“I’m fine,” I said, turning my attention back to Georgia. She clucked her tongue.
“You really do resemble your sister,” she said. “Ivy all over again, don’t you think?” she asked the headmaster.
“Certainly.” The slight strain in the headmaster’s voice told me that he wasn’t quite as fond of the resemblance as the First Lady was.
“Would you mind giving us a moment, Chester?” Georgia had a way of issuing requests, sweet as honey, but rhetorical nonetheless. The headmaster was out of the room before he knew it. Georgia nodded to the Secret Service agent, and he positioned himself just outside the door.
Georgia shut it, leaving the two of us alone.
“How are you really, Tess?” she asked once it was just us. “Ivy told me that Vivvie Bharani is a friend of yours. I can only imagine what she’s going through.”
I didn’t want to talk about Vivvie, but Georgia looked content to stand there indefinitely until I said something. “They buried her father this morning.”
“I regret not being able to attend.” Georgia studied me for a moment. “Ivy indicated that Ms. Bharani and her father were having some problems before his death?”
Why do you want to know? I caught those words in the filter between my brain and my mouth. When she realized that I wasn’t going to respond, Georgia let out a light, airy sigh, then leaned back against the headmaster’s desk. “I know when I’m being kept in the dark, Tess,” she said. “Quite frankly, there’s not much that goes on in Washington that I don’t know.”
The president is rarely the most powerful person in Washington. Standing across from Georgia Nolan, I suddenly found myself wondering where she stood in that hierarchy.
“I know your sister flew out to Arizona this weekend. I understand she’s due back today. What I don’t know is what, precisely, she is doing there.” Georgia’s Southern drawl softened every word she said, but there was no mistaking the thread of steel underneath. “In the past week, it’s become perfectly clear that William Keyes is pushing for Pierce’s nomination. Hard. William’s calling in a lot of chips on this one. I have known the man for a very long time, Tess. He excels at getting what he wants. And when he doesn’t get it, well, let us say that the man holds a grudge.” She clicked her nails lightly along the surface of the desk. “If Ivy is in Arizona looking for information to discredit Pierce, it would be in everyone’s best interest if I were prepared to deal with the fallout. Believe me when I say that I can deal with William Keyes if and only if I am forewarned.”
She wanted to know what was going on, why Ivy was in Arizona, what Ivy was looking for. I felt the pull to tell her what I knew, but resisted.
“Your husband asked Ivy to dig for skeletons in Pierce’s closet,” I said instead. “I’d guess that’s why she’s in Arizona.”
“Would you?” Georgia mused.
“Ivy’s very thorough.”
“Thorough,” Georgia repeated. “And that’s why she had Major Bharani removed from duty at the White House when she discovered the altercation with his daughter. Because she’s thorough.”
Georgia didn’t sound skeptical, but I knew suddenly, studying her warm hazel eyes, that she was. The First Lady knew Ivy well enough to know that there was something else going on here.
The question was: Did she know what that something else was?
The president was there when Vivvie’s dad and Judge Pierce met, I thought. The president was at the gala. And the First Lady had said that there wasn’t much that went on in Washington that she didn’t know.
“Your sister isn’t the type to ask for help, Tess.” Georgia pushed off the desk and began slowly pacing the room, her hands clasped in front of her body, like a bride carrying a bouquet. “Our Ivy is, I’m afraid, better at solving other people’s problems than allowing them to assist with her own.”
That had the ring of truth to it. Ivy had swooped into my life and taken charge in an instant, but she’d always shut me out of her own.
“I would like, very much,” Georgia continued, “to know if your sister requires my help now.”
If whatever Ivy discovered in Arizona led her somehow to the third party involved in the chief justice’s murder—if that third party was either of the men I suspected—Ivy would need all the help she could get.
But one of those men was Georgia Nolan’s husband.
“Is it true, what they said in the Post?” I asked. Georgia had been pumping me for information. Turnaround was fair play. “Is your husband really getting ready to nominate Pierce?”
Georgia waved away the question with one hand. “Peter would hardly move on anything until he hears back from Ivy. You mustn’t believe everything you read, Tess.”
“So the reporter’s sources were wrong?” I asked. That wasn’t what she’d said—not exactly—and I knew it.
“I’d be willing to bet his source, singular, is nothing more than an intern looking to forge some connections, and quite frankly, Tess, it isn’t worth my time to track it down. The reporter is unlikely to reveal his source, and even if he could be persuaded to do so, he would want something in return.” Georgia returned to stand directly in front of me. “In politics, Tess dear, you’re rarely given something for nothing.”
I wondered if she knew those words sounded like a warning.
I wondered if she meant them that way.
“Well,” Georgia said, seeming to realize that she wasn’t going to get anything else out of me. “Thank you for speaking with me, Tess. It has been illuminating. And I do hope you know that when I inquired about your well-being, I meant it. Ivy is not much older than my own sons, and I’ve grown to care about her very much. You matter to her, and that matters to me.”
