Chapter 10

CHAPTER10

“Come on, Chef Marin. We’re gonna miss the Easter bunny.” Arabelle tugged on Marin’s arm, while the child’s mother and father wandered hand-in-hand a few feet behind them.

It was Easter Monday and the South Lawn of the White House was awash with nearly five thousand people enjoying music and chasing Easter eggs under a cloudless blue sky. A line of thousands of more guests snaked around the Old Executive Office building; all of them waiting for their allotted time to enter Presidential Park. The crowd buzzed as Arabelle passed, many eager for a glimpse of the president’s granddaughter and her parents. The family’s Secret Service detail surrounded them closely as they all traipsed across the grass. Marin caught sight of Otto calmly sitting on the perimeter of the lawn as his handler kept his vision trained on the visitors.

An unexplained tremor ran down Marin’s spine. She attributed her jumpiness to the stress of the past few days. Still, the tense faces of the Secret Service and uniformed guards reminded her of the dangers a group this large posed to the First Family. Nothing is going to happen today.. She’d had her fair share of tragedy to last for quite some time. Still, her anxiety left her on edge.

Marin also felt awkward mingling with the guests while dressed in her chef’s uniform. She would prefer to be in the kitchen helping the staff prepare for the luncheon celebrating the sponsors of the event. The busywork would certainly help keep the thoughts of Arnold, Seth, and even Anika, at bay.

But Arabelle was insistent that Marin join her on the White House lawn. Not only that, the First Lady still had Marin under house arrest, adamant that she take it easy. The problem was, with the Secret Service out in force, Marin couldn’t help but worry she might cross paths with Griffin. He was on the top of that list of people she was trying hard not to think about.

Especially after dreaming of him the entire night.

The sleeping pill had been effective, helping Marin fall asleep; she’d missed all of Easter Sunday. But the drug had done nothing to block out the powerful dreams she’d experienced. Each time her subconscious replayed the image of Seth’s body, however, Griffin was there to rescue Marin. Just as he did the day of the fire. He comforted her the way he had the night of the attack on the Metro, with a firm hand at her back and a strong shoulder to lean on. In her sleep, Griffin did not abruptly abandon her, either. Instead, he slowly made love to her, cherishing her, protecting her. Marin woke up more agitated than when she’d gone to sleep, angry at how much she craved Griffin Keller’s presence.

Arabelle’s hand suddenly slipped from her grasp. Marin tripped as she reached to grab the child back. A strong arm caught Marin before she face-planted in the grass.

“Whoa there, gorgeous,” a familiar voice said.

Marin glanced around wildly. She blew out a relieved breath watching Arabelle scramble into the president’s lap. Arabelle’s grandfather kissed her on the head before continuing to read a book to a group of children seated on the grass in front of him; a crew of photographers clicking away behind them.

“Are you okay?” Griffin’s friend Adam asked, his arm still loosely wrapped around her stomach to steady her.

“Um, yeah,” Marin answered. “Just a little twitchy today, I guess.”

Adam studied her with his devil-may-care green eyes before slowly pulling his arm away. Today, he was dressed in the uniform of the president’s protective detail—a dark suit, a pin in the lapel, and an earpiece disappearing into the collar of his white shirt. And he was looking at her as if he couldn’t decide if she was a ticking bomb or a plate of nachos he wanted to devour.

Marin took a giant step back, adjusting her chef’s jacket as she did so. She longed to ask him if Griffin was near. Except she wasn’t sure whether she wanted Adam’s answer to be yes or no.

“Yeah, crowds have a way of making certain people twitchy,” he drawled.

She had the funny feeling Adam meant something else with his words, but before she could contemplate them further, Simon, one of the assistant ushers was at Marin’s shoulder.

“Excuse me, Chef Marin,” Simon whispered. “We’re setting up the tables for the luncheon. But we can’t seem to find the centerpieces.”

“Diego put them in the cold storage room with the flowers,” Marin said.

“Ah, mystery solved.” Simon nodded and turned back toward the White House.

“Wait,” Marin called after him. “Diego knew where they were. Why didn’t you just check with him?”

Simon shook his head. “He didn’t show up for work today, Chef.”

No!

There was that tremor running down her spine again. Marin dug her cell phone out of her pocket and hit Diego’s number. Her call went straight to voicemail. Adam’s hand was on her shoulder before she realized her whole body was shaking. There had to be a simple explanation for why Diego wasn’t at work. Although it wasn’t like him to just not show up. Especially on a day as busy as this one. Maybe he left a message on her office voicemail? That had to be it. She’d just go and check. And after that, she’d help out in the kitchen where she belonged.

Marin shook off Adam’s grip. “Simon, wait for me.”

