Either she’d just died of sudden-onset type 2 diabetes from her sweet tea… or she’d been poisoned.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Storming the Castle
The White House guard patted Jimmie down and waved him through. “You forgot your phone in your office?” the guard said. “Jesus, I’d leave my dick somewhere ’fore I left my phone.”
Jimmie snorted. He hadn’t needed a cover story about returning to the White House to pick up his phone, but he couldn’t very well tell the truth: that he was here for a heist.
After Emma Blythe had croaked on the floor of the Ritz Cracker Barrel, he’d backed up slowly from her lifeless body-first in horror and then in panic mode. Whoever had poisoned her drink could have been coming for him next.
Commotion spread fast across the celebrity-packed restaurant. While Dr. Oz shrieked in panic from under a table, George Clooney leapt forward to administer CPR to Emma’s lifeless body. But there was no bringing her back. Not even George Clooney could breathe life back into the former Miss Universe.
So Jimmie had backed off, slowly at first. Onlookers were more concerned with taking selfies with Clooney and the unconscious woman than with watching the man she’d been dining with. When he’d backed up all the way to the edge of the dining area, he’d spun around and bolted out the door.
The crowds on the sidewalk had thinned considerably. He ran until he was out of breath, and then he jogged. It wasn’t until the White House was in view that he realized he’d dined and dashed. It was a miracle he hadn’t been shot and killed by a good hillbilly Samaritan, like so many others who had tried the same stunt at Cracker Barrels across the country.
Jimmie held his badge up to the door inside the Reagan Library. The lock clicked open. His clearance level hadn’t been restricted… yet. It occurred to him that this could be the last time he ever set foot inside the White House. He couldn’t hide the fact that he’d been at dinner with a British spy. Clooney wouldn’t testify against him, but somebody at the Ritz Cracker Barrel would. If he wasn’t just buried in the backyard with Lester by the time of his trial.
The one good thing about Emma biting it, he supposed, was that he was no longer beholden to squash the story about Lester’s death. There was that shadowy figure on the GIF, which cast major doubt on Trump’s version of events. Cat, with her intimate knowledge of Lester, would provide the missing pieces to the puzzle. She was a great editor-she’d always seen the holes in his stories that he was too close to see. All he had to do was trade the worthless recorder to the SJWs for her.
Jimmie took the subbasement’s service elevator to the second floor. While it didn’t go all the way to the third floor, the elevator at least got him into the family quarters as stealthily as possible.
He stepped off the elevator and into a long service corridor. It appeared to run adjacent to the length of the State Dining Room. He passed a white sign reading REMEMBER: COOK MEAT BEFORE SERVING!!! taped to the wall next to a stack of boxes labeled TACO BOWLS. He spotted a tray of silverware and paused to pocket a serrated knife. It might come in handy if the Lincoln Bedroom was locked.
Or if you run into trouble, he thought darkly.
He entered the dining room. In the center of the tables were cornucopias, packed with what looked to be every product made by Little Debbie. He poked his head into the hallway outside. To his left were the Green, Red, and Blue Rooms-or, since Trump had ordered them redecorated, the 10K, 14K, and 24K Rooms. To his right were the stairs that led up to the presidential bedrooms on the renovated third floor. The only problem was the Secret Service flunky standing guard. The hairless one.
Jimmie closed the door. He hadn’t been expecting the Secret Service up here, since the president was halfway to Mar-a-Lago by now. Even in the prez’s absence, though, they probably still had to guard the living quarters. Wouldn’t want any wayward busboys sneaking off with a pair of presidential boxers. Talk about illegal briefs.
Jimmie searched the room for something to distract the Secret Service agent. The agents were generally unflappable, but Jimmie had one thing going for him: It was almost nine o’clock. That meant it was nearing the end of the agent’s shift. He had to be mentally clocked out already. How to distract him, how to distract-
Jimmie snatched a handful of cut flowers from a vase on the nearest table. He could… offer them to the Secret Service agent? Ridiculous. The man out there was a legit trained killer. He might just take a shot at Jimmie for the hell of it, should he come at him with flowers like some peace-loving hippie.
Jimmie hoisted the ceramic vase. It was heavy enough to knock the agent out, if he ran at him fast enough and clocked him across the side of the skull. While Jimmie wasn’t the quickest cat around, he had the element of surprise on his side.
Unfortunately, he’d also end up serving time for assaulting a federal agent if he was caught. And he would be caught, whenever the next agent showed up for their shift. He set the vase down on the table. The table…
No, not the table. The tablecloth.
They think the family quarters are haunted.
Jimmie used the knife to cut two eyeholes in it. He threw the white cloth over his head. It draped down, covering his body. He looked at his reflection in the metallic vase.
He looked exactly like a person wearing an ill-fitting sheet. In the hallway, to a pair of tired eyes filtered through sunglasses, he might look more like a ghost.
Or a member of the KKK, you nitwit.
He didn’t have much choice. He just hoped the agent wouldn’t try to shoot him, because that would suck. He didn’t want to get shot-not tonight. Not ever, but definitely not tonight. He had to get his girl back (not that she was his girl again, not yet) and possibly pull the sheets off the largest scandal Washington had ever seen.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Something Strange in the Neighborhood
Jimmie stepped into the hallway. He could just make out the Secret Service agent through the eyeholes. Jimmie slouched down and raised his arms inside the sheet. The agent, standing guard some twenty yards away, took no notice.
“OooOooOooOooooOOoOOOO,” Jimmie moaned.
Grow Some Fucking Eyebrows swung his head in Jimmie’s direction. There was a deeply unamused expression on his face.
Jimmie froze. He’d suddenly lost his bravado. This was, undoubtedly, the height of his stupidity. He’d done some dumb things before, but this one took the Little Debbie snack cake.
The agent lowered his sunglasses to get a better look at the phantasm.
Jimmie waved his outstretched hands from side to side, swaying in the hallway as if he were at a USA Freedom Girls for America concert.
The agent stared at him. Either the man was frightened to his very core, or he was in such a state of disbelief that he couldn’t move a muscle.
“OooOoOOOOooOOO,” Jimmie said, getting his nerve back. “OoooOoOoOOOoooOOo.”
The agent finally pushed his sunglasses back into place. “Very funny, Junior,” he said. “Now get to bed. Your dad wouldn’t be very happy to hear you were up this late.”
Jimmie dropped his arms. Junior? Of course. The agent thought he was Donald Trump Jr. up past his bedtime. This was the first that Jimmie had heard about the forty-year-old still living at home, but why not? If Jimmie’s parents lived in the White House, he’d do the same.
He walked past the agent and hiked up the tablecloth so that he didn’t trip while walking up the steps. The agent grabbed him by the arm and spun him around.
This ghost just got busted.