Oak and Dagger (20 page)

“What are you doing?” I demanded.

The piece of paper he was trying to hide behind his back had one word written on it in bold block letters, DIE.

“It's not what you think.” Nadeem backed down the brick steps.

“You're the one who's been sending me those threatening messages?” I followed him down the steps.

“No! I'm not.”

“Then why is
that
in your hand?” I pointed at the paper he was trying to hide behind his back.

He glanced down the road and then back at me. “I don't have time to explain.”

He took off running.

Chapter Twenty-one

I once had a rose named after me and I was very flattered. But I was not pleased to read the description in the catalogue: no good in a bed, but fine up against a wall.

—ELEANOR ROOSEVELT, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1933–1945)

A
LYSSA
hugged my arm. I think it was to keep me from running the other way when she tossed open the door to the bar. A blast of loud music and stale air slapped my face.

“I don't know about this,” I said, trying to pull away again.

After getting both Jack's and Manny's voice mail when I'd called to report Nadeem's threatening behavior, Alyssa suggested I call the White House to see if Jack had been called back on duty.

I did.

He hadn't.

I ended up speaking with Special Agent Steve Sallis, who'd told me that he thought Jack was at the Secret Service's favorite bar, The Underground.

When Alyssa had heard that, she'd insisted we change into party dresses and go looking for him. “If he's at a bar, he won't be able to hear his phone,” she explained.

I wanted to believe her, but I knew Jack kept his phone on both ring and vibrate.

“He'll want to know Nadeem is behind the threats,” she'd said as she tucked me into one of her bright pink dresses that was much too low in the chest. I tugged at the spaghetti straps to cover myself but ended up making the skirt obscenely short. So I ended up grabbing a white sweater as we hurried out the door and buttoned it up all the way.

“None of this makes any sense,” I shouted over the loud music at the bar. “Why would Nadeem send me death threats even before he killed Frida?”

“What?” she shouted back.

“Never mind.”

“Is that the First Lady's sister?” Alyssa shouted directly into my ear. “What's her name?”

“Lettie Shaw. Where?”

Alyssa pointed to a woman over near the band who looked like Lettie, only this woman was wearing heavy makeup. The skirt of her gold sequined dress was several inches shorter than mine. When she reached across a table for a shot glass, she flashed her bright red panties to the room. She looked—as Aunt Alba would say—like a twice-baked tart on a mission to be taste-tested.

I hoped I didn't look like her. Alyssa had insisted I apply more makeup than I was used to wearing, including a shimmery eye shadow she had called her special diamond dust, but was just sticky glitter. And she'd also insisted I wear my blond hair loose.

I pushed an unruly strand out of my eyes . . . again . . . as I watched Lettie—if that woman across the room was indeed Lettie. If it was, what was she doing out at The Underground dressed like
that?

Holding my hair out of my face, I edged through the crowd toward her. Was she looking for more ways to frame Gordon for murder? Was she a killer in search of a lost treasure?

I didn't make it very far across the room when I was jostled by a rowdy group of agents and cops crowding into the bar. By the time I managed to squeeze past them, the woman was gone.

“She couldn't have been Lettie,” I said.

“What?” Alyssa shouted.

“Nothing.” I held on to Alyssa's shoulder and pulled her ear toward me. “This is a mistake,” I shouted just as the music softened.

“You don't have to shout.” She rubbed her ear. “Nadeem is acting weird. You need to report it.”

“I could call the police department. Or better yet, I could leave another message with Manny. Let's go.”

Alyssa caught hold of my arm again. “But what if Jack is here?”

What if he was? First, Deloris had coolly reminded me I wasn't part of Gordon's family, even though
I
loved Gordon like a father.

Was I about to find out that Jack was playing fast and loose with my feelings? Why else would he have left me at the hospital to rush to a bar? Was it because he'd made another date? Was I about to become his
ex
-girlfriend?

I wasn't ready to do this. I doubted I'd ever be ready. Although I'd never trusted a man enough to make an open declaration of my feelings, it didn't mean that I
didn't
have
feelings. I'd fallen hard for Jack. Too hard.

And what a terrible time to realize it, but blooming hell, it was true.

I loved him. Had probably loved him since that embarrassing day I'd pepper sprayed him in the face.

Alyssa tightened her grip when I tried to bolt. “Even if he isn't here, we're going to have fun. You know, fun?”

My roommate was an even-if-it-kills-me kind of party girl. While she worked long hours for Senator Finnegan, she'd make up for it in a big way by going out and blowing off lots of steam once or twice a month.

