The Scarlet Pepper Read online

  We were halfway to the gate when the door from the West Wing press room swung open to release a steady stream of reporters. There must have been an evening briefing.

  “Do you know what’s going on?” Francesca asked.

  “It’s probably just a late briefing on the budget negotiations.” Even so, I wondered if a crisis had erupted somewhere in the world and if it would affect the upcoming harvest events. It amazed me how a skirmish half a world away could upend even the White House grounds office’s schedule.

  “I haven’t heard about any breaking news events.” Francesca scowled at the approaching reporters. “I do hope you’re right that it’s about the budget debate and that it doesn’t have anything to do with Bruce.” She drew a deep breath. “Or me.”

  “Those rumors are about you, aren’t they?” I asked. Francesca represented the epitome of grace and good manners. My grandmother would love her. “What did you do?”

  Under the glow of the White House lighting, Francesca’s healthy pink glow drained from her face as she watched the number of reporters swell. “I can’t be here.”

  “Facing them would suck the power right out of the rumors. I know. Remember when Griffon Parker targeted me this spring?” I tried to catch her arm, but she pushed my hand away and hurried toward the security gate.

  “Ms. Calhoun!” a reporter called.

  Great, Francesca wouldn’t stop and talk with me now. Not with a reporter dogging my heels.

  “Ms. Calhoun!” the reporter called again.

  Although the grounds crew would sometimes chat with the press, official contact had to be approved through either the communications office or the East Wing.

  Quite frankly, with all the talk of scandals lately and the “Watercressgate” article, I had no desire to talk with anyone in the press corps. For all I knew I was about to stumble into a political briar patch.

  So even though my grandmother had taught me better manners, I pretended I didn’t hear my name being called as I rushed through the northwest gate’s security barriers and jogged to catch up with Francesca.

  Lafayette Square (which throughout its history has been used as a graveyard, an army encampment, and a zoo) was relatively quiet tonight. The long-term protesters were there. Connie, a nuclear arms protester, had lived in front of the White House among her large, handmade poster board signs for the past three decades. Beside her was the new unfriendly guy, who wore a camouflage hat pulled low on his head. He sat in a battered lawn chair and held a handwritten sign propped up in his lap that read, “Every American Deserves a Safe Workplace.” A small handful of tourists milled about. The stifling humidity must have chased everyone else indoors.

  “I’m sure it’s not as bad as you think,” I said as I caught up to and matched Francesca’s long stride.

  “It is,” she cried. “I can’t face it. I can’t face them.”

  Her whole body began to tremble. “They know, don’t they? That’s what the press conference was about. Bruce will be devastated. I—I can’t face him. I can’t face either of them.”

  “Why? What did you do?”

  “Please, Casey.” She picked up her pace. “I can’t talk about it.”

  I hated to let her run away in such distress. “We don’t know what Frank Lispon said at the press conference.”

  “Frank!” She used his name like a curse. Tears coursed down her perfect cheeks. She pushed me away and turned her head the other direction so I couldn’t see her. “Frank,” she moaned.

  “Ms. Calhoun!” That darn reporter had followed me into the park and was fast closing the distance between us.

  Francesca darted behind a statue of Andrew Jackson sitting astride a horse.

  “Miss Calhoun! I’ve a source who insists the First Lady’s organic garden is a farce. Would you like to comment on that?” The reporter’s voice boomed across the park.

  Grimacing, I whirled around to face my accuser. “That news article was nothing but a pack of lies.”

  An older man in a tweed suit with hunched shoulders and a stooping back rushed toward me. His determined stride was quick and jerky. He had a pinched expression around his eyes as if he was too proud to admit he needed glasses.

  I don’t know if it was his personality or his looks, but whenever I saw him, he reminded me of a pesky weasel that tore plants out of garden beds just for the fun of it.

  “Griffon Parker.” I wrinkled my nose with distaste. “You’ll have to request an interview with the East Wing. It’s unfair of you to ask me questions. You know I’m not in a position to comment.”

