rosebrook?”
“For Thanksgiving. It would be such a relief to see that little squirt again.”
I’d been so wrapped up in my grief that I’d forgotten how deeply my two aunts missed their younger brother. A younger brother no one ever talked about. The only picture of him in the house was a black-and-white snapshot of a roly-poly toddler, which Grandmother Faye kept hidden in a bedside table drawer.
I don’t know when or why he left home or what they thought had happened to him. That was a mystery still waiting to be uncovered.
“Please, Casey. It would mean the world to Mama.” How could I say no to my family? But at the same time how could I commit to facing him again?
“I’ll see what I can do,” was the best I could promise. Even so, my stomach twisted into a knot.
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