Recipe for Disaster Read online

  “I’ll drive down tonight.” He rolled up the paintings and carefully slid them back into the tube, except he couldn’t quite make them fit the way they had before. Griffin pulled the paintings back out and laid them on the table before turning the tube upside down and shaking it. A white cloth fell to the floor.

  “What’s that?” Leslie asked.

  Griffin reached down and carefully picked it up, shaking it out as he did so.

  “It’s a dish towel.” His gut clenched when he caught sight of the monogram on the towel. “From the White House kitchen.”

  The group was somber as Griffin shoved the towel into an evidence bag. “I’ll head out now if you don’t mind, Director,” he said.

  “Be sure and brief the agency director first thing,” Director Kass said.

  Nodding to the field office director, Griffin headed for the SUV he and Silva had arrived in forty-five minutes earlier.

  “Agent Kellar,” Leslie called after him.

  He stopped in his tracks and turned to face the FBI agent who was his sometimes lover. The stark contrast of the bright lights of the warehouse bay against the dark night left her in silhouette so that he couldn’t make out her expression.

  “Don’t forget to brief me as well,” she commanded, hands on her hips.

  He was pretty sure that was code for “call me.” Griffin wasn’t in the habit of calling any woman except his mother. And despite a few exerting nights in bed, Leslie didn’t warrant being added to his phone log. It seemed a trip to DC couldn’t have come at a more strategic time.

  Chapter Two

  “It’s not even seven a.m., and you’re already on your way to work?” Marin Chevalier tried not to cringe at her cousin Ava’s condescending tone. “You really need to get a life.”

  Marin stepped off the escalator at the Farragut North metro station wishing her cousin had called a few minutes earlier. That way she would still have been deep in the tunnel, and the call would have gone straight to voicemail. She didn’t normally avoid her family, but, with Ava’s wedding a little over a week away, her cousin was more cranky than usual.

  “I have a busy few days ahead of me, Ava, and you know I do my best work when the kitchens are quiet. Besides, if you’re up, it can’t be that early.”

  Looking both ways, she crossed K Street and headed into Farragut Park, mingling in with the line of federal workers trudging toward their offices. The sun rose over the Washington Monument, making it look like a giant pinwheel.

  “I’m headed to spin class, Oompa Loompa,” Ava said. “Something you’d have time for if you got out of the kitchen once in a while.”

  Waiting for the light to cross I Street, Marin checked her exercise tracker on her wrist. She suddenly regretted skipping the added steps that walking the entire way from her condo in Dupont Circle would have given her. Ava always had a way of making Marin feel inferior. It didn’t help that her cousin had called her by the childhood name their grandfather had dubbed Marin when she was a pudgy adolescent; one who would rather spend time in the kitchens of her family’s hotels than by the pool with her much prettier—and always more popular—cousin.

  “You can’t fight genetics,” her grandfather would say, patting his formidable belly. “You’ve got the Chevalier genes, Oompa Loompa. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a build that, when you are older, men will call statuesque, while your cousin got her mother’s dark, beauty-queen genes. Let’s just hope Ava didn’t inherit the woman’s cheating ways,” he’d always add with a disappointed whisper. Aunt Vanessa had left Uncle Clay and the family compound in the Garden District of New Orleans when Ava was just seven. Marin couldn’t remember whether her former aunt was on husband number three or four.

  “Is your mother coming to your wedding?” The words slipped out of Marin’s mouth without forethought as she passed the Hay-Adams Hotel and waited to cross H Street. It wasn’t like her to antagonize Ava. As hateful as her cousin was to Marin sometimes, she always took the high road. Not because she was more forgiving than Ava, but because Marin didn’t have the patience to argue with her domineering cousin. It was always easier just to let Ava have her way.

  The light changed and she walked along the sidewalk bordering Lafayette Park. Ava was quiet on the other end of the phone and a sliver of guilt wormed its way up Marin’s spine. Her cousin’s childhood hadn’t been unhappy by any means, but her relationship with her estranged mother was always a source of tension.