The assistant usher glanced around anxiously. “The First Lady left instructions that you were to have the day off.”

Marin’s godmother was nowhere in sight. “Don’t worry about her.” Marin needed to keep her hands busy and her mind occupied or else she’d go crazy.

Adam reached for her arm again. “Marin, are you sure you’re okay?”

“No.” The word came out like a screech. “I’m not okay. People around me keep getting hurt, or”—she swallowed painfully—“or dying. Now Diego is missing. And I can’t seem to breathe normally. I can’t stand around doing nothing, waiting for Diego to show. Because he has to show up.” Swallowing a sob, she turned and rushed after Simon.

* * *

High atop the promenade circling the White House roof, Griffin watched Marin pull away from Adam and scurry after the assistant usher. Minutes before, she’d been wandering around the South Lawn, almost as though she were in a trance. Griffin hated how much his chest ached at the sight of her, bewildered and lost among the crowd. Damn it. He needed to keep his objectivity in check, and his mind focused on finding The Artist. The link was somewhere in this White House, he was sure of it.

His cell phone buzzed.

“You were supposed to stick to her like glue,” Griffin barked at Adam.

“Dude, I’m headed to the kitchen now,” Adam snapped. “But I thought you might want to know that she’s pretty rattled about her sous chef being AWOL.”

“Me, too, since I need some answers from him.” Griffin had spent twelve hours trying to track down Diego Ruiz yesterday. But the guy seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Adam swore into the phone. “Griff, you’re not listening—shit!”

A shrill scream pierced the air. The sound came from the west side of the lawn near one of the covered pavilions. Griffin watched as two of the K-9s darted through the throng of visitors. Secret Service agents quickly surrounded the president and his family. The snipers stationed around the perimeter of the roof trained their rifles in the direction of the scream.

“False alarm,” Adam relayed from the ground. “The agents in the vicinity said a woman thought she saw a damn snake. It was actually one of the electrical cables.”

Griffin blew out a sigh of relief, shrugging off the tension that seemed to have his shoulders in a permanent death grip. “Then maybe you should get back to keeping watch over Marin.”

“Now that’s more like it,” Adam chuckled. “This is a protective detail, not a surveillance detail. I’ll keep your girl safe, Griff, don’t worry.”

“Damn it, Adam, that’s not what I meant,” Griffin yelled into the phone, but Adam had already disconnected.

He stormed along the promenade around to the solarium, and into the center hall. Charging toward the stairs, he stopped dead in his tracks when he almost collided with Marin.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, nearly toppling back on her ass.

Griffin’s arms were around her before he thought better of it. “Careful.”

She went completely still. “Griffin.”

Just the sound of his name from her lips made him hard. They stood like statues for a long moment, gazing into each other’s eyes; the only noises around them were her fractured breathing and Griffin’s pulse hammering in his ears. Adam suddenly rounded the corner, shattering the moment. Marin jerked out of Griffin’s arms.

“Um, yeah. I’ll just make myself scarce.” Adam disappeared back down the stairs.

Marin pivoted on her heel and marched to her office. Since Adam had abdicated his surveillance—and it was a damn surveillance—Griffin had no choice but to follow her.

“Damn it, Diego, where are you?” she demanded as she slammed down the landline phone in her office.

Griffin leaned a hip against her desk. “Problem?”

The look she shot him shriveled his balls.

“You know, I do have a problem. Lots of them. And they all seemed to have begun around the time you showed up.” She jabbed a finger into his chest. “As I see it, Not-So-Special-Agent Keller, the way to solve my problems is for you to get the hell out of my office. And my life.”

He stared down at the finger still impaling his chest, because he couldn’t look at her and say what chivalry demanded he say. “Look, Marin, I need to apolo—”

“Don’t. You. Dare.” She punctuated each word with a fingernail to his pectorals. “Man up. You were into me the other night. Don’t lie about that. And don’t give me some lame excuse for why you suddenly had performance issues.” Her furious gaze fell to his crotch.

Performance issues?Griffin shot off the desk.

“Hold on a minute, Marin. I don’t have any ‘performance issues.’ Never have. Never will.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “So, you’re just a tease then? Good to know. On behalf of women everywhere, maybe you should get some help with that issue.”

The roaring in Griffin’s ears did nothing to drown out the loud guffaw from outside the office. He snapped his head around just in time to see Adam doubled over in laughter. Griffin slammed the door shut.

“Listen up, because I’m only going to say this once,” Griffin growled.

But Marin wasn’t listening. Instead, she was standing over her backpack holding a package wrapped in brown paper. The same one Griffin had shoved inside the bag two days before.