Even with everything else going on, it hurt to hear that I mattered to Ivy. Turning away from Georgia before she could see the effect her words had on me, I took a few steps toward the far wall. My eyes landed on the picture behind the headmaster’s desk, and in the split second that followed, I knew that I wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again.
“How does your husband know the headmaster?” I asked, gesturing toward the photo like I’d seen it for the first time. I could feel my heart beating in my chest, hear it in my ears.
Georgia glanced at the photo from a distance, not paying it much mind. “Our youngest went to Hardwicke,” she said. “We try to donate something to the auction each year. Last spring, there was some water damage to the school. They were in need of big-ticket items, so we arranged for a weekend retreat at Camp David. The Presidential Retreat,” she clarified. “It’s occasionally open to the public, you know.”
A weekend at Camp David.
“Was the president’s attendance part of the prize?” I asked.
“Heavens, no,” Georgia said. “But William won the auction and invited Peter along. My husband, I’m afraid, has never been able to back down from one of Will’s challenges.”
I forced myself to pretend like there was nothing to read into those words. Like there was no reason, in particular, that I had asked.
But as Georgia and I parted ways and I left the administrative building, I couldn’t stop thinking that if William Keyes had won the auction, if he’d been the one to issue the invitations, then he was the one who’d brought the men in that picture together.
Including Judge Pierce and Vivvie’s father.
CHAPTER 43
“You’re quiet.” Bodie issued that statement with no small amount of suspicion.
“I’m always quiet.”
As Bodie pulled the car past the gates and out onto the street, he glanced at me just long enough to smirk. “And I’m always perceptive. This quiet is a different quiet.”
My mind was awash in the day’s events. Georgia’s visit. Vivvie and the article on Pierce. The two names from Henry’s list. Adam’s father being the one who had arranged the get-together in that photograph.
“I’m fluent in all varieties of Kendrick silences,” Bodie declared. “An
d you and your sister both stare very intently at absolutely nothing when the wheels are turning in here.” He lazily reached over and tapped the side of my head. I swatted his hand away.
“I have a lot to think about.”
“And would some of that lot concern a certain First Lady with sweet, Southern manners and the mind of Machiavelli?”
I snorted at that description of Georgia.
“How did you guess?” I asked Bodie.
“I didn’t.” He merged onto the highway. “I caught a glimpse of Mark pulling away as I pulled in.”
“Mark?” My brow wrinkled in confusion.
“Mark Maddox,” Bodie said. “He’s one of the agents on Georgia’s detail.”
“You’re on a first-name basis with the Secret Service?”
“I make it a point to learn names. Half of the time, the Secret Service wants to be noticed. Their presence is a deterrent.”
“And the other half of the time?” I asked.
“They fade into the background. They try not to engage, not to interfere. If you’re not careful, you forget they’re there.”
“Unless you know their names,” I said.
“Unless you know their names.” Bodie reached over and tapped the side of my head again.
“What was that for?” I asked disgruntledly.
“That,” he replied, “was for trying to distract me from the fact that when I asked you about Georgia, you didn’t answer.”
I was still processing my interaction with the First Lady. I wasn’t used to processing out loud. Bodie reached over and flicked my ear. Clearly, unlike Adam, he didn’t believe in driving with both hands on the wheel.
“Fine,” I said, before he could escalate further. “Yes, I’m thinking about the First Lady. She had a meeting with the headmaster today, supposedly.”
“Supposedly.” Bodie didn’t turn it into a question, but I responded like he had.
“She had me pulled out of class. Just to check on me, see how I was doing.”
“Of course,” Bodie said dryly.
“Of course.” This time, I didn’t make him press for more information. “She was fishing for details about what Ivy’s doing in Arizona.”
Bodie snorted. “I told Ivy we’d have to loop Georgia in sooner, rather than later. What did you say?”
“I told her that Ivy was just doing what the president asked—looking into Pierce’s background.” I paused. “And I asked her if her husband was really moving at an accelerated rate toward nominating Pierce.”
Bodie glanced over at me. “You saw the article in the Post?”
I nodded. “Vivvie came to school today. Her father’s funeral was this morning, and she came to school to find me, to show me the newspaper.”
“And what did Miss Georgia have to say about that article?” Bodie asked, drumming his fingers along the edge of the steering wheel.
“She said the source was probably some intern.”
Bodie snorted. “Doubtful.” He glanced over at me, then fixed his gaze back on the road. “There are two reasons to leak a story like that, kid.” His voice was casual, like he wasn’t imparting wisdom that neither Ivy nor Adam would have shared. “You either do it in hopes that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, or you do it to sink the potential nominee’s chances by putting him in the spotlight too soon.”
Help Pierce get nominated, or hurt his chances.
“Did Ivy leak it?” Twenty-four hours ago, I wouldn’t have asked that question.
“This time?” Bodie asked with an arch of one brow. “No.”
This time. He wasn’t saying that Ivy wouldn’t strategically leak a story like that. He was saying that she hadn’t.
“The day we found out about Vivvie’s father, I heard William Keyes say something to Ivy.” I caught my bottom lip in my teeth. Now I really was thinking out loud. “He said that he’d taught her everything she knew.”