“You need this more than I do,” she shouted over a surge in the music as she resisted my tugging and guided me over to a pair of empty bar stools. “Look at you. The murder investigation and work have taken their toll.”

I peered into the mirror hanging behind the bar and poked at the puffy skin under my eyes. “You're right. I do look terrible. I should be in bed. Let's go home.”

She ignored me and ordered a Capitol staffer favorite—Red Bull and vodka. I ordered a low-calorie beer.

With drinks in hand, we both turned our bar stools so they faced the interior of the bar.

“Do you see him?” she asked.

“No.” Although I spotted several groups of Secret Service agents, Jack wasn't party to any of them. My heart started pounding.

“Maybe he's not here yet.”

“Maybe he's not coming.”

“His loss. Those guys over there look cute.” Alyssa pointed to a group of buff men with shaved heads and tattooed arms.

“They look like criminals, Alyssa.”

“Yeah, they do.” Alyssa's smile grew as she watched them. “Let's go see if they're guilty of anything wicked and in need of punishment.”

“No! I'm not going over there!”

“What happened to your insatiable urge to play detective and unearth criminals?”

“I think I left it at home, where
I
should be.”

Alyssa, sensing I was about to run off, hooked my arm with hers again. “Look,” she shouted in my ear. “In that booth back there, isn't that Jack?”

In one of the booths lining the bar's dimly lit back wall, I spotted Jack. He wasn't alone. My heart dropped into the toes of my sensible shoes. The other occupant of the booth was a tall leggy blonde in a painted-on black dress. She looked like a fashion model.

Although they sat directly across from each other, they leaned in over the table so close that their foreheads were nearly touching. Smiling, the blonde reached her hand across the table and placed it on Jack's.

How could I compete with
her?
She had the kind of curvy body guys drooled over. Her breasts, two round perky globes, looked like they might pop out of her tight dress at any moment.

I gulped down half my beer.

“She could be his sister,” Alyssa said.

“I don't think brothers and sisters kiss like that.” Much to my horror, the blond cupcake had leaned even closer and had pressed her lips to Jack's.

Unable to watch any longer, I closed my eyes and turned my stool back toward the bar. I felt as if I was moving in slow motion as I set my beer down in front of me, pulled several dollars out of my wallet to leave as a tip, and jumped off the stool.

At least I hadn't made a fool of myself. I hadn't declared my love for him.

Jack—straight-as-an-arrow Jack—was apparently no different than any other guy I'd ever met. He didn't know how to be faithful.

Or perhaps this was my fault. I glanced at the haggard image of myself in the mirror behind the bar. What man would want me? Heck, my own father hadn't thought I was worth saving.

“I'm going home,” I croaked.

“Forget Jack. He's a jerk.” Alyssa swallowed the last of her drink and followed me toward the bar's exit. She was shaking her head. “None of this makes sense. Why would that other agent tell you to come here if this is where Jack meets his other women?”

“I don't know. I don't care.”

The cool night air stung my eyes as I pushed through a crowd coming in the door. “Casey?” Special Agent Steve Sallis pulled away from the group and followed me. “It is you. Wow, you look great. Did you find Jack? Are . . . you . . . okay?”

“Peachy,” I said without slowing down.

“We're changing locations,” Alyssa said as she jogged to catch up to me. “This place fell far below our expectations.”

“Casey?” Steve called after us. “What's happened? What's going on?”

I ignored him and marched toward home. Alyssa quickly caught up and started tugging on my arm again, promising to take me to a better place. “There's a club on U Street where the spies like to hang out. Maybe we'll get lucky and bump into Nadeem. We can take turns interrogating him.”

“He's probably a murderer.”

He'd lied about how long he had spent in the garden the day Frida had been murdered. He was sending me threatening messages. But did that mean he'd killed Frida?

I'd wanted to talk to Jack about what I'd learned, but . . .

Oh, Jack.
Why had I let myself feel safe with him? I was a fool. A stupid, stupid fool.

I twisted away from Alyssa. I wanted to go home.

“We don't know who Nadeem is, or what he's doing. But you should be careful around him,” I warned her.

“Careful never had any fun. Come on, Casey. You can't let Jack do this to you. If you go home, you're going to spend the night crying in your bedroom, or eating ice cream.”

That was exactly what I'd planned to do.

“I'll put my energy to better use than that,” I lied. “I'll keep myself busy. I have those heirloom seeds to order.” And I had tears to shed.

She'd opened her mouth to argue with me when her phone chirped. She pulled it out of her pocket. As she read the text message, a broad smile spread across her lips. “Barry is looking for me.”

