EST Washington, D.C. Jada held her breath. What am I doing here? It felt like she had fallen through Alice’s looking glass. To her side, Painter Crowe placed his hand on a security pad inside the elevator. A blue line scanned his palm, and the elevator cage began to drop into the earth. Their jet had made the cross-country trip in less than five hours. After landing, they had been whisked by private car to the National Mall, stopping at the majestic Smithsonian Castle, a flag waving from its highest tower. As she had stepped out of the car, she had looked with new eyes at the historic building with its jumble of redbrick parapets, turrets, and spires. Completed in 1855, the structure was considered one of the finest examples of Gothic Revival in the United States and now served as the heart of the many museums that made up the nation’s Smithsonian Institution. Having grown up in Congress Heights, a poorer area southeast of D.C., she had visited the Castle countless times as a girl.