Once upon a time, Ivy had worked for Keyes. He’d taught her how to manipulate the system. How to make things happen.
“He could have leaked the story.” I turned that possibility over in my mind. “The First Lady said Keyes is pushing Judge Pierce for the nomination.” I could have stopped there, but I didn’t. “That photo I gave Ivy—the one that connects Vivvie’s dad and Judge Pierce—was taken at Camp David. According to the First Lady, Keyes was the one who arranged the retreat. That means Keyes brought Vivvie’s dad and Pierce together. And the night before the chief justice died, he attended a fund-raiser for the Keyes Foundation.”
Bodie drove one-handed, the other resting on his threadbare jeans. He cast a lazy glance toward me. “I seem to recall something about you staying out of this.”
“You’re the one who just told me that there are only two reasons to leak an article like that,” I said.
Bodie put his free hand back on the wheel. “I was making conversation.”
“If there’s any chance Adam’s father might be the one who—”
“He’s not.”
The certainty in Bodie’s voice made my stomach twist. If it’s not Keyes . . .
“The president?” I asked softly.
Bodie gave me an incredulous look. “You think the president might be behind this, so you asked Georgia about that picture and the article in the Post?”
I decided that was probably a rhetorical question.
“Keyes is in the clear,” Bodie told me. “So are both of the Nolans.”
I blinked. Twice. “The president and William Keyes were the only people in that photo who—”
Bodie didn’t let me finish. “They were the first people Ivy cleared.”
The first people Ivy cleared. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, I could hear Henry: Your sister solves problems. Professionally. Whoever the other number on that phone belonged to, I’d say they have a pretty big problem right now.
“How did she clear them?” I heard myself ask.
Bodie’s answer—if he was going to answer me at all—was cut off by the sound of a siren. His eyes flicked toward the rearview mirror, and he cursed under his breath.
That was when I noticed the flashing lights.
“Speeding?” I asked Bodie as he pulled his car to the side of the road.
“That,” Bodie said, “or things are about to get interesting.” He cut the engine and turned to face me head-on. “Stay calm. Do exactly what they say. Don’t answer questions without a lawyer present.”
He rolled down his window.
I caught his arm. “Bodie, what’s going on?”
Before he could answer, an officer approached, gun pulled. “Get out of the car!”
CHAPTER 44
We got out of the car.
When the officer threw Bodie down on the hood to frisk him, Ivy’s driver said two things. The first was: “Well, this should be fun.” The second—aimed at me—was: “Call your sister.”
Two hours later, as I sat at the front of the police station, that was what I did.
I’d followed Bodie’s instructions to a T. I’d stayed calm. I’d done what I was told. I hadn’t answered any questions, other than the basics: my name; my age; Bodie was my sister’s driver; he was just driving me home from school.
I’d played shell-shocked and scared. It went against every fiber of my being, but sometimes the best defense was letting yourself seem defenseless. I didn’t lash back. I didn’t demand answers. And they didn’t take my phone. Eventually, the poor defenseless girl was plunked down out front while one of the officers made some phone calls and the other questioned the suspect.
Answer. Answer. Answer. My hand tightened around my cell as I made a call of my own. Come on, Ivy.
“Tess.”
A breath escaped my lungs when I heard my sister’s voice. “Bodie and I got pulled over,” I said.
There was a beat. “Was he arrested?” Ivy asked. Then she rephrased the question. “Did they read him his rights?”
I thought back. “No.” They’d thrown him down on t
he car. They’d frisked him. They’d shoved him in the back of a police car—but they hadn’t made an arrest. “Ivy, what’s going on?”
I could practically hear Ivy grinding her teeth on the other end of the line. “Someone’s making a point,” she said.
I didn’t get a chance to ask who would do this—or what kind of point they could possibly be making.
“Hey.” One of the officers saw me on my phone. “You can’t be on that in here.”
My capacity for playing small and defenseless snapped. “I was told I had to wait here until an adult could pick me up. I’m not allowed to call my legal guardian?”
The cop—a female officer whose acquaintance I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of making—frowned. “Someone will make that call on your behalf.”
“It’s been two hours,” I replied. “Why hasn’t someone already made that call?”
“Tess.” Ivy had been listening from the other end of the phone line, but now she spoke up. “Give the officer the phone.”
I handed the woman the phone. Five seconds into the call, her lips pressed themselves into a thin line. Ten seconds into the call, she paled.
That was about the time that Social Services showed up.
Even from the other side of a phone line, Ivy took charge. By the time the door to the police station opened and Adam walked in a half hour later, the social worker had been dispatched and a woman in a thousand-dollar suit had arrived, pronouncing herself Bodie’s lawyer.
“Adam.” I stood up the second I saw him. “Is Ivy—”
“She’s on her way back,” he replied, before turning his attention to the officer who’d taken charge of me. “Adam Keyes,” he introduced himself. “Department of Defense.”
He was dressed in uniform. I had a feeling that wasn’t an accident.
“You should have received faxed confirmation that I’m authorized to take custody of Tess until such time as her sister arrives,” Adam continued. His tone didn’t invite a response.
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