The Long Game

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Whoever had shot John Thomas had wanted Asher on campus. They’d wanted Asher to take the fall. And they’d known that Asher would literally jump off a cliff for his twin.

  “We will find out who did this,” I told Emilia. That was a promise—to Henry, to Emilia, to myself.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. When Emilia spoke again, all trace of emotion had been banished from her voice. “You’ll try.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Hardwicke resumed classes the next day.

  “My aunt thought they’d cancel for the rest of the week, at least,” Vivvie told me as the two of us filed into the Hardwicke chapel for an all-school assembly.

  I’d thought the same, but apparently the powers that be at Hardwicke had other plans.

  “How was the police station?” Vivvie asked, lowering her voice.

  “The good news is that they don’t suspect me.” I’d never been the type to mince words. “The bad news is that they suspect Asher.”

  “Asher wouldn’t hurt anyone,” Vivvie said fiercely. “I mean, he repeatedly face-punched John Thomas, obviously—but other than that, he would never hurt someone.”

  “I know,” I said. And I did. I knew that Asher hadn’t gone home and gotten a gun. I knew that he hadn’t put a bullet in John Thomas’s chest.

  “Settle, please. Everyone, settle down.” Headmaster Raleigh’s voice was strong, but his face was morose. For once, the room quieted almost instantaneously. “Here at Hardwicke, we’ve had a difficult couple of days,” the headmaster said. “Many of us are just now coming to understand the enormity of our loss.”

  In the pew behind me, I heard a couple of girls take jagged breaths. On the opposite side of the room, one or two of John Thomas’s friends were bent over, hollow-eyed and ready to punch something.

  “John Thomas Wilcox was a bright young man with his whole future in front of him,” the headmaster continued. “When he transferred here as a freshman, he immediately began leaving his mark on this school and on each of us. He was a model student, a natural leader, and a wonderful friend.”

  Already, I could feel the collective memory shifting, as people remembered the good times and forgot everything else. This was the John Thomas most of our classmates would remember: a well-liked guy who knew how to take a joke and how to deliver one. An athlete. An honors student. A life full of potential, cut down too soon.

  Across the room, Emilia sat between Maya and Di. As the headmaster spoke, she stared straight ahead, never blinking, her hands gripping each other tightly in her lap.

  “In the coming days,” Headmaster Raleigh continued, “there will be some changes at Hardwicke. We will be doubling our on-campus security and reviewing all protocols to ensure student safety. Until further notice, students are asked to remain in the main building at all times. If you have information that might be of help to the police, I urge you to speak with your parents and come forward as soon as possible.”

  • • •

  I caught up with Emilia in the girls’ bathroom. Her hands were wrapped around the edge of the sink. Her head was bowed, her knuckles white.

  “Sitting through that couldn’t have been easy,” I told her. I leaned back against the bathroom door, making sure no one else could come in and catch Emilia with her armor off.

  “Sitting through what?” Emilia shot back. “The beatification of John Thomas Wilcox, or the stares from people I’ve gone to school with my whole life who think that my brother might have done this?”

  I sensed that was a rhetorical question.

  Emilia turned to look at me. “If I told you to go away, is there even the least chance you’d listen?”

  I let my arms dangle next to my side. “Unlikely.”

  Emilia forced herself to stand up straight. She turned to face me head-on. “I tried to figure out who took my phone,” she said, banishing all hint of vulnerability. “I left it in the courtyard Monday morning.” Clearly, Emilia didn’t want to talk about her feelings. “Someone turned it into the office that afternoon, but no one in the office could remember who.”

  I couldn’t force Emilia to let me in, so I followed her lead and focused on the facts. “John Thomas told me he’d gotten ahold of Hardwicke student files,” I said. “The kind of files that contained confidential medical information.”

  “And this is the boy people are mourning,” Emilia said, her voice going hollow. “A model student. A natural leader. A wonderful friend.”