  “She hasn’t responded yet,” Ava finally said. “But that’s why I’m calling. I’m working on the seating chart, and you haven’t let me know if you’re a plus-one.”

  Marin sighed as she passed the statue of French General Rochambeau, pointing with his right hand in the direction she was walking. Ava’s wedding was destined to be the society event of the year. Over three hundred guests were expected to attend the nuptials at their family’s flagship hotel in New Orleans’s French Quarter.

  “I’ll be extremely busy that weekend working on the wedding cake.” Marin crossed Pennsylvania Avenue and followed two West Wing staffers through the metal detectors of the White House’s northwest gate. She gave the officer from the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service a smile as he scanned her ID. “I don’t think it’s fair to bring a date when I’ll just end up neglecting him.”

  The officer winked at her. “I’d be okay with you neglecting me on a date,” he whispered as she passed by him.

  Marin blushed furiously, but her confidence received a much-needed boost after her cousin’s comments.

  “What you mean to say is that you don’t want to bring a date, so, as usual, you’re using your status as White House pastry chef as an excuse not to,” Ava said. “Well, Rich and I don’t really care about the wedding cake, so let me take that off your very broad shoulders. I’ll have one of the chefs here prepare it. Everyone else in the wedding party will have a plus-one. I need you to do the same so that the aesthetics at the head table aren’t off. Do you think you can manage that?”

  Ava’s words stopped Marin in her tracks, which was a good thing. She was about to pass through Stonehenge—the area of the White House lawn between the driveway and the press briefing room where networks set up their cameras on tripods for live broadcasts. Several of the cameras had their lights shining on reporters who were likely on-air with the morning news programs. The last thing Marin needed to do was have a meltdown on the phone with her cousin while passing in front of the cameras broadcasting to half the kitchens in America.

  “You can’t do that. It’s my gift to you and Rich,” she protested. “Every bride wants a gorgeous wedding cake. At least they ought to. And who cares about the aesthetics of the bridal party’s dinner table?”

  “I do,” Ava snapped. “So please, if you want to contribute something to my wedding day, you’ll bring a date.” And with that, her cousin hung up.

  Stunned, Marin stared at her phone. Had Ava—the woman who was practically her sister—just said that to her? Tears stung the back of her eyes and Marin wasn’t sure if they were due to anger or hurt feelings. Not that it made a difference. Ava never cared about other people’s feelings.

  She shoved her phone into her purse and—checking the television cameras—trudged up the driveway toward the north portico of the White House.

  “Hey, you!”

  Marin looked up to see Diego Ruiz, her sous chef, heading toward her from the opposite end of the driveway. “You keep stomping like that and someone might mistake you for one of the nut jobs crashing the building,” he joked. “This place is a magnet for psychos, you know.”

  Her friend’s teasing had the desired effect, calming Marin so her steps became less forceful and her shoulders relaxed. “Sorry. The only psycho is my cousin. I’m afraid she’s become a bit of a bridezilla. Now she’s insisting that I bring a date to her wedding. Or else.”

  They passed under the covered part of the driveway and climbed the steps. “The nerve of that wench,” Diego said. “Insisting that you bring someone to dance with, get tipsy with, and possibly get naked with. Nope, not a good time at all.”

  Marin laughed at the face Diego made. She stopped briefly to rub the soft ear of one of the dogs that routinely patrolled the grounds of the White House. Otto was a favorite of Marin’s. The dog wasn’t technically on duty any longer; he’d been retired for a couple of months. His handler was in charge of training the new dogs and he often brought Otto to work with him to use as a model for the canine recruits. The big Belgian Malinois sat quietly next to the entranceway, his body on guard, but an ever-present twinkle in his whiskey-colored eyes.

  “Good boy, Otto,” she whispered as they passed. “What are you doing here so early anyway, Diego? It’s rare to see you at the House before nine.”

  “Just between you and me, my boss is a bit of a pastryzilla. She has me making hundreds of marzipan bunnies for Monday’s Easter egg roll.” He playfully nudged her shoulder with his as they entered the wide entrance hall.

