Eggsecutive Orders

“I said Kap was involved. Listen, please. The two of them are meeting today.” He started talking very quickly. “I have a source.”

“Why tell me?”

“Because another one of my sources trusts you. And through you-through your mother, to be precise-I can gain access to Kap.”

This was getting totally out of hand. I would not allow him to involve my mother. “I’m done,” I said loudly. I excused myself to make my way through the line of waiting people, then slipped my employee ID through the card reader at the gate. “Good-bye.”

“Kap and Cooper have ties to the Chinese government. They took Minkus out.” His words were tinctured with an air of desperation. “I have a source that can prove this. I know I’m right. And you’ll be reading about it in my column soon. Why not help me? You like all that attention, don’t you?”

I passed the guard in the front gatehouse, who had been watching my animated movements with a look of concern. Giving him a little wave, I said into the phone: “No, I don’t. And to be perfectly frank, I’m convinced that Liss is not more.”

Before he could say another word, I hung up.

“Sorry,” I said, stripping off my jacket and do

Cyan waved me away with a mixing spoon. “You’re hardly late. I just got here myself.”

“What are you working on?”

She brought me up to speed on breakfast preparations. She had gotten almost everything done already-so her protestation that she’d only just arrived really didn’t ring true. I gave silent thanks for having such a reliable staff to depend on, then felt the immediate crush of disappointment when I remembered Bucky’s situation.

“Howard Liss called me this morning,” I said as I pulled an asparagus and artichoke frittata out from under the broiler. I eased it onto a serving plate and looked up just in time to see Jackson walk in.

The head waiter smiled. “Ready to go?”

“Just about.” Cyan sprinkled a little ci

With all the recent upheavals, I thought that it would be nice to treat them to their particular comfort foods this week. I garnished the plates with fruit and edible flowers. “There you go.”

Jackson took off, plates in hand, and Cyan and I cleaned up. “Howard Liss called you?” she asked. “Why?”

I tried to summarize his ramblings as best I could, but in the end all I could say was, “The man has crazy ideas. I’m ashamed to say I stayed on the phone with him as long as I did. I should have hung up immediately.”

“You’re just too polite, Ollie.”

“And it gets me into trouble.”

Cyan laughed. “Tom wouldn’t argue with that.”

My breath caught.

Her voice lowered. “What happened?”

I shook my head and started to pull out recipes for the next day’s meals, but she stopped me with a firm hand on my arm. “Talk to me.”

“We have a hundred things to do before Easter di

“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 u

“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 gri

“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 di

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 i