  “But you’re in charge of the First Lady’s gardens,” he pressed.

  “You’ll have to submit your questions to the East Wing,” I repeated. Chief Usher Ambrose Jones, who’d spent nearly all of his adult life working in some capacity at the White House, had taught me the technique. Calmly and professionally repeat your point until the other side gives up.

  Unfortunately, when I turned to look for Francesca, Parker stuck to my side like a prickly sandspur.

  “Come now. You wouldn’t want tomorrow’s story to be one-sided,” he threatened. “Let’s be honest here. Claiming the First Lady created an organic vegetable garden is good PR, but it’s not real. My source tells me—”

  “Before you write this glorious exposé of yours, do some research,” I said, feeling the blood rise to my cheeks. I didn’t care what his source was telling him. His source was wrong. “The First Lady’s vegetable garden is not an organic garden. No one at the White House ever said it was an organic garden. We’re utilizing organic practices. There’s a difference. Google it!”

  I jogged away from him before something unladylike slipped out of my mouth. My face burned with frustration and embarrassment.

  Good gracious, I shouldn’t be allowed within a mile of the press, especially not Parker. Why couldn’t I learn to keep my mouth shut? Why did I let him get under my skin?

  Now when he’s writing up his story tonight, all he’ll remember is how the assistant gardener snapped at him.

  Instead of biting his head off, I should have calmly and professionally asked for more information. Who was his source? What exactly had his source told him? If Parker had a source who was criticizing the First Lady’s garden, that was something I needed to know.

  Was his source the same person who had fed that other newspaper its information for “Watercressgate”?

  Now I would have to swallow my pride, go back, and find Griffon Parker to do just that.

  I spotted the weasel leaving Lafayette Square. With his head turned down and his gait more jerky than usual, he looked as agitated as I felt.

  A beautiful dark-skinned woman dressed in a crisp navy blue suit appeared out of nowhere. She flicked her black hair, tinged with deep auburn highlights, out of her face as she followed Parker. She remained at his side dogging his every step as he’d done to me.

  Good. I was glad he was getting a taste of his own medicine.

  She was slightly taller than my five feet seven and yards more glamorous. Her shoulder-length hair hung perfectly straight like pressed silk. It was clear by her tight expression that Parker had done something to make her unhappy. Either that or she’d been sucking on lemons. She stopped and raised both her hands in the air with a wide, but graceful, gesture as she spoke.

  I wondered what he’d done to upset her.

  “It’s none of my business,” I reminded myself.

  “Look at her.” Francesca suddenly appeared at my side. She grabbed my hand and dragged me closer.

  “Who is she?” I asked.

  “What does she know?” Francesca whispered.

  “You can’t do this, Parker,” we heard the woman say as her voice rose.

  Parker ignored her as he stepped onto the section of Pennsylvania Avenue that ran between the White House and Lafayette Square. This part of the road was permanently closed to all but foot traffic. He scurried down the pedestrian street toward the much busier Seventeenth Street.


  “You stole my research!” she shouted after him.

  “You can’t prove it,” he hollered back.

  “You’re the only one who could have taken those papers from my desk. You had no right.” She followed him, her heels clacking against the pavement.

  Parker drew a breath, straightening his hunched shoulders. When he turned to her, the cold look in his beady black eyes made me draw back. “I don’t know who you slept with to get here, little girl, or if you’re here to meet the company’s racial quota, but I do know you don’t have the balls to take my place. You can’t even hold on to your precious research,” Parker growled.

  The woman raised her slender hand to slap him, but hesitated. She looked at her hand held at the ready and smiled.

  Francesca moved us even closer as the woman spoke, her voice low and hard. “I’m not so sure the CEO of Media Today would be happy with your performance right now, especially after he hears about how you—”

  “Don’t threaten me,” Parker snapped.

  “I’m not. I’m—” She spotted Francesca and me and closed her mouth.

