“And we’re ridiculously short-staffed until Bucky comes back,” she agreed. “But we can still afford a couple of minutes to talk. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s over,” I said simply. “I ended it.”
Cyan had chosen violet contact lenses today. Her purple gaze unnerved me, so I kept talking. “Tom’s job was on the line because of me. Craig Sanderson believes that pitting boyfriend against girlfriend is an effective deterrent to poking my nose into official business.”
“Sounds like it was more effective in driving a wedge between you.”
I gave an unhappy laugh. “It’s been a hell of a week.”
Cyan bit her lip, and I could tell she didn’t know what to say.
I patted her on the shoulder. “We’ll get through this.”
“You and Tom?”
“No. Our kitchen.” I settled myself on the stool in front of the computer screen. I needed to e-mail Brandy. “First things first. We have to arrange for getting all those eggs here. Even though we got a lot done already, we still have more to do.”
“Speaking of tons to do, we have two extra guests for lunch today.”
I clicked an open document. “It’s not on the schedule.”
“Paul called down here before you got in. I didn’t get a chance to update the file yet.”
“I’ll do it.” Hunching over the keyboard, I asked her for specifics. She dug a scribbled note out of her apron pocket and I turned to wait. “Phil Cooper and…” She shook her head. “I’m going to massacre this name. Zee… Zeno…”
“Zenobios Kapostoulos?” I stood up.
“How in the world did you know that?” Cyan stared at me.
Speechless, I replayed the tape of my conversation with Liss in my head as I paced the small area. He had been right-again. “They’re meeting with the president?” I asked. “Here? Today?”
Cyan nodded.
Liss hadn’t mentioned the president, but he had known about the two men meeting. What else was Liss right about? That Kap had been instrumental in Minkus’s death? The same guy who had taken my mother out on a date? My knees wobbled, and I eased myself back onto the stool.
Cyan, obviously shaken by my sharp reaction, kept asking, “What?” but I didn’t answer. She brought her face close to mine. “You’re scaring me, Ollie.”
I tried to put everything together, but I was coming up woefully short.
“We have Cooper’s information in our files,” Cyan said. I could tell she was trying to understand me, and when she couldn’t she tried throwing more information, hoping for a hit. “Paul says he’ll have this Zeno guy’s stuff sent down ASAP.”
“Good,” I said. “I can get a look at his dossier.”
“Who is this guy?”
“Kap,” I said. “The guy who’s dating my mother.”
“He’s coming here?”
Time was ticking and the longer we sat around talking, the worse things would get. Rather than answer her, I said, “We need help.”
She waited, frustrated dimples framing her mouth.
“I’ll tell you everything,” I said. “But first we have to get those eggs delivered here, and we need another set of hands in the kitchen.”
“But Paul won’t let us-”
“Call Paul. See if he’ll bring Henry back. Just for a couple days.”
Cyan grinned. “Ollie, you’re a genius! I’m sure Paul will agree to that.”
“Just remember, tomorrow is Easter. Henry may not be able to make it.”
Her cheer dimmed only slightly. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”
CHAPTER 21
LUNCH PREPARATION AT THE WHITE HOUSE should not be fraught with worry. But here I was, dropping utensils, spilling raspberry sauce, forgetting where I left the container of almonds, and having to re-confirm the oven temperature three times before I trusted I’d set it correctly.
We received Kap’s dossier. His occupation was listed as “consultant” and he was apparently self-employed. I wondered exactly what sort of consulting he did that brought him to the White House today.
It wasn’t just the fact that Liss had predicted this meeting that threw me off my game. And it wasn’t because of Kap’s alleged involvement in Minkus’s death-although I had to admit that was a big one for me to get my head around. I was upset, worried, and uncharacteristically frantic because we were serving a meal in the White House to Phil Cooper. Not only had he been one of the individuals present at Sunday’s disastrous dinner-according to Liss, he was one of the prime suspects. Like him or not, and I certainly didn’t, Liss had an uncanny knack for being able to find things out.
I could not let anything go wrong-not with the food-this time. But what if Cooper had bigger game in his sights? But I couldn’t go sounding the alarm to the Secret Service based on vague, unsubstantiated innuendo from a questionable journalist.
Cyan and I worked in almost total silence. In between lunch preparations, she and I also did our best to work ahead for tomorrow’s Easter dinner. But when I dropped yet another one of our tasting spoons, she gave out a strangled cry. “You’re making me nervous now.”
“What did Paul say about Henry?” I asked.
She stopped long enough to look at me. “That’s the fourth time you’ve asked me.” She glanced at the clock. “In the past two hours.”
I rubbed my forehead with the back of my hand. “I just can’t seem to concentrate.”
“You’re going to have to, especially if Henry can’t make it. Paul said he would call him personally. He’ll let us know when he gets an answer.”
“Of course,” I said, realizing I had heard this information already. “But I can’t stop thinking about how this luncheon meeting could go bad.” I swept my hand out, encompassing the room. “We have to make certain that nothing happens to the president’s food between the time we prepare it and the time it’s served.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
I shook my head. I didn’t know. “Where are they serving?”
Cyan gave me a look that made it clear I’d asked that question before, too.
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering. “The President’s Dining Room.” I stared down at the greens before me, looked up at the door, then studied the clock. “That will make it difficult.”
“Make what difficult?”
“What if we accompanied our creations?” I was thinking out loud here, but the more I talked, the better the idea began to sound. “We can tell the wait staff that we need to prepare this tableside-”
She looked shocked. “But we don’t.”
“Who’s going to argue with us?”
“The President’s Dining Room is in the West Wing!” she said, although she clearly knew I was aware of that fact. “Are you nuts?”
“No, listen.” I held up both hands, excited now. “The butlers will serve-just like normal. But we would be right outside the dining room, plating the courses just before they go in.”
“That’s crazy,” Cyan said. “What do you think you can possibly accomplish?”
“We’ll be able to ensure that the president’s food is safe. That’s paramount. There will be no chance for anyone else to have access to the food before it’s served.”
“You don’t trust our wait staff?”
“I do,” I said. “But call me paranoid. Something went wrong on Sunday, and we still don’t know what it was. All I know is that I’ll feel better if the chain of custody isn’t compromised. The only way I can be certain of that is to be there myself.”
“ ‘Chain of custody’? You’re starting to sound like a TV cop show.” She shook her head, but I noticed the glimmer of possibility in her eyes. “We’ll have to clear this with Jackson.”
“Not only that,” I said, my mind in hyper-drive, “we can maybe even get a sense of what’s going on in there. I mean, why are they meeting with the president anyway?”
“Ollie!” Cyan’s expression was one of utter disbelief. “You know that’s none of our business. Besides,” she added, her tone softening, “they’d never let us close enough to actually overhear anything. Not in the West Wing.”