The Long Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  CHAPTER 22

  Walker Nolan showed up on our doorstep Saturday morning, looking hungover and on the verge of collapse.

  Ivy rounded on me. “Upstairs,” she ordered. “Now.”

  “It’s okay.” Walker’s voice was hoarse. “She’s going to see it anyway. Everyone is.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “See what?” Ivy asked.

  Walker stared at her for several seconds, nonresponsive.

  “Walker,” Ivy said sharply.

  He swallowed, his eyes regaining some of their focus. “Can I come in?”

  “My name is Daniela Nicolae.”

  Walker’s it was a video—one that had arrived in his inbox that morning.

  “I live next door. You pass me in the coffee shop. I’m a nice girl, the kind you smile at when you walk by.” The terrorist’s eyes were dark, a stark contrast to her fair skin. “I am a doctor. I am your neighbor. I am your friend. And everything you know about me is a lie.”

  Daniela spoke with a faint accent, one I couldn’t quite pinpoint.

  “I have been raised for one purpose and one purpose alone. Mine is a glorious calling. And by the time you know me for who and what I am, it will be too late.”

  She taped this before the bombing, I realized. Before she knew it would fail.

  “I am one of many. You work with us, side by side. You lift a hand to wave as we are out watering our lawns. We are everywhere. We are in your government, your law enforcement, your military. We see everything. We know all of your secrets.” Even with a screen between us, her gaze was eerie in its intensity. “And we wait.”

  The camera panned out and the terrorist’s hand rested on her stomach—her very pregnant stomach. Her expression flickered, and for a moment, I saw a quieter, raw emotion underneath. “I wish that it could be different. I wish that my child could know her father. I wish that there was no part of me that loved him. I wish that he did not love me. I wish . . .” She swallowed. “I wish that I were not so good at my job. I do, Walker. But I am what I am, and you are the president’s son.”

  Her hand fell away from her stomach. “My name is Daniela Nicolae. And the time for waiting is over.”

  The clip ended abruptly, the screen going to black.

  “She made it,” Walker said. “For me. For after.”

  “Walker.” Ivy’s voice was calm but every bit as intense as the terrorist’s had been. “What did you mean when you said everyone was going to see this?”

  Walker looked like he hadn’t slept in days. He looked like he might never sleep again. “I’m not the only one that video was sent to.”

  There were some secrets that not even the great Ivy Kendrick could bury. Pandora’s box had been opened. There was no closing it now. By noon, the video had gone viral. By twelve ten, it was playing on every major news channel.

  “The president’s son invited a terrorist not just into his home but into his bed! We have to ask: What exactly did Walker Nolan tell this woman? Why was he such an easy target? And how long has the president known the truth?”

  The female pundit who’d flamed the Nolan administration after the bombing wasn’t debating anyone this time. She was sitting behind a desk, speaking directly into the camera.

  “We know that these groups specialize in turning people. They recruit American citizens. Has the president’s son been interrogated? Are we sure they didn’t get to him, too?”

  On and on it went. Walker was either an accomplice or a patsy. He’d chosen to turn down Secret Service protection. He’d made himself a target. And if the president couldn’t safeguard his own family, how could we expect him to safeguard this country?

  As far as blows went, this one was lethal.

  Less than an hour later, the president issued a statement. He said that he was grieved that his own son had been made a victim and thankful that Walker had uncovered the duplicity in time to save hundreds of lives.

  “Let me be clear,” President Nolan finished. “The United States does not negotiate with terrorists. We do not fear them. We will not allow them to divide us. This country is strong. We are proud. We are united. And the war on terror is one we will win.”

  CHAPTER 23

  On Monday morning, Maya was somewhat muted as she told Emilia that her approval ratings were at an all-time high among freshman and sophomore girls. Given that muted wasn’t typically an adjective that described Maya Rojas, I didn’t need the pollster’s daughter to tell me that, like Ivy, her mother had worked through the weekend, or that President Nolan’s approval rating was at an all-time low.