  Parker took the opening and scampered down the street like an oversized rat. I wanted to follow.

  Stay out of it, my pesky inner voice warned. Their argument was none of my business. I needed to go home. I wanted to go home.

  “Wait up,” Francesca called. She grabbed my arm and held on tight as she chased after the female reporter.

  Chapter Four

  Things don’t turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.

  —JAMES A. GARFIELD, THE 20TH PRESIDENT OF

  THE UNITED STATES

  FRANCESCA gave me a hard shove just as we caught up with the dark-haired, picture-perfect reporter in front of the white-bricked Blair House.

  Windmilling like a madwoman didn’t save me. I tripped over both my feet and plunged into the reporter. She gave a cry of alarm and wrapped her arms around my shoulders to save us both from landing in a heap on the ground in front of the White House’s official guesthouse.

  With a frustrated shake of her head, the reporter demanded—in colorful words I won’t repeat—to know what the devil I wanted.

  I glanced around. This was Francesca’s game, not mine. Where had she gone?

  “I’m sorry I fell on you like that,” I said, still looking around for Francesca. I’d never known my fellow gardener to be so slippery.

  The press credentials hanging from a lanyard around the reporter’s neck read, “Kelly Montague, Media Today.”

  So this was the television reporter rumored to take Griffon Parker’s place? I silently wished her success.

  “Yes? Can I help you?” Kelly tapped her high-heeled shoe. “I’m in a hurry.”

  “It’s Griffon Parker,” I blurted out.

  She folded her arms across her chest and waited for me to continue.

  “He’s causing a problem for a friend of mine.” I looked around for Francesca again. Why did she run off like that? “Come to think about it, he’s causing trouble for me, too.”

  “It seems no one in D.C. is safe from him,” Kelly quipped.

  “No kidding. He’s a menace, and he’s writing an article attacking a friend of mine. If she could find out what the story was going to be about, I’m sure she could use that information to do some advance damage control.”

  “Yes?” Kelly raised her perfectly arching brows. “What do you expect me to do?” She started to walk away.

  “Well, I…” This wasn’t going as smoothly as I’d hoped. “I…um…the argument you were having with Parker just now, I was wondering if it had something to do with the Dearings. I overheard you say that Parker took some papers of yours. It wouldn’t happen to have anything to do with Bruce or Francesca Dearing, would it?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kelly picked up her pace. Her quick, no-nonsense stride made it clear that she didn’t want me to follow.

  I narrowed my gaze and watched her hurry away in the same direction Griffon Parker had gone. There was no reason for me not to believe her. And yet I was certain Kelly Montague had just lied to me. Why else would she have jerked as if I’d sucker-punched her at the mention of the President’s Chief of Staff and his wife?

  THAT NIGHT I DREAMED OF RICH CHOCOLATE scents and Paris. Warm and comforting, the dream had been going along quite well until I tumbled headfirst into a deep pit in the middle of the South Lawn, a pit where the First Lady’s vegetable garden should have been.

  An angry wind slapped me over and over as I clawed at the pit’s walls, reaching for the edge that moved farther and farther away from me. Or was I falling deeper into the hole?

  Tired and humiliated, I tossed my head back and cried out for help.

  That was when I noticed a man cloaked in dark shadows that wrapped around him like a trench coat. He stood at the edge of the pit, his shoulders straight, and watched my struggles. Why didn’t he reach down and pull me to freedom? All he had to do was stoop a little.

  “Who are you?” I cried.

  The man didn’t speak or move. He remained at the edge of the pit until several streaks of lightning blazed across the sky.

  The stricken face staring down at me was one I’d long ago blotted from my memories. I hadn’t seen him for nearly thirty-five years, and yet I saw him now as clearly as the day he’d tweaked my nose and walked out that apartment door and never returned.

  Suddenly I was no longer the successful organic gardener on the brink of her fortieth birthday, but a frightened six-year-old living in Phoenix, Arizona, and James Calhoun was my world.