  The look in Emilia’s eyes when she repeated the headmaster’s words from that morning reminded me that John Thomas hadn’t just enjoyed power. He’d enjoyed making other people feel powerless.

  “We need to figure out who at this school had reason to want John Thomas dead,” I said quietly.

  “Besides me, you mean?”

  “Emilia—”

  “Don’t handle me with kid gloves, Tess.” Emilia’s fingers curled, driving her nails into her palms. “Say what you mean.” Emilia stared at me so hard I could feel the weight of her stare on the surface of my skin.

  “You weren’t the only one he took pictures of.” That much I could say without betraying any confidences—or forcing anything out of her that she wasn’t ready to give.

  Emilia was silent for four or five seconds before she spoke. “If I were going to guess where one might look for people who knew John Thomas Wilcox for who and what he was,” she said quietly, “that social media experiment of yours wouldn’t be a bad place to start.”

  I Stand With Emilia.

  Emilia stared at me for a second longer, then turned back to the sink. “This case is going to get national attention. My parents hired a lawyer, but the kind of lawyer we can afford isn’t going to be enough.” She pressed her lips together. “He was the whip’s son, Tess, and Asher is nobody.”

  I knew, in that moment, that Emilia wasn’t just talking about Asher.

  “I’ll get Asher a lawyer,” I promised her. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” Emilia rinsed her hands methodically and then lifted her gaze to the mirror. At first I thought she was checking her makeup, but then I realized that she was studying her own expression—removing all hints of weakness.

  “You don’t have to be okay right now,” I told her. “Whatever you’re feeling—it’s okay to feel that way.”

  Emilia pushed past me. She reached for the door, then paused. “What is it you even think that I’m feeling?” she said, her voice quiet but cutting. “Am I supposed to be sad? Or maybe in shock? Maybe I’m supposed to be spiraling downward. But I’m not. I’m not sad, and I’m not in shock, and I’m not spiraling.” She glanced back at me. “You worry about my brother and finding out who wanted John Thomas dead,” she ordered. “Because I’m fine.”

  In between second and third period, I called Ivy. No answer.

  In between third and fourth period, I called Ivy. No answer.

  At lunch, I called William Keyes. He answered. I asked him what it would take to get someone from Tyson Brewer’s firm to represent Asher. There was a pause on the other end of the line as my grandfather processed the fact that I was asking for a favor.

  “Just say the word, Tess,” Keyes told me. “All you have to do is ask, and I can get your friend an entire team of defense lawyers, the best in the country, free of charge.”

  Free of charge to Asher, maybe, I thought. Accepting this favor would undoubtedly cost me.

  “Do it.”

  CHAPTER 35

  As it turned out, pinpointing which of my fellow students might have wanted John Thomas dead was significantly harder than putting the best defense lawyers in the country on retainer. Even my reputation as a fixer couldn’t loosen lips, not when it came to speaking ill of the dead.

  “There’s a term that psychologists use to describe our memory of moments that surprise and shock us, the ones where we hear news that rocks us to our core.” Dr. Clark stood at the front of my last-period class, looking at us one by one.

  “Flashbulb memories,” Dr. Clark
said. “That’s what they call memories for large-scale, emotionally significant events. Most Americans who were in elementary school or older on November 22, 1963, can tell you exactly where they were when they heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated.” Dr. Clark let those words sink in. “The day the space shuttle Challenger exploded,” she continued, listing off another flashbulb-memory-provoking event. She swallowed. “September 11, 2001.”

  These were the dates that lived forever in people’s memories—bright and detailed, forever memorialized with a kind of visceral horror. I couldn’t remember 9/11, let alone the Challenger or the day Kennedy was shot.

  Monday, November 6, I thought. President Nolan. John Thomas. November 6.

  “After the events of the past couple of days,” Dr. Clark said, “I’ve been asking myself what people will remember about this week, this tragedy.” She took her time with the words, each hard-won—and even harder to listen to. “Will they remember where they were when President Nolan was shot? Will they remember refreshing news pages, desperately waiting for an update on his condition? Will they remember going to the polls in record numbers, because voting was the only thing they could do? Will they remember the First Lady telling them that her husband had been put in a medically induced coma? Will they remember the look on her face as she swore on live television that President Nolan would make it through this, that he was a survivor?”