  Opposite Maya, Di flipped her white-blond hair over one shoulder. “Hands,” she said, her Icelandic accent making the word sound sharper. When none of us moved, she rolled her light blue eyes. “I do not bite,” she said. “Much. Give me your hands.”

  Maya offered hers, and Di whipped out a pen and wrote something on the back of Maya’s right hand. Then she turned her light blue eyes to me.

  “Hand.”

  “Pass,” I said.

  “You cannot pass,” the ambassador’s daughter said, waving my words away. “You are the one who started this.”

  I glanced over at Maya’s hand. Di had written four letters on the back. ISWE.

  As in: I STAND WITH EMILIA.

  “The freshman girls are writing it on their hands.” Di gave me a steely-eyed look. “Now we write it on ours.”

  Emilia remained strangely silent. A week ago, she would have ordered me to play along.

  I held my hand out to Di, appraising Emilia the whole time. The words thank you hadn’t left Asher’s sister’s lips once since I’d gotten her back in the race. I understood that she couldn’t thank me—not without acknowledging, even if just in her own head, that this wasn’t just about the election.

  I watched as Di wrote the letters on my hand. ISWE.

  “I come bearing donuts.” Asher appeared next to our table. “And the bearer of donuts,” he intoned, “was greeted with trumpets and pomp.” He waited patiently—presumably for both trumpets and pomp.

  Instead, he got Emilia giving him the look of a sibling who knew her brother all too well. “What did you do?” she asked him flatly.

  “Nothing,” Asher answered with a charming smile.

  Emilia’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What are you going to do?”

  “Can a boy not just bring his dearest, darling twin a sugary confection in celebration of the beauteousness that is Monday?”

  “No,” all four of us answered at the same time.

  “Perhaps I am overwrought with filial guilt,” Asher suggested. “For I have betrayed my family by standing in this election with that rogue Henry Marquette.”

  “Perhaps,” Emilia countered, “you blew something up and want me to be the one to break it to Mom and Dad?”

  Asher winked at her. “That is possibly not entirely false.”

  “Do I want to know what you blew up?” Emilia asked him with a long-suffering sigh.

  “That would depend on how attached you were to the stone gargoyle that used to sit on our front porch.”

  I snorted and snagged a donut.

  Asher took that as an invitation to plop down beside me. “How goes the campaign?”

  We didn’t get the chance to answer.

  “Better than some people’s, I’d wager.” John Thomas strolled over but didn’t sit down. He probably enjoyed towering over us, looking down. “I just heard the most unsettling rumor,” he said, relishing the words.

  Until that moment, I’d forgotten about John Thomas’s promise that Henry was going to be his next target. With everything that had happened, I’d forgotten to ask Ivy if it was possible that Congressman Wilcox might know what she’d covered up for the Marquette family.

  I’d forgotten to ask her if there was any way that the congressman’s son might know the truth about Henry’s father, too.

  “Now would be a good time for you to leave,” Asher said. His voice was cheerf
ul enough, but I could hear a thread of warning underneath.

  “I just wouldn’t feel right walking away,” John Thomas countered. “The least I can do is warn you about what I heard.” He gave every appearance of sincerity, except for the slight uptick of his lips. “Addiction is a disease. I had no idea Henry’s father had gone through such a rough time prior to his death. In and out of rehab—”

  Asher stood up. “Don’t,” he gritted out. “Talk. About. Henry’s. Father.”

  Asher was a person who was constantly in motion—always laughing, always smiling.

  He wasn’t smiling now.

  “I’m not talking about Henry’s father.” John Thomas stared Asher down. “I’m just telling you what other people are saying.”

  Addiction. Rehab.

  John Thomas doesn’t know that Henry’s father killed himself. That should have come as a relief. He doesn’t know that Ivy covered it up.

  But apparently, that wasn’t the Marquette family’s only secret.

  “Asher.” Emilia’s voice cut into my thoughts. “Don’t.”

  Don’t waste your breath. Don’t let him get a rise out of you.