  “Good morning, Miss Chevalier. Mr. Ruiz.” The chief usher nodded to them both as he exited the usher’s office on their right. “What’s this about the Easter egg roll? All is proceeding according to plans, I assume?”

  “The pastry kitchen won’t let you down, Admiral,” Marin said. It was her first Easter at the White House, and she was determined that the desserts and centerpieces would be better than they ever had been. Of course, she could manage to create several hundred marzipan figures, thousands of mini-cakes and cookies, but she couldn’t find the time to meet an eligible bachelor to take to her cousin’s stupid wedding. Irony was a bitch.

  “See that no one is let down, Chef.” With a brisk nod, the chief usher headed past them and climbed the main staircase to the second floor, presumably for his morning
meeting with the First Lady.

  “That guy gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Diego whispered.

  “That’s because you still think you’re in the navy and he can have you swabbing decks or whatever it is you sailors do.”

  Diego shot her a bemused look. “I spent four years in the Navy Mess downstairs,” he said. “The only water I ever saw was the swimming pool in the West Wing. And that was just fine by me.” He gestured toward the stairs the chief usher had just ascended. “I didn’t think I’d still be answering to an admiral when I got out.”

  Admiral Sedgewick had retired from the navy to take the position as chief usher two years ago when President Manning’s term began. As such, he was in charge of the executive mansion and its staff, including Marin and Diego. Running the White House was similar to running a ship, Marin supposed. Aside from his formal manner, she had no complaints about her boss.

  “Speaking of the Navy Mess,” Diego said, “I came in early to catch up with a friend still working there. He’s having a bit of a hard time. Do you mind if I swing by the West Wing for a few minutes? I promise my marzipan menagerie will be finished on time.”

  “Go ahead. I’m headed upstairs to the pastry kitchen to whip up some sugar cookie dough for this afternoon. I promised Arabelle I’d help her make some bunny cookies for her preschool class.”

  Diego grinned at her. “The President’s granddaughter has you wrapped around her cute little finger. It’s no wonder you don’t have a life.”

  Marin halted in her tracks and stared at him. “You too, Diego?”

  “Hey, I just call ’em like I see ’em.” He gave her a jaunty salute before taking the steps, two at a time, down to the ground floor.

  Turning on her heel, Marin headed in the opposite direction, passing by the Red Room before cutting through the majestic State Dining Room. Even after working in the White House for nine months, Marin was still awed by the history that surrounded her every day. Normally, she would stop and spend a few minutes daydreaming about the men and women who had dined in this room, wondering what they had eaten and what they had worn to dinner. Or she’d glance at the stunning portrait of a pensive President Lincoln that hung above the room’s marble fireplace, trying to guess what the man was thinking.

  Today, however, she kept her head down, pondering her life—or lack thereof. Unlike her two brothers and three cousins, she’d eschewed a career in the family hotel business, preferring a pastry kitchen to a boardroom. At twenty-seven, Marin had studied with some of the best chefs in the world, including two years in Switzerland at the Richemont Centre. When First Lady Harriet Manning, Marin’s godmother, asked if she would come to Washington to work at the White House, Marin jumped at the opportunity.

  Little did she know how challenging and demanding the job would be. In the months since she’d arrived in DC, she’d yet to meet her neighbors much less anyone to hang out with. Her circle of friends included Otto, the guard dog; Diego, her gay sous chef; and Arabelle, an adorable five-year-old with a tendency to suck her thumb when she thought no one was looking. Still, Marin loved it here at the White House.

  Rounding the corner into the butler’s pantry, Marin bypassed the elevator that would take her to the third-floor office she shared with the executive chef of the large White House kitchen. Instead, she headed for the spiral staircase that led to her domain; the pastry kitchen tucked away on a mezzanine floor just above the pantry. She would start on the cookie dough while she pondered her dilemma.

