Free Flowerbed of State by Dorothy St. James Page A

toward H Street, he’d only seen the guy from behind and at a distance. So while he tried to be helpful, he really didn’t have much to add to my rather vague description.
    Throughout the process Turner impatiently tapped his foot and scowled. I got the feeling he was plotting ways to make my life at the White House miserable. But I was just being paranoid, wasn’t I ?
     
    BY THE TIME WE WERE FINISHED, I FELT SO wrung out and achy I went straight home, took the maximum recommended dose of extra-strength painkillers, and crawled into a hot bath with the intention of floating in a cloud of lavender-scented bubbles until summer.
    But oh, despite the thick pillows of steam rising from the lavender-perfumed water in the antique claw foot tub, the hot bath did nothing to wash away the chill that had crept into my bones. I shivered and sank a little deeper, submerging all but my nose in the water’s warm embrace.
    The gloriously renovated bathroom blended antique charm with modern luxuries such as towel warmers and radiant floor heating. The bath sat at the top of the stairs on the third story of the 1890s three-story brownstone where I lived in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. It was just two miles from the White House. Most days I walked to and from work.
    My roommate, Alyssa Dunn, and I rented the upper two floors of this architectural treasure. The landlord had given us a reduced rate in exchange for my promise to revive the property’s long-neglected garden. I had plans to bring it back to the height of nineteenth-century elegance.
    “Casey? Are you home?” The bathwater covering my submerged ears muffled my roommate’s already gentle voice. “Casey?”
    I sat up and sucked in a quick breath as the water clinging to my skin quivered in the sudden chill. “In the bathroom,” I called.
    “I brought home gado-gado salad.”
    “Really?” I reached for my towel and, rising like Venus from the ocean, wasted no time drying off. As I pulled on a floral pink satin pajama set, a decadent gift from Aunt Willow, my mouth watered at the thought of devouring the Indonesian vegetable salad of potatoes, cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, and boiled eggs drenched in a spicy peanut sauce.
    I loved it. Alyssa didn’t. She must have purchased my favorite dish in hopes of bribing me.
    Now don’t misunderstand me. Alyssa, who hailed from bustling New York City, was the perfect roommate. I loved her to pieces. She always paid her half of the rent on time. She kept the apartment meticulously clean. And as a congressional aide to the elder statesman Senator Alfred Finnegan, also from New York, her hours at the office tended to run longer than my own.
    But her idea of getting back to nature was watching a wildlife documentary on TV. And like the senator who’d employed her, she was somewhat ruthless in everything she did. So the fact that she’d brought home my favorite peanut-buttery Indonesian dish had me wondering. What did she want?
    “I saw on the news there was some excitement at the White House this morning. A mugging-turned-murder in Lafayette Square? Finny seems to think there’s more to the story than what the reporters are saying,” Alyssa said as I entered the kitchen.
    She leaned over a white take-out box and plunged a large serving spoon deep into the box’s depths. Her shoulder-length black hair fell over her face like a curtain.
    Her suit—very similar to the one she’d picked out for me, except hers was black and mine was gray—still had that fresh from the dry cleaners look despite the long day she’d put in at the senator’s office.
    She was about my height, five years younger, and constantly complaining about the fifteen extra pounds she’d gained since moving to D.C. three years ago.
    She glanced up from the gado-gado she’d been spooning onto two plates from the take-out box. Her light brown eyes filled with expectation. “I don’t suppose you know more about what happened than what’s being reported on