  Emilia’s warning drew John Thomas’s attention. The congressman’s son leaned down and brushed a strand of hair out of her face. Emilia stiffened under his touch. Her breath went shallow.

  “Don’t touch her,” Asher said, his voice razor sharp. He had seriously considered jumping off a building to save his twin even an ounce of scrutiny. The desire to protect her ran deep.

  “Didn’t your sister ever tell you?” John Thomas met Asher’s eyes as he rubbed Emilia’s hair back and forth between his fingers. “I was her first.”

  Emilia shuddered. One moment Asher was beside me and the next John Thomas was on the ground and Asher was on top of him.

  “If she told you she didn’t want it,” John Thomas whispered, “she lied.”

  Asher snapped. There was no other word for it. He moved with manic fury, his fist plowing into John Thomas’s face again and again.

  John Thomas smiled the whole time.

  “Asher,” Emilia said. He didn’t hear her, didn’t hear me, didn’t hear anything, lost to a haze of fury.

  There was a blur of movement to my right as someone pulled Asher off of John Thomas. It took me a moment to process the fact that it was Henry. Asher struggled against his hold, lunging forward. Henry jerked him back. His arms tightened around Asher’s torso.

  “Enough, Ash,” Henry said.

  When teachers descended on us a moment later, John Thomas was still lying on the ground bleeding. He was still smiling. He caught my eyes, and I could practically hear him gloating, You’re not the only one who can execute a plan.

  CHAPTER 24

  Asher was suspended for two weeks. He was lucky he wasn’t expelled. Enough people had seen the fight to paint a consistent picture: Asher had thrown the first punch. John Thomas hadn’t even fought back. Fewer of us had heard John Thomas goading Asher into the fight.

  When the headmaster had asked Emilia if John Thomas had been bothering her, she’d shaken her head. She didn’t meet Asher’s eyes. She didn’t say a word.

  No amount of explaining could compensate for that.

  Asher caught her on the way out of the headmaster’s office. “Em—”

  “Don’t,” Emilia told him forcefully. I translated: Don’t ask her what John Thomas had been talking about. Don’t ask her why she hadn’t answered the headmaster’s question with a yes. “You finally got yourself suspended,” she snapped at Asher. “Are you happy now?”

  “I was just . . .” Asher started to say, but Emilia didn’t let him finish. She put a hand on his chest and pushed him back.

  “I didn’t ask you to.”

  A very bruised John Thomas declared himself my partner in Speaking of Words.

  Henry came to stand between us. “A real man never just assumes someone wants to be his partner,” Henry said, staring at John Thomas with an expression that sent chills down my spine. “A real man asks.”

  Henry’s voice was low and rife with the implication that he wasn’t really talking about group projects.

  “A real man does not coerce. He does not pressure,” Henry continued. “He does not just take what he wants. He asks.” Henry kept his eyes fixed on John Thomas for a moment longer, then turned to me and demonstrated. “Would you like to work together on this assignment, Kendrick?”

  If looks could kill, the one I leveled at John Thomas Wilcox in that moment would have put him six feet under.

  “I’d love to,” I told Henry, turning my back on the minority whip’s son.

  Unfortunately, there was an odd number of students in the class, leaving John Thomas free to tack himself onto our group. Clearly, he hadn’t taken even one of Henry’s words to heart.

  He’d taken them as an invitation to spar.

  “Shame about Asher,” John Thomas said offhandedly. “Guy’s always been a little unhinged.”

  For an instant, I wondered if taking a swing at John Thomas myself might be worth a two-week suspension.

  “In a couple of weeks, Asher’s suspension will be over.” Henry’s voice was mild, perfectly controlled. “But you,” he continued, looking at John Thomas like he could see into and through him and there was nothing to see, “will continue to be an utter disappointment to anyone who has ever given you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Disappointment was a word that hit John Thomas where it hurt.

  “What about you, Tess?” John Thomas asked, once he’d recovered. “Are you disappointed?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t give the benefit of the doubt to people like you.”