I liked how hearing from him had made her eyes sparkle. “Go on.” I gave her a push. “Go have fun.”

“I could ask him if he has a friend.” Without waiting for an answer, she'd started typing on her phone.

“Don't. I wouldn't be good company.”

She frowned as she gave me an assessing look. “Are you sure? I don't want to leave you.”

I forced a smile. “I'm sure. The house is two blocks away, and it's early. I'll be fine.”

After a few more minutes of indecision on Alyssa's part, she hugged me tightly before we parted company.

I wrapped my sweater tighter around me and braced myself against the harsh fall wind that howled down the cavern of buildings. The cold weather matched the icy feeling that was tightening like a vise around my heart.

Jack
. I'd trusted him. I'd really trusted him. How many men had to hurt me before I learned my lesson?

I didn't need anything else. I didn't need Jack. It wasn't as if I'd moved to Washington in search of love. Gardening was my passion, my life.

A feeling of unease tiptoed down my back. Was I being watched? I looked around, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Just a street crowded with couples enjoying the evening. Wait, was that Lettie?

I spotted just a glimmer of gold material. It could have been anyone.

Even so, I picked up my pace.

I turned the corner and entered a residential area where the streetlights were dimmer. The Victorian townhouses on the street, with their pulled drapes and locked doors, reminded me of secrets people kept. Everyone at the White House seemed to have secrets.

Lettie Shaw was desperately trying to keep something from her sister.

Nadeem Barr had lied about . . . everything.

Deloris was actively keeping everyone away from Gordon.

Marcel Beauchamp had delayed the design project for a reason, a reason he wouldn't admit to having.

Even Lorenzo was hiding the woman he had started dating.

Everyone had secrets.

Even Gordon.

And Jack . . .

Tonight Washington felt like a darker place. And this neighborhood, my neighborhood, seemed more dangerous than ever before. I shivered and focused on the light shining above the door at my brownstone apartment. It was just a few houses away.

Just a half block away and then I could lock myself inside the safety of my home.

And cry.

I was almost to the brownstone townhouse when a figure moved in the shadows directly beside me. Before I could run, a hand shot out like a bullet and grabbed my shoulder.

Chapter Twenty-two

You've got to fight for what you believe in. You have to finish what you start.

—JACQUELINE KENNEDY, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1961–1963)

I
screamed and spun toward my attacker. Using the force of my entire body, I slammed my elbow into the side of his head. It was an effective move I'd learned in a self-defense class Jack had encouraged me to take at the end of the summer.

It was a slam, slam, slam. Three quick blows.

Unlike the rubber dummy in the class, which just bounced back to take more, my attacker threw his hands up and fell backward, landing hard on the sidewalk.

“Casey . . . stop . . .” he wheezed.

I stumbled away from the man who'd grabbed me. I was already digging around in my purse for either my phone or my bottle of homemade pepper spray when I recognized him. “Jack?”

The lying, cheating creep! I pulled my arm back to hit him again.

He threw up his hands. “Casey! Casey! It's me!”

“I know.” I started to swing.

“Please, let me explain.”

I lowered my arm. “What do you want?”

“Damn, that's an effective move.” He rubbed the side of his head. “Didn't you hear me calling your name?”

“No, I didn't. What do you want?”

“I should have remembered your ears turn off when you're upset. Steve told me that he saw you running out of The Underground.” He paused to rub his head again. “What you saw—”

“You don't have to explain.” I didn't want to hear his excuses. Or his lies.

Jack never lied
, a voice in my head reminded me.

I huffed at that annoying voice.

Okay, so Jack didn't lie. That was even more reason I didn't want to hear what he had to say, especially if he was going to tell me how he'd met another woman. I certainly wasn't in the mood to hear him tell me
that
.

I offered my hand to help him to his feet.

“Where's your pepper spray?” he asked. “Not that I want to be dosed with that fire potion again.” I made my own pepper spray from the habanera peppers I grew on my kitchen windowsill.

“It—It's in here somewhere.” I dug around in my purse some more.

“That thing is large enough to hold a compact car.”

I tested the weight of it in my hand. “It would have made a good weapon. I'll have to remember that next time.”

He rubbed the side of his head and grimaced. “Hopefully I won't be on the receiving end. If you're walking the streets alone, it's a good idea to keep your pepper spray and cell phone in an outside pocket of your purse or, better yet, in your pocket.”

He sounded as if he really did care.

“You don't have pockets in that dress, do you?” And a smile creased the corners of his lips as he looked at me in a way that made me feel all warm and tingly and . . . Ohhh, he shouldn't do that! I was still furious with him!