  “Oh—” She cried out when she collided with a man hurrying down the narrows stairs. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  Marin was surprised to confront anyone this early in the morning. The only people who used these stairs were the kitchen chefs, an occasional usher or housemaid. The man staring down at her from two steps above was unfamiliar to her. At first glance, he appeared to be one of the contractors who delivered the food to the White House. Deliveries of supplies to the pastry kitchen were normally made via the dumbwaiters, but it wasn’t unusual for the heavier items to be carried up by contractor staff. With the Easter egg roll days away, the chefs had been ordering a multitude of supplies.

  With the stranger’s sudden appearance, it dawned on Marin that among the nearly five hundred staff working in the mansion, there had to be dozens of eligible men around. She didn’t need to scour Washington DC for a wedding date. All she had to do was interact with some of the men working in the White House.

  Starting with this guy.

  She studied him carefully. Dressed in dark chinos, a navy windbreaker and a dark ball cap adorned with an obscure logo, she guessed he was good-looking—if one liked guys with finely chiseled features arranged in a cold sort of way. Still, Marin treated him to the five-thousand-dollar smile her parents had paid for when she was thirteen.

  “Good morning? Are you lost?” Wishing she’d paid more attention to how Ava attracted men like bees to honey, she hoped her teasing sounded flirtatious.

  His lips formed a tight line as he slowly shook his head. Without a word, he pressed his slender frame against the railing and gestured for her to proceed up the stairs.

  “Oh,” Marin said, the giddiness at her plan fading. “Um, okay.”

  The close confines of the winding staircase forced her to pass within inches of him. The odor of cabbage and beetroot wafted off of him and Marin cursed her keen sense of smell. Their eyes met when she slid past him. Marin had the feeling of walking over someone’s grave when she peered into his icy blue gaze. His pupils looked so empty and devoid of any emotion that Marin was happy to put some distance between them when she climbed a few steps farther.

  “Have a nice day,” she called out, unable to suppress the manners two years of cotillion had drilled into her.

  He hesitated briefly as if wanting to say something, before he quickly turned. His gloved hands shifted his messenger bag on his shoulder and he disappeared down the stairs.

  “He doesn’t count,” Marin mumbled to herself as she climbed the last few circular steps. “He’s obviously painfully shy. Not to mention a little creepy. Surely, there’s at least one half-decent guy somewhere in this big house.”

  Spirits buoyed, she hurried into the pastry kitchen only to let out a squeal when she nearly collided with yet another unexpected person. At least this time it was someone she knew. Bita Ranjbar, Arabelle’s maternal grandmother, was standing in front of the glass cabinets housing an assortment of marzipan and sugar figures. The woman’s rich perfume permeated the narrow, low-ceilinged room.

  Bita was a frequent guest of the Manning family at the White House, usually when the First Lady had a busy travel schedule. The president’s son, Clark, Arabelle’s father, was enrolled in a demanding neurological fellowship program at the Washington Institutes of Health. Clark and his wife, Farrah, lived with Arabelle on the third floor of the mansion. As far as Marin could tell, Farrah wasn’t much into motherhood. The former fashion model chafed at the “Mommy and Me” circuit, preferring instead to run around with her jet-set friends, much to the dismay of the president and his wife. It was left to Bita and Harriet Manning to raise their granddaughter, along with a doting White House staff. Not that Marin minded spending time with the little girl.

  Marin leaned against one of the long counters in front of a bank of ovens trying to get her heart to settle into a normal rhythm. At five-foot-eight without her hat, she always felt a little claustrophobic in the room carved out between two floors. Right now, though, she felt as if the kitchen was closing in on her. “That’s the second time in less than five minutes someone has scared the bejesus out of me.”

  Bita arched a perfectly made-up eyebrow at her. “Second time?”

  The woman’s thick Persian accent always reminded Marin of the housekeeping supervisor in her family’s hotel in Constantinople. Not that she could picture Bita vacuuming or dusting. She’d never seen the older woman looking less than perfect. Her jet-black hair was always stylishly coiffed; her makeup was impeccable, and her clothing, designer. It was quite a feat to look that good at seven-twenty in the morning. Marin looked down at her baggy black uniform pants, her sensible Skechers, and her turquoise T-shirt from The Gap in disgust.