Chapter Eighteen

Roses Are Red, Lester Is Blue

If he’d had time to hesitate, Jimmie would have balked at jumping into a flower bed filled with so many roses. Where there were roses, there were thorns. Even a boob like Bret Michaels knew that.

However, as he lay flat on his stomach under the cover of the flower bushes, Jimmie realized he hadn’t been scratched. He was going to have to dust the dirt off his suit, but there wasn’t a single thorn that had poked him. The flowers were fake. Every single one of them. No wonder the Rose Garden looked so majestic in late August.

Jimmie silenced his phone and rolled over onto his back. Looking up, his eye was drawn to some lettering on the underside of a rose petal: “Made in China.” Through the faux foliage, he could see that Trump had disappeared back inside, chasing after Victoria. What the hell had Jimmie been thinking? And more important . . . what the hell had she been thinking?

Something scurried through the dirt near him. Before he could even turn his head to check it out, the thing was on his chest.

The first family’s dachshund, Opulence, was staring him in the face. It yipped twice, shrill and piercing, then sniffed at his lips. The dog could probably smell the coffee on his breath. If it was looking for food, it would have to look elsewhere—Jimmie had decided to start showing up to work with an empty stomach to avoid any further “incidents.”

Opulence turned its attention to the paper bag in Jimmie’s hand.

“Not my tuna sandwich,” he mumbled. Though, really, what did he care? He was going to get seventy-five bucks every day to spend on food. He was going to pack the pounds on. The dog looked scrawny, and winter was coming.

The skinny wiener dog darted for Jimmie’s lunch bag . . . and pushed it out of the way. It started digging in the dirt. Looking for a bone it had buried? Maybe dachshunds weren’t into tuna salad.

The dog popped its head back up, and what it had in its mouth was not the bone Jimmie was expecting.

It was a human finger.

A gray, rotted human finger covered in dirt, but a human finger nonetheless.

Jimmie had a good guess whose finger it was even before he saw the gaudy golden ring on it. The inscription encircling the oversized ruby confirmed his suspicions: 1993 PULITZER PRIZE WINNER.

Connor Brent was right. The previous ghostwriter was most certainly dead.