Curly jerked a thumb. “Get.”

Vince started toward the Red Room, but Manny tugged his arm. “We got to check it from downstairs, first.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Paul clapped his hands together, thanked us all, and left.

Curly looked like he was ready to depart, but I stopped him. “I think Marcel needs help getting this into the Red Room. Don’t you, Marcel?”

Our pastry chef seemed to become suddenly aware of the recent departures. “I cannot do this alone. Where are the other two?” he asked.

If laser-eyed stares could kill, I would have been dead on the floor. Curly worked his jaw. “Let’s get this over with,” he said, taking a position at one end of the house. He ordered Yi-im to the opposite side and told Marcel to push the cart.

“But there are so few of us,” Marcel said. “How can we-”

“Just push the damn thing,” Curly said.

Marcel closed his mouth, fixing the other man with a glare of condescension. “But of course, you have no appreciation for art.”

Curly ignored him.

We all quickly realized that Marcel had neither the upper body strength nor the inclination to push the heavy load across the massive hall. I was about to suggest that we ask a couple of other staffers to help when Yi-im took over for Marcel, and I took Yi-im’s position. As though the huge structure weighed nothing, he pushed it smoothly and quickly into the Red Room, where we left it in the room’s center. Kendra had given us strict instructions not to place it on its display table yet. That would come later, after she’d ensured that everything was exactly where she wanted it.

As we left Marcel to coo over his creation a bit longer, and Yi-im to continue to assist in his quiet, capable way, I tried one of the room’s lights. It went on, nice and bright. “Looks like your guys got the power going in here again.”

“Couple of idiots,” Curly said.

We were in the cross hall now. “Hey,” I said, turning. “The Red Room is right above the Map Room.”

Curly didn’t stop walking.

“Curly.”

Impatiently, he turned.

I took that as an invitation to continue. “The Map Room is the room Gene was working on when he got that power surge.”

“So?”

“Remember? The day of the electrocution, the Map Room had gone powerless.”

“I don’t remember,” he said.

“That’s right,” I said, recollection dawning on me. That was the day Curly’s wife had been taken to the hospital. “You weren’t here. The Map Room didn’t have power. Gene thought it had been taken care of, but when it wasn’t, he set out to fix it himself.”

Curly’s calloused fingers skimmed his scar. “I don’t know what this has to do with anything.”

“Don’t you see? Whatever killed Gene may be happening again. Remember those floating neutrals I asked you about?”

Curly scowled, throwing his hands violently sideways-as though swatting a giant fly. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You learn one little thing, you think you’re an expert. I told you once: You show me your electrician’s card, and only then I’ll start listening to what you have to say.”

“But-”

“Just…” He shook his head, and held up his hands, swatting the air again. This time when he turned and left, I didn’t call after him.

BACK IN THE KITCHEN, I GAVE MY TEAM THE news. “Slow down, everyone. Today’s reception has been canceled.”

Relief brightened their faces as they all stood back from their tasks and took a breath. Agda stared a long moment. “I stop now?” she asked.

“We all stop now,” I said.

“What are we supposed to do with all the extra?” Bucky asked. “Look at how much we’ve already done.”

He had a point. There were hundreds of appetizers lined up on enormous baking sheets, waiting to be served. “Let’s freeze what we can,” I said, letting them know that the event had been rescheduled for Tuesday. “And we’ll take the rest down to the cafeteria to share.”

“Tuesday?” Bucky said. “Won’t that be a madhouse?”

The general public-those who had the foresight to prearrange a visit-and congressional leaders and their families were all due here to vie for photo-ops at the opening ceremony. The event today was supposed to have been for the local press and other highfalutin magazines. Dubbed the Decorator Tour, the Sunday event traditionally gave the world a sneak peek at the year’s White House extravaganza.

“I can’t even begin to worry about it,” I said. “Since the decorators are coming Tuesday now, too, we’ll just have to add what we can from today’s menu to what we have planned. We’ll be fine.”

I kept my tone light, but I was concerned nonetheless. Today had been the day I agonized over because of food preparations, but I was also preoccupied with safety concerns. Last night Tom and I had discussed how today, Sunday, had been the bomb’s target day. We agreed that if the Secret Service believed a threat still remained, they would have canceled today’s event.

Now suddenly it was canceled.

I swallowed before continuing, rationalizing that if there were any real threat, we would have been evacuated by now. With the president out of town and the White House closed to outsiders, the likelihood of an attempt was cheerfully slim. The same held for Tuesday, when the First Lady would open the White House to the public-the president was scheduled for a trip to Berlin. No president meant no bomb.

That gave me comfort. And to be honest, I was happy for the recent change of plan. In fact, I was feeling better than I had in a very long time. President Campbell was safe for now. And the next possible chaotic situation-Tuesday’s opening-would happen without him in town. That should buy us some safety.

Fingering the note in my pocket, I realized that things were not completely perfect. The note from Sean convinced me that those in authority needed to look more closely into the manner of his death. But who could I talk to? Tom would have been my first choice, but he was away and wholly incommunicado until Wednesday.

As if reading my mind, Cyan wandered over and spoke in a low voice. “That document Sean left you,” she said. “Are you going to do anything about it?”

“Did you read it?”

When she flushed, I had my answer. “It doesn’t sound like it was written by someone about to commit suicide,” she said.

“I didn’t think so either.”

Inching closer, she whispered. “You always seem to get in the middle of things, Ollie.” When I reacted, she was quick to add, “That is, things seem to happen to you-around you. All the time.”

She was starting to sound a lot like Gav.

“I can’t help that,” I said.

Keeping her voice low, she said, “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings. It’s just that I know you well enough to know that you’re probably trying to figure out what happened to Sean all by yourself.”

I shook my head, but Cyan wasn’t finished.

“All I’m saying is to be careful.”

“I am being careful.”

She gave me a wry frown. “I know you don’t believe Sean killed himself, but if he didn’t… well, that means somebody else killed him. If you’re trying to investigate this, and you’ve got a note like that”-she nodded toward my pocket-“you could be asking for trouble.”

“I’m not trying to investigate.”

Her look said she didn’t believe me. “You’re always poking around, Ollie. We both know that.” Her wide-swept glance took in the rest of the kitchen. “We all know that.”

Bucky, Rafe, and Agda were beginning to shoot curious looks our way. It wasn’t often two people held a private, whispered conversation in front of the giant mixer. I grabbed Cyan’s elbow. “I swear, I’m not touching this one.” I gave a helpless shrug. “I don’t even know where Sean lived. And so far, there hasn’t been anything I can do to help anyone in this investigation, even if I wanted to.” My hand curled around the note in my pocket and I pulled it up high enough for Cyan to see a corner of it. “Well, at least not until now, that is.”