“You look good.” His voice deepened. “
Really
good.”

“What are you doing here?” I asked with an impatient tone. “You obviously had more important things to do than to worry about me. I've been trying to get in touch with you, but you ignored my calls.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. It had been so thoroughly smashed the screen had been reduced to a spiderweb of glass. Wires were sticking out of its side. “I've not been able to take calls.”

“I saw you,” I said. “I know you were at that bar with someone else.”

“I know. Steve told me he saw you running out. And that you were upset. Did you really think I wouldn't come after you?”

Not able to bring myself to look at him, I studied the neighbor's flowering clematis vine. Small white flowers covered the iron fence lining the sidewalk. I spotted the beginnings of a powdery mildew infection on the deep green leaves closest to me. Cutting off the infected parts and spraying a solution of baking soda and water would probably do the trick of keeping the powdery mildew from spreading, especially so late in the season.

What was I doing? Was it really that much easier, and safer, to focus on my neighbor's gardening problems than to focus on the very real problem in my personal life?

Hadn't I always done that?

Was gardening a means to keep everyone in my life at arm's length? It was my grandmother who had encouraged me to join her and my aunts working in the garden. They had been worried about me after my father's abandonment and my mother's death.

After a chaotic childhood of being hustled from one place to the next, often in the middle of the night, I'd found solace in the regularity of the seasons and in the steady rhythm of my grandmother's and aunts' hands as their nimble fingers weeded and snipped. Working out in the garden had become both a safe haven and a lifeline to the only family left to me.

It still felt like a lifeline to my sanity. But what if I no longer used gardening as a bridge to humanity but as a wall?

If my interest in the clematis climbing my neighbor's fence was any indication, the answer to that question would be an unequivocal yes.

Even so, I kept staring at the clematis's white flowers because if I looked at Jack, if I gazed into his honest green eyes or saw how perfectly his arms would wrap around me and comfort me, I might convince myself to believe how he planned to explain away why I'd seen him kissing another woman. Lord love me, I wanted to believe he wanted me and no other. I wanted to believe I'd hallucinated the entire kissing episode at the bar.

“If you were at the bar, why didn't you come over and ask me to explain myself? Why did you run away?” he asked.

He expected me to say it, that I saw him kissing that extremely beautiful woman? Well, I couldn't. I just couldn't.

“Casey, please. Can we go to your place? I want to talk about this. Will you let me in?” he asked.

I hugged myself as if my sweater couldn't keep away the cold and shook my head. I feared if I spoke aloud, my voice would betray the storm of emotions whirling inside my chest.

“I know what you think you saw back at the bar,” he said. “But it's not what you think.”

What else could it have been? I pinched my lips even more tightly together.

“Simone is my ex-girlfriend.”

He stepped closer.

Unable to trust myself, I stepped back.

He followed.

“Casey, she's not been part of my life for over a year now. I don't know why, but she refuses to accept that. I only agreed to meet with her because she found out about you and threatened to contact you. She . . . she's kind of unhinged. I don't trust her.”

His nearness made me ache to reach out to him. I tightened my grip on my sweater's sleeves.

He touched my shoulder. “I told her that she needed to move on with her life.”

“You kissed her.” My voice cracked.

“She kissed
me
.” His hand moved up to my neck. “I didn't want her to. If you had stayed a little longer, you would have seen me tell her in no uncertain terms that she was no longer welcome in my life. She knows about you. And she's”—he hesitated—“angry I've moved on. She smashed my phone.”

“I can understand why you'd want to be with her. She's beautiful.”

“Casey,
listen
to me.” He caressed my cheek. His lips moved closer to mine. “You're the only woman I want in my life.”

“But she's so—”

His lips covered mine in a long, sensual kiss that made me tingle all the way down to the tips of my toes and had the power to make me forget my name, the street I lived on, everything. “She's not you,” he said. “You are the most beautiful woman I know. Inside and out. You are gorgeous. And kind. And smart.” A smile teased the corners of his lips. “And you're dangerous to be around. You keep me guessing. You make me feel alive. If you haven't figured it out already, I love that about you.”

I could have drowned in his kind green eyes. I drew a long breath. This was the Jack I knew . . . and trusted. He never lied. He would never try and hurt me.

If I kept holding back on him, I would lose him.

I wanted Jack in my life. I drew in another deep breath.

It should be like peeling off a bandage. I'd feel better once I got the words out. I just needed to do it. I needed to tell him how I felt.

“There is something that I want to tell you. I . . .”
Like removing a bandage
, I told myself and took a deep breath.