  The room was quiet, silent but for our teacher’s voice.

  “Will people remember the president’s sons standing behind the First Lady at that press conference? Will they recall anything at all about the week leading up to the shooting?”

  Dr. Clark shook her head. “I don’t have any answers for you. I can tell you,” she said, looking out at us—and through us, “that I was on an airplane on September 11th. It was a transatlantic flight, my senior year in college. I was studying abroad. I remember landing and getting off the plane. I remember people turning on their phones. I remember the news spreading, slowly, from person to person—and the airport . . .” She closed her eyes. “I remember they had the news on. I remember watching. And I remember thinking that I’d almost flown through New York.”

  I recognized the rawness in her voice and looked down at the edge of my desk, pushing back against the emotion causing my throat to tighten and my eyes to sting.

  “I want you all to take a few minutes,” Dr. Clark said, “and write—about Monday, about what you remember, about what you think that other people will remember when they look back on that day. Write about the questions you have, what you’re feeling. Write about whatever you’d like.”

  There was a moment of agonized silence.

  “Can we write about John Thomas?” a girl from the front row finally asked. Her voice was wobbly. The question sucked the oxygen out of the room.

  That was what the students at this school would remember. That was their flashbulb memory—hearing the news about the president, and then being shuffled into lockdown, terrified that there was a gunman loose in the school.

  “Write about whatever you’d like,” Dr. Clark repeated.

  I picked up my pen, but no words came. Beside me, Vivvie was already scribbling. My eyes found their way to Emilia. She was sitting very straight, her hands folded in her lap, her head bowed.

  I wondered if there was anyone in this class who would admit on paper that John Thomas’s death wasn’t a tragedy to them.

  “If you’d like”—Dr. Clark’s voice broke into my thoughts—“you may break into small groups. If you’d prefer to continue writing, rather than discuss any of this with your classmates, simply remain at your desk.”

  One look in Emilia’s direction told me not to even try to approach her. Instead, I found myself sequestered in a corner of the room with Vivvie and Henry.

  “We’re looking for someone who’s a part of the Hardwicke community.” I didn’t bother beating around the bush. Dr. Clark wanted us to deal with this tragedy. This was my way of dealing. “Someone security wouldn’t really screen,” I continued, “with a grudge against John Thomas.”

  Vivvie blinked a couple times. Henry, in contrast, clearly hadn’t been harboring any illusions that we would be using this time to share our feelings.

  “If Asher were here,” Vivvie said, “he would suggest we assign the perpetrator a code name.”

  “We don’t need a code name,” Henry said.

  “If Dr. Clark comes by,” Vivvie insisted, “it would be better if she didn’t hear us talking about the killer. Let’s talk about . . .” She thought for a moment. “The hedgehog.”

  Henry wisely chose to keep any objections to himself.

  “Fine,” I said. “We need to figure out who might have had a motive to hedgehog John Thomas. The problem is that people aren’t exactly in the mood to talk. Not about the real John Thomas.”

  “Is this the part where you suggest a highly inadvisable way of putting people in the mood to talk, in hopes that someone can shed light on who the”—Henry glanced at Vivvie—“hedgehog might be?”

  “It’s funny,” I told Henry, drumming my fingers one by one on my knee, “but the moment you said inadvisable, I had a thought.”

  Right now, the student body was still in shock. They were mourning. But grief was a multi-layered thing. Eventually, people needed outlets. Eventually, the floodgates broke.

  Maybe if I provided the outlet, the floodgates would break a little sooner.

  “Do I want to know what you are planning?” Henry asked.

  I smiled. “Probably not.”

  As soon as class let out, I found Di in the hallway. “I have a proposition for you,” I told her.

  “A proposition?” Miss Diplomatic Immunity countered. “Or a dare?”