  There was another brief, tense moment of silence.

  “Did you know Hardwicke keeps records?” John Thomas asked, breaking it. “About medications, diagnoses, mental health risks . . .” he trailed off. “You’d be surprised how many girls at this school say they’re going to summer camp but actually check in to eating disorder clinics. And your little friend Vivvie?” John Thomas continued. “She’s an interesting one.”

  Vivvie had told me once that her freshman year had been a dark time. She hadn’t gone into specifics, but I knew antidepressants had been involved.

  After everything Vivvie had been through this semester, the idea of John Thomas breathing a word about her to anyone was enough to make me wish that Asher had hit him harder.

  Henry laid a hand lightly on my shoulder—a reminder that John Thomas was trying to do to me exactly what he’d done to Asher: bait me into a fight, push me to the edge.

  Two can play that game. My better self fought briefly against the urge and lost.

  “It’s funny,” I said, meeting John Thomas’s gaze. “I saw your father Friday night. He was looking pretty cozy with a woman who wasn’t your mother.”

  “Tess.” Henry could fit a world of censure into a single word. Don’t sink to his level. Don’t play his game.

  “Red hair,” I continued. “Blue dress. Enjoys breathing heavily into your father’s hair while he strokes the back of her neck.”

  John Thomas’s face went very still. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice taut.

  “Why don’t I ask your father about her?” I leaned forward. “I can tell him you let something slip about their relationship one day in class.”

  My words hit their target. The look on John Thomas’s face told me two things: he knew about his father’s relationship with this woman, and Congressman Wilcox knew that he knew.

  “He won’t believe you,” John Thomas said.

  “I think we both know that he would, especially once I mention the way you’ve been shooting your mouth off about Henry’s family.” I leaned back on the heels of my hands. “The congressman is very good at paying attention.” I repeated the words that John Thomas had said to me at the charity event. “You got your information about Henry’s family from your father, and something tells me he wouldn’t be too happy t
o find out you’re flapping your lips. Knowledge is power,” I said lightly, “and here you are, just giving the congressman’s away. And for what? Some high school election you’re not even going to win?”

  I’d only seen John Thomas and his father interact briefly, but that was enough for me to guess that the congressman wouldn’t choose to expend even an ounce of political capital on his son’s petty high school concerns.

  “You’ll keep your mouth shut,” John Thomas gritted.

  I smiled. “How hard do you think it would be for me to set up a little chat with the congressman?” I asked rhetorically. John Thomas had struck at Henry and Asher. He’d terrorized Emilia. He’d threatened Vivvie. I wasn’t above issuing a threat of my own in return.

  “Because the next time you come after one of my friends,” I said, leaning forward, placing my face within an inch of his, “I will bury you. And your own father will be the one to throw the dirt on top, because Henry was right.” I pitched my voice low, barely more than a whisper and all the more cutting for it. “You are a disappointment.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Henry didn’t say a word about the way I’d used Congressman Wilcox as leverage against his son. In exchange, I didn’t tell Henry that sometimes people like John Thomas just saw taking the high road as weakness.

  If I had to dirty my hands to convince John Thomas that attacking my friends was a bad idea, then so be it. If I could have punished him for what he’d done to Emilia, what he was still doing to Emilia—if I could have made him pay without forcing her into something that she had very clearly communicated that she did not want—I would have, tenfold.

  Lunchtime came, but I wasn’t hungry. I bypassed eating and ducked into the courtyard. I’d planned on grabbing a table, but my feet kept walking—past the chapel, past the Maxwell Art Center, out to the playing fields. The air was cold in DC in November, but I had Montana in my blood.

  The chill didn’t bother me any more than the insults of boys like John Thomas Wilcox.

  Letting the wind nip at my face, I thought over what I’d said to John Thomas—and his reaction. Ivy had told me once that being a fixer came with a cost. Given what John Thomas had done to Emilia, given what he’d said to Asher and the way he’d smugly announced that Henry’s father was an alcoholic, pretending like it grieved him to impart the news—