Marin’s voice was quiet. “Seth gave me this the other night. I was so upset about Arnold, and later, Seth, that I forgot about it.” Slowly, she turned the package over in her hands inspecting it for clues. “It’s not even marked. I wonder how he knew it was for me?”

Griffin suddenly went on alert. “Were you expecting one?”

“Not that I recall.”

Something about this package gave him the willies. “Let me open it,” Griffin commanded.

The look she shot him said she was going to argue, but she silently gave in, tossing the package on the desk. “Suit yourself.”

Griffin grabbed a pair of scissors and slit the brown paper, peeling it back to reveal a generic white shirt box. He tore off the paper and set it aside before carefully opening the box. Marin gasped at the sight of her bloodied chef’s jacket. Griffin lunged for her just as her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees gave out.

“Adam!” he yelled.

* * *

“Drink this,” Aunt Harriett urged.

Marin shivered. She already missed the feel of being cocooned by Griffin’s warm body. When she’d come to in his arms, she’d felt safe and protected—just like in her dream. His lips had been pressed against her forehead, whispering at her to wake up. Unfortunately, waking up meant that he deposited her on the sofa in the Yellow Oval Room with the eyes of seven people trained on her like she was a high school science experiment.

“I’m fine.” Marin instantly regretted her peevish tone. “But thank you, Aunt Harriett,” she added.

Leaning in on Marin’s other side, Terrie tried to wrap a blanket over Marin’s shoulders.

“You’re shaking,” the housekeeper said, pointing out the obvious.

Opposite from the sofa where the First Lady and Terrie were hovering over Marin, the FBI agent with the abundance of red hair and perky breasts leaned forward in her chair.

“Chef, we are sending your jacket and the box it was returned in to forensics.” She tried to reassure Marin. “Your name and the White House emblem are on the jacket. In all likelihood, this was just a good Samaritan who wanted to return it to you without getting involved.”

“My address is unlisted,” Marin replied curtly. Did this woman think Marin was that gullible? “And Diego is missing.”

“We are looking for Mr. Ruiz,” the admiral said. “I promise we’ll find him.”

Marin glanced over to where Griffin paced, his cell phone glued to his ear. Her traitorous body willed him to look over at her; better yet to come sit beside her, but he kept his eyes averted.

“I’m glad for the opportunity to finally speak with you, Chef,” the FBI agent said. “I wanted to ask you about your relationship with Wes Randall, the curator.”

Griffin stopped his pacing. His face was a stone mask as he stared down the FBI agent. The First Lady sat up a little straighter beside Marin. The rest of the room’s occupants—the admiral, Director Worcester, and Adam—seemed to be on the edge of their seats.

“My relationship?” Marin asked. “What exactly do you mean?”

The FBI agent glanced down at her iPad before speaking. “When we went through Mr. Randall’s emails, we found some correspondence between you and him regarding the Cezanne in the library.”

Marin tried to recall the many conversations she’d had with Wes over art. “Oh, you mean the ‘House on a Hill.’ It’s stunning, isn’t it? My grandfather owns the companion piece. He was thinking of donating it to the White House Historical Society as a gift. Grandfather hates for art to be split up. I relayed the information from Wes to my grandfather’s assistant. I never heard whether the other piece arrived yet or not.” She looked at the First Lady expectantly.

Aunt Harriett nodded. “Max’s gift is very generous. I believe he’s sending it later this month.”

“What about the Jackson Pollack piece in the map room?” the agent persisted. “Did you ever have occasion to discuss that piece with Mr. Randall?”

Marin’s temper was fraying. “Wes and I discussed a lot of art. It’s one of my passions. I don’t understand what this has to do with my bloody jacket and Diego being missing!”

Terrie draped an arm over Marin’s shoulder while Aunt Harriett patted Marin’s leg.

“I’m putting you on notice, Agent Morgan, tread lightly here,” the admiral warned.

“Tread lightly with what?” Marin practically shouted. “What is everyone talking about?”

“We believe Wes’s death may be related to some art thefts here in the White House,” Director Worcester explained.

Terrie gasped beside her, but Marin was more concerned about the eyes of the agents in the room trained on her, as if waiting for a response.

“Several pieces have been taken and replaced with very authentic looking forgeries,” the director continued. “Including the Cezanne and the Jackson Pollack.”

Marin flopped back against the sofa. “Wes wouldn’t steal any art,” she argued. “He’d spent the last twenty-five years in this house. Every piece here was like one of his children. I don’t believe he could be involved.”

“Me neither,” Terrie interjected. “There’s no way.”

“We don’t have any evidence linking him to the thefts,” the FBI agent admitted. “In fact, we think he might have become suspicious that some of the pieces in the White House are forgeries. He was concerned about the Pollack in particular. Chef, are you sure he didn’t say anything to you about that painting?”