  “A dare,” I said. Di’s eyes sparkled. “I dare you,” I continued,” to host a party Friday night, and I dare you to invite the entire school.”

  As far as outlets went, I had confidence that any party Di hosted would be a good one.

  “That is not much of a dare.” Di’s Icelandic accent caught on every other word. She folded her arms over her chest and tilted her head to the side, waiting for me to make things interesting.

  I thought on my feet. “I dare you to have the party here. At Hardwicke.”

  “You want me to break into the school and convince our classmates to do the same?” Di asked, her eyes gleaming. “That is illegal,” she continued, “and there is a very good chance we will get caught.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  Di ran a hand over her thick, white-blond braid. The edges of her lips curved up into a wicked smile. “Challenge accepted.”

  CHAPTER 36

  Friday night, Ivy made it home just as I was leaving for the Hardwicke party. I had no idea what she’d spent the past forty-eight hours doing, but I did know that the president was still in a coma.

  I knew that Ivy was still on the warpath.

  “You look nice.” Ivy sounded more suspicious than complimentary as she assessed my outfit. I was wearing black jeans and a loose gray top—both items she’d purchased on my behalf.

  “I’m going to a party,” I said. There was no point in lying to Ivy—not when the truth would cover my goal for this evening just as well.

  “What kind of party?” Ivy asked.

  The kind where I’m hoping to gather clues about John Thomas’s murder.

  I grabbed my phone and house keys and shot Ivy a dry look. “Are we really doing this?”

  “The thing where I ask a teenager in my custody where and with whom she’s spending the evening?” Ivy countered. “Yes, we really are doing this.”

  “Henry Marquette is picking me up.” I stuck to issuing true statements, one after the other. “Vivvie is meeting us at the party. A lot of people from school will be there. It’s been a rough week.” That was an understatement, and Ivy knew it. “People need a way to forget,” I told Ivy, willing her to think that when I said people, I meant me. “Even if it’s just for o
ne night.”

  “Will Asher be there?” Ivy knew me well enough to know that I wasn’t exactly the party-going type. She wasn’t concerned about me letting loose and getting into typical teenage trouble. She was concerned about ulterior motives.

  Smart woman.

  “Asher was suspended,” I told her. “Half the school thinks he might be a murderer. I really don’t think he’s going to be making an appearance tonight.”

  Ivy stared at me for several seconds, assessing the truth of those words.

  “Are we done here?” I asked.

  Ivy held my gaze for another second or two and then nodded. As I turned toward the door, the expression on her face wavered slightly. She looked tired. Weary, I thought. Brittle.

  And then I saw the bruise on her wrist.

  I went very still. The bruise snaked out from underneath her sleeve, purplish blue. Fresh. I closed the space between us in a heartbeat.

  “You’re hurt,” I said. I’d been focused on the party, on Asher, on keeping Ivy from figuring out what I was up to. I hadn’t registered the fact that she had something to hide, too.

  “I’m fine,” Ivy told me.

  I grabbed her hand as gingerly as I could. “You’re not fine.”

  Ivy with a bomb strapped to her chest. Ivy on the verge of dying, because of me. The memories came suddenly and without warning. I felt like a claustrophobic person in a shrinking room, like there was a weight on my chest that wouldn’t let up until it had succeeded in crushing my lungs.

  Ivy caught my chin in her hand. “Look at me.” She repeated the words, again and again, until my eyes focused. “I’m fine, Tessie,” she said softly. “I was trying to get a rise out of someone, and I succeeded. She grabbed my wrist, but I’m fine.”

  She.

  “You went to see Daniela Nicolae,” I said. I’d known that Ivy had intended to interrogate the terrorist. I’d known she wanted answers. “You went to see a known terrorist and deliberately baited her into hurting you?” My voice went up a notch in volume and pitch.

  Ivy tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and then let her hand fall away from my face. “I was trying to bait her into talking,” Ivy clarified. “The physical attack took me by surprise.”