Flowerbed of State (39 page)

“I don’t know.” He ventured back into the mist and shadows. “It’s nothing in particular, Casey, just a bad feeling. You should be fine.”

I stared at the spray bottle, my brows scrunched so hard it started to make my head pound.

“There you are!” Gordon boomed from directly behind me.

Startled, I spun around with my finger at the ready on the bottle’s plunger and a millimeter away from spraying a healthy dose of hot pepper oil in Gordon’s face. I quickly jammed the bottle into my jacket pocket before I accidentally assaulted someone.

“Good morning, Gordon. Don’t you think that once this mist burns off, the weather will be perfect?”

“Absolutely. Couldn’t ask for anything better,” he agreed. Gordon was dressed in his usual khaki pants with a navy blue windbreaker zipped up to his neck. “I need you to do something for me.”

“What?” I didn’t trust the goofy tilt of his head or the excitement brightening his eyes. “Why am I getting an itchy feeling that I’m not going to like this?”

“It’s Easter Monday.” He sounded like a kid with a new toy. “It’s going to be a fun day. Come on.”

I followed him through the White House and down the steps to the bottom floor of the two-story basement, where a small crowd had gathered. I recognized several high-ranking staffers from the West Wing standing around in the hallway.

“What are they doing down here?” I whispered to Gordon. Very few West Wing employees ever came into the residence and certainly not into the basement.

“You’ll see.”

The door to a small storage room I’d never noticed before sat open. Fisher stood in the doorway with a clipboard and pen held at the ready.

He glanced up. His gaze latched on to Gordon and me.

“Ah, you’re here. We can begin.” His long nose twitched as he pinched his lips together in an odd, twisted smile.

“Cassandra Calhoun,” he called needlessly, since he’d obviously seen me walking toward him. “Cassandra Calhoun,” he repeated when I failed to say anything.

“Uh, here . . . I guess.”

“Good.” He made a checkmark on the clipboard and disappeared into the storage room. He returned carrying a bulging garment bag.

“Try not to get dirt on it,” he said, and then called the next name on his list.

“Gordon? What’s this?” I had a sinking feeling I already knew.

“Think of it as your initiation.”

“No, you didn’t.”

He nodded.

“The costumes? You signed me up to be a costumed character?” Sure, I was as fun-loving as the next person. But a girl had to have her standards. She had to know where to draw her line.

No member of the Calhoun family had ever paraded about in a goofy character costume. I didn’t wish to be the first. “You wear it.”

Gordon held up his hands as I tried to hand over the fat garment bag. “I can’t. It’s . . . er . . . feminine.”

“Don’t tell me,” I groaned. “You signed me up to be a baby chick.”

“Nope. Better.”

“Better?” I didn’t want to know.

I took the costume into the women’s locker room located just down the hall and donned the delightful contraption.

I took one look at it and started envying the staff members who’d gotten one of those cute fluffy baby chick costumes.

The body of
this
costume was shaped like a giant white egg. It covered my body, stopping just above my knees, where frilly bloomers hung out the bottom.

A feathered collar decorated the egg’s neck opening. Oversized layered puffy sleeves in varying shades of pastel paisley ran the length of my arms. White gloves capped my hands. A wide-brimmed white hat sat on top of my head with a pastel blue ribbon tied at my chin.

I was to carry a frilly lace parasol and a basket of decorated eggs, which seemed a bit odd, an egg handing out eggs for the children to eat.

The costume was hideous. It was heavy and hot and damned difficult to walk in without falling on my face.

I nearly did fall flat on my face as I hobbled out of the locker room.

Gordon, who’d been waiting for me in the hallway, clapped with delight. “The children are going to love it!”

T
HE costume, as Gordon had predicted, was a hit, attracting giggly children as effectively as the Pied Piper’s pipe.

By midmorning, the sun had burned off the last signs of the early morning mists. The temperature was still springlike with a brisk bite in the air. Parents led smiling kiddies dressed in their Sunday best to take part in the various activities.

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?”

“You 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.”