Oak and Dagger by Dorothy St. James Page B

there was no coffee to be found in the house because Alyssa had finished the pot I’d brewed, I scooped up my backpack. “I’ll see you this evening, Alyssa. Try not to get into the middle of any international intrigues while I’m gone.”
    â€œJoke all you want, but mark my words. Something bad has already happened. Frida was murdered. And if that spy living in our basement is any indication, there’s more trouble coming,” Alyssa warned as I hustled out the back door. “Trouble spreads like weeds whenever there’s a spy involved.”

Chapter Eight
    You’ve got to fight for what you believe in. You have to finish what you start.
    â€”JACQUELINE KENNEDY, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES (1961–1963)
    W HEN I stepped onto the townhouse’s back landing, I spotted a man scurrying down our apartment’s back steps. He was dressed in a camel-colored trench coat. His lapels were pulled up around the ears, and a camouflage hat was jammed low on his head. I only glimpsed the backside of him as he jumped down the last few steps and stumbled.
    â€œNadeem?” I called. The man limped to the basement apartment’s back door and yanked it open.
    â€œNadeem? What are you doing?”
    He must have heard me, but he didn’t even look up before stepping inside and slamming the door closed behind him.
    Had Alyssa been right about our new downstairs neighbor? Was
Nadeem
a spy?
    The man had been wearing a long trench coat, the kind spies wore in bad movies. But then again, it was raining.
    I stepped back inside and grabbed my rain slicker and umbrella from the hook on the wall behind the door. Determined to find out why the new assistant curator was lurking at our back steps, I rushed back outside and down the steps to stand at the door the man had disappeared through.
    â€œNadeem!” I beat my fist against the door. “Nadeem! I know you’re in there. I saw you.”
    When no one answered, I moved along the side of the brownstone building to a small window that I had to stand on my tiptoes to peek into. The window looked into the basement apartment’s kitchen. The lights were off. A dish and cup had been neatly lined up on a drying towel laid out next to the sink. On the round linoleum kitchen table sat a fat file folder with a White House emblem on it.
    What I didn’t see in the apartment was Nadeem.
    Had he run through his apartment to escape out the front door, or was he hiding?
    Either way, I was getting no answers by standing there.
    I shivered as I walked to work through the chilly rain, but it wasn’t the rain that made me feel cold. It was the icy prickle of fear.
    First, Frida’s murder and Gordon’s near-fatal attack. Then I overheard Bryce and Thatch talking about how Aziz had believed Frida’s murder was somehow connected to the meetings with Turbekistan. And now Nadeem, a new member of the White House staff, was acting strangely. How could I not be worried?
    Had Nadeem been listening at the back door to Alyssa’s and my conversation? A conversation we’d been having about him?
    I needed to find out what was going on.
    And I knew exactly how to do it.
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    â€œJack?” I was surprised he’d answered his cell phone. His shift at the White House had started an hour ago. I checked the readout of my cell phone, worried I’d misdialed.
    â€œCasey?” he asked. “Is everything okay? Are
you
okay?”
    He sounded genuinely concerned, which was sweet.
    â€œI’m fine.” I’d ducked into the Freedom of Espresso Café. The barista waved and started to make my regular mocha cappuccino as I shook off my umbrella. On my way to the checkout, I picked up a bag of organic shade-grown hazelnut blend coffee beans.
    â€œAnd Gordon?” Jack asked. “How’s he doing?”
    â€œNo change there.” I paid for my coffee at the counter and took a deep sip.