  “Daddy?” My voice belonged to a fragile six-year-old girl who no longer existed. “Daddy? Why won’t you help me?”

  Why did he abandon me? I needed him. Why did he walk out on Mom and me?

  “I neeeed you!”

  He could have saved my mother. He could have saved me from—

  Another flash of lightning lit up his face again. This time it wasn’t my father staring down at me. It was Jack’s.

  I woke with a start.

  The bed, the dresser, the cracked plaster on the ceiling of the brownstone’s bedroom gradually became real again. I didn’t dare move for fear of falling back into that nightmare and becoming trapped in the pit again. I stared at the plaster ceiling, finding solace in the silence of the night.

  Unlike in my dream, no storm raged outside my window, and I had no father.

  Not anymore.

  He’d left ages ago.

  I inhaled the thought with my breath, practicing the relaxation techniques a childhood therapist had once shown me.

  He’d left his only child unprotected.

  I breathed out.

  He’d left me to die.

  Don’t think about the rest. Push the door closed. Push the door closed. Don’t remember.

  It was dangerous to remember.

  I pressed my fists to my eyes.

  Ever since the murder of that poor Treasury official this past spring, the ironfisted control holding back my past had started to weaken. It was worse at night when I dreamed.

  I sucked in another deep breath.

  Don’t sleep. Don’t dream.

  Breathe out.

  Learn from the past. Guard your heart. Don’t ever let it get hurt like that again.

  I choked a bit on that last breath, but I shook my head and snapped out of my funk.

  Focus on the present. Griffon Parker was making everyone’s life miserable. That was a real problem that I could grab on to. I needed to do something to stop Parker from destroying Francesca and the First Lady’s garden.

  But what?

  But what?

  After a night of tossing and turning and worrying, the next morning I was no closer to coming up with a scheme to thwart Griffon Parker than I had been the night before. As soon as I woke up, I scoured the newspaper, finding no mention of scandal on the front page or the whole front section. I flipped through the entire newspaper, scanning ev
ery article.

  Not one article mentioned Francesca, her husband, Bruce, or the First Lady’s kitchen garden. Surprisingly, none of the articles in Saturday’s paper had been penned by the perpetually unfriendly Griffon Parker. We’d been given a day of reprieve, a day to figure out how to best Parker at his own game. Instead of relief, I felt all the more anxious to meet with Francesca and brainstorm.

  “We’re late,” I called to my roommate, Alyssa Dunn, while pacing the front entranceway.

  “Five more minutes,” Alyssa called back.

  “We don’t have five minutes.” I trotted up the narrow Victorian staircase. “We’re already five minutes late. The ladies can’t get started without me, since I’m bringing the plants.”

  Alyssa and I rented the upper two floors of a three-story brownstone in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. The building, built in the 1890s, was an architectural treasure with its ornate scrolling oak woodwork. Located just two miles from the White House, I often commuted to and from work on bike or on foot.

  Pretty much everything within the capital city was within walking distance or a short Metro ride away from my front door.

  “You’re going to have to drive us. It’ll take too long to walk. Alyssa! I mean it.” I banged on her bedroom door. “We need to leave now.”

  “I’m coming.” The bedroom door swung open just as I raised my fist to bang on it again. Alyssa breezed into the upstairs hallway as if we had all the time in the world.

  She’d pulled her shiny black hair into a simple ponytail. But that was just about the only thing simple about her polished look. Although she often complained about the fifteen pounds she’d gained since she’d moved to D.C. to work as a congressional aide for Senator Alfred Finnegan, I couldn’t see where she was hiding it. The white sundress with bright yellow sunflowers accentuated her curves, curves in all the right places that I wished I possessed.

  Flawless makeup, tanned legs, and hemp sandals from a designer I knew she’d mentioned, but for the world of me I couldn’t recall (nor cared to recall)—Alyssa looked stunning.

  “What are you wearing?” Alyssa and I each pointed at the other’s outfit.