“Is that why you came to the bar looking for me?”

“W-Well, no. I came to the bar tonight because of Nadeem.”

“
Nadeem?
What does he have to do with this?”

“You remember those threatening text messages I've been getting?”

“How could I forget?”

“It's Nadeem. He's been sending them. I caught him as he tried to stick a threatening note to my front door.”

“I knew he couldn't be trusted. What did he say to explain what he was doing?”

“He didn't. He ran away.” Jack seemed surprised by that. He started to question me about what exactly Nadeem had said, but I still wanted to peel that bandage off our relationship.

“Jack, wait. There's something else I need to tell you.”

His brows rose. “Something else?”

“Yes.” I screwed up all my courage. “I hope you are telling me the truth about your ex and about your feelings for me because I . . . um . . . I'm starting to—”

“
What the hell is Nadeem up to now?
” Jack grabbed my shoulder much like he had right before I'd sucker punched him, and he pulled me deeper into the shadows cast by a large oak street tree.

We both watched as Nadeem emerged from his basement apartment. Dressed from head to toe in black, he looked like a cat burglar on the prowl.

“Is that a gun?” I whispered. There was something cylindrical in Nadeem's hand. But it was too dark to tell exactly what it was.

Jack didn't answer. His body had gone rigid as he watched Nadeem make his way toward a sleek black Jaguar parked at the curb.

Nadeem looked left and then right, as if making sure no one was watching him. He unlocked the car, opened the driver's side door, and climbed in.

“We should follow him,” I said, expecting Jack to argue it was too dangerous or that we should let the police handle the investigation.

He didn't. “My Jeep is parked around the corner. We need to hurry or we'll lose him.”

My fingers linked with his. Jack flashed a heated smile in my direction as we took off running down the street. I couldn't help smiling back. My heart pounded in my chest from the excitement of the chase.

We were going to catch Nadeem in his nefarious web and clear Gordon's name. I could feel the certainty of it coursing through my veins.

Together, Jack and I could do anything. But I still needed to tell him how I felt . . .

• • • 

Jack's jaw tightened as he guided the Jeep around a corner and entered a quaint suburb about a half hour outside the downtown area. The heavy traffic coupled with Nadeem's flashy new Jaguar had made it easy to catch up to and follow him.

As soon as we'd entered an area with less traffic, Jack cut the lights and kept a fair distance between him and Nadeem's Jag.

The grid of streets led us past aging one-story bungalows, many with trucks parked on the lawn or a sedan rusting as it sat up on blocks in a short driveway.

A timeworn canopy of oaks created long shadows that seemed to swallow Nadeem's sleek black Jaguar as he pulled farther away from us.

With each street we'd turned down, Jack's expression darkened until he looked positively furious.

I sat in the passenger seat of Jack's old Jeep, feeling pretty grim myself. Jack took a corner too sharply, making the springs in the old seats squeal. We should have been home, exploring our relationship, working out this mess with his ex. Instead we were in the middle of the suburbs following a man who may or may not have killed Frida and who'd definitely been sending me threatening notes.

“He's probably driving out into the burbs to visit friends,” I said.

“Unlikely. He's dangerous. And he's up to something.”

“But is that
something
murder? Why would he send me threatening texts even before he killed Frida? Perhaps there's another reason he's trying to scare me?”

“As you'd pointed out, he was in the garden when Frida was murdered,” Jack reminded me.

“Yes. So was Lettie. And she's researching the treasure, too.”

“And he has the covert training.”

“Well . . .” There was no arguing that. Lettie didn't have the same killer skills Nadeem was purported to possess. “And you think he killed Frida in order to be the first one to find Thomas Jefferson's missing treasure and steal it?”

“You're the one that came up with that idea. I don't know what he's up to, but whatever it is”—Jack pointed to a yellow bungalow on the corner as a shadow moved across the neatly mowed lawn—“I'm going to find out.”

Nadeem's Jaguar was parked several houses away. Jack pulled to a stop behind it.

We surveyed the yellow house. I held my breath, half expecting Nadeem to jump out of the shadows and demand to know what we were doing. I knew then I wouldn't make a good private detective. I felt too antsy, too self-conscious. Every sound made me jerk with a guilty start.

There were no lights in the windows or illuminating a front porch that spanned nearly the entire front of the house. It was a small home, but cute with iconic Arts and Crafts–style trim. “No one's here,” I said.

“Looks that way,” Jack agreed, his jaw tightening even more. “The porch light should be on, though. I wonder if Nadeem cut the power.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Jack held up his hand. “He's gone around to the back of the house.”