“As soon as the Holland investigation is complete, I’ll be able to think about going to Ohio,” she said. “Once Nathaniel is back in town, I’ll know when I can leave.”

“But he returned two days ago. Didn’t you hear?”

She blanched. Nathaniel hadn’t raced to her side the moment he was back? “Where did you hear that?”

“He’s been holed up with John Wilkie, working on something. I stopped by to discuss tax revenue, but he was in a meeting with Nathaniel and a few other men I didn’t know. He told me he couldn’t meet until the Milwaukee project was launched.”

The word Milwaukee struck fear into her. If Nathaniel had already been back in town for a while, he might leave at any moment. It was mortifying to be left dangling by a man who couldn’t even be bothered to come see her after returning from Florida.

She stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I think I need to go see John Wilkie.”

Caroline mounted the steps at the Treasury Department and headed straight to Wilkie’s office. This building contained over two hundred rooms and a dozen different agencies. She had no idea where Nathaniel was stationed, so she marched straight to Wilkie’s office to find out.

“Nathaniel is very busy,” Wilkie said, glancing up from the papers on his desk.

“He’s always busy. I’d like to see him before he becomes busy in Milwaukee.”

Wilkie took off his eyeglasses and sighed in exasperation. “Don’t bother him, Caroline. He’s doing very important work. Leave him alone.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me where I can find him, or I’m delivering a basket of artichokes to the White House kitchen overnight, and you know I can do it.”

“Room 207,” Wilkie promptly said.

She headed off toward the stairwell. Her threat about the artichokes was serious, for Luke had finally confided how they had been smuggled into the White House. Partially finished ventilation tunnels in the basement had been abandoned when Ida ordered the White House renovations to stop. The tunnels were covered over but not fully sealed, and Philip took advantage of it. Now that plans for the west wing were back on, that gap would be closed, but Wilkie didn’t know that, and another delivery of artichokes would be a huge embarrassment to the Secret Service.

She walked up to the second floor and down an acre of marble corridors until she arrived at a small office with its door open. It was a tiny room, crowded with crates, file cabinets, and a small desk where Nathaniel sat engrossed in some paperwork. A brass plate on the door read Bureau of Counterfeit Detection.

“Back to your one true love, I see,” she said.