Marin wracked her brain. “He asked me to meet him in the Map Room a few days before he died. He didn’t say he wanted to discuss the Pollack, though.”

“You didn’t meet him?” the FBI agent asked, her interest clearly piqued.

“When I got there, he was talking to Ari, the intern from the curator’s office.” Marin hesitated. “It sounded like Wes was upset with Ari. I didn’t want to intrude, so I left. When I came back a few minutes later, they both were gone.”

The FBI agent was scanning her iPad. “Why is this the first I’ve heard of this Ari person?”

“He’s a graduate fellow with the White House Historical Society,” the admiral answered. “He only works on Thursday and Friday.”

“I’ll need his contact information immediately,” the FBI agent insisted.

The admiral nodded. “Of course.”

“Chef, I understand you’re very knowledgeable about art and antiquities,” the agent went on to say. “Have you noticed anything unusual about the art work here at the White House?”

“No.” Marin shook her head. “But then again, I wasn’t looking. I just assumed everything here was as it should be.” She pulled the blanket around her shoulders, grateful for its warmth. The revelations of the past few minutes left her cold. Clearly, nothing in the White House was as it should be.

* * *

Leslie slapped her iPad down on the conference room table in the Secret Service director’s office. “This case gets crazier by the minute.”

“We’re missing something obvious here.” Griffin dragged his fingers through his hair.

“The only thing obvious is that there is a string of questionable events and dead bodies connected to that chef, whether she’s tripping over them or not,” Leslie said.

Griffin crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, she’s not a murderer.”

Slumping down into a chair, Leslie sighed dejectedly. “No, I don’t think she’s capable of killing anyone, either. And, unlike you, I’m not saying that simply because I want to sleep with her.”

“Can we cut the bullshit and discuss the case,” Griffin snarled.

Leslie chuckled as she held up both hands in surrender.

The director’s secretary stuck her head into the conference room. “Agent Keller, Detective Gerkens from Metro PD is on line two for you.”

“Thank you.” He picked up the phone and punched in line two. “Good morning, Detective, tell me you’re not calling just because you missed me.”

“Not particularly, but I wanted to let you and Agent Morgan know that the doorman’s body has been transferred to the FBI. The family has a lot of questions and they’re not happy. But after looking at the video surveillance tape, I think you and Agent Morgan might be right about his death.”

“Is there something specific on the video that makes you say that?” Griffin asked as he put the call on speaker.

“There’s a guy who showed up at the front desk who clearly didn’t want to be IDed.”

Griffin glanced over at Leslie. She arched an eyebrow in question.

“Let me guess,” Griffin said. “The guy was delivering a package.”

“Bingo. And it was for your favorite chef,” the detective added. “Any idea what might have been in there?”

“Her chef’s jacket that we used to soak up the blood in the Metro the other night,” Griffin explained.

The detective whistled.

“The delivery guy,” Leslie said. “Could we be lucky here and have him be a perp you already know?”

“Nah, this guy isn’t a local gangbanger. Based on how he handled this crime scene, he’s a professional,” Detective Gerkens answered. “We’ve got a BOLO out for him, but since he kept his face averted, it’s not likely we’ll find him. This guy’s slippery. You keep an eye on the chef, Agent Keller, you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you, Detective. She’s safe here at the White House.” But as the words left Griffin’s mouth, a tremor of uncertainty seized his gut.

Hanging up, Griffin powered up his iPad and opened up the email from Detective Gerkens. Leslie stood at his shoulder as they both watched the surveillance video.

“Stop!” Leslie commanded when they got to the part with the package. “That’s our guy.”

There was something familiar about the man hiding beneath the black baseball cap. Or maybe it was the baseball cap itself. The back of Griffin’s neck tingled when he remembered the jogger trailing Marin on the Mall. He’d been wearing a similar hat.

“Shit!” Griffin opened another file.

“What is it?” Leslie asked.

Griffin loaded the video of the stabbing on the Metro. He zoomed in on the assailant with the hoodie pulled over his head. The bill of a baseball cap was clearly visible. His hands shook when he reached into the file on the table and pulled out the picture of the paper delivery person spotted outside the curator’s house. Same sweatshirt. Same damn hat peeking out.

“I missed it,” Griffin murmured through the tightness in his throat. “She could have been killed.”

“Earth to Griffin,” Leslie said. “What are you seeing that I’m not?”

The fire. The pursuer on the Mall. The stabbing on the Metro. The deaths at the Dupont.

“Marin’s not our perp. She’s a target.” His chest constricted painfully. “And this asshole is still out there somewhere.”