No response. Adam wasn’t telling me I was wrong.
“Ivy’s missing,” I said, choking on the words, “and you’re here. With me.” I ripped off the bandage, rushing out the words. “Are you my father?”
“Tess.” Adam’s voice was thick with emotion.
That wasn’t a no.
“Ivy’s the one who should be having this conversation with you,” Adam said. “We’ll tell you everything, I promise, just—”
Just let us get her back, I finished.
“And what if we don’t get her back?” I asked. “What if we never get her back?”
What if, what if, what if—
Before Adam could answer, there was a knock. Moving briskly, Adam steered me to the side of the room. His hand went to his side as he went to answer the door, and I realized that he was wearing a gun.
Another knock. Adam looked through the peephole. Then he opened the door.
“Captain Keyes,” President Nolan greeted him. “We need to talk.”
CHAPTER 60
The president had two Secret Service agents with him. After my experience with Kostas, the president’s security detail would never fade into the background for me again.
“Mr. President.” Adam led the group into the living room. I eased out from my spot behind the wall.
“Have a seat, Captain,” the president said, taking a seat himself.
Adam sat, every muscle in his body taut. I stayed standing. The president removed something from his jacket lapel and handed it to Adam.
“You might want to ask the girl to leave the room,” he said, the words residing somewhere between an order and a suggestion.
It probably said something about Adam’s mental state that he chose to interpret it as a suggestion. He didn’t tell me I could stay, but he didn’t tell me to leave, either.
It probably said something about my mental state that I chose to interpret that as an invitation to come closer.
The folder the president had handed Adam didn’t have much in it: a single photograph. Ivy was holding a newspaper—today’s newspaper. There was a single strip of duct tape over her mouth.
And strapped to her chest was a bomb.
“When?” Adam said. That was all he got out, one word.
“It arrived via e-mail this morning,” the president replied. “We have our top analysts working on it. We’ll find her.”
“And if you don’t?” I asked, taking a step forward.
A photograph like that would have been accompanied by a ransom demand. A deadline. A threat.
“Kostas told you what he wants,” I said, trying not to think about how I had felt, strapped to a chair, watching the time I had left slip away. “He wants you to pardon his son.”
President Nolan neither confirmed nor denied my statement. He kept his gaze trained on Adam. “What Ivy’s captor does or does not want is immaterial, Captain Keyes. We’re taking care of this.”
The use of Adam’s military title was a reminder that we weren’t on even footing in this room. This was the president, and when it came to how he dealt with threats, this wasn’t a democracy.
We didn’t get a vote.
“We’ll find Kostas,” the president said. “We’ll find Ivy. The important thing, in the meantime, is for you to back off. Whoever Bodie has working on this, I want them out. Now. This has become a matter of national security.”
“If anything happens to Ivy,” Adam began.
“It won’t,” the president said, in that voice that said Trust me, believe me, follow me.
I didn’t trust him. I didn’t believe him. I wasn’t following, not if it meant sitting back and waiting for that bomb to go off.
“If anything does happen to Ivy,” Adam said, “it won’t be good for this administration.” He paused. His tone was respectful. It was the pause that made it seem like a threat. “If Ivy doesn’t get to a computer in the next twenty-four hours, it won’t be good for anyone.”
The president stood. “We’re working on that, too.”
Meaning what? I thought. That he’s working on finding a way to dismantle Ivy’s fail-safe? To make sure that whatever secrets her program is set to release don’t get released?
“Have you even looked at the case?” I asked the president. I could hear the strain in my own voice. “Kostas’s son,” I said, forcing myself to continue. “Have you looked at his appeal? Adam said he had a brain injury—”
“Miss Kendrick,” the president said. “Tess.” His expression was grave. “I care for your sister. So does my wife. You have this administration’s sympathy, our regrets, and our promise that we are doing everything we can to get Ivy home.”
Not everything.
His next words proved that. “But the United States does not negotiate with terrorists—and neither do I.”
CHAPTER 61
If push came to shove, if the president couldn’t find Ivy before time ran out—he wasn’t going to negotiate. He was going to let Kostas blow her up.
It should have been me. I should have been the one Kostas was holding captive. Ivy should have been the one standing here with Adam, trying to find a way around the president’s hard line. It should have been me. It was supposed to be me.
“Go,” I told Adam, swallowing back the urge to say all of that out loud. “I can’t do anything, but maybe you can.”
What Adam was—or wasn’t—to me could wait.
Ivy’s the one who should be having this conversation with you, he’d said. We’ll tell you everything, I promise—
“Go,” I told Adam again, my voice sharper this time, louder.
“I’m not leaving you here alone,” he said.
“So don’t leave me alone,” I said, trying not to replay the president’s words over and over again in my mind. “I hear Vivvie has a bodyguard now.”
• • •
Vivvie’s suite at the Roosevelt Hotel was impressive. There were massive bedrooms, a sitting room, a living room, a state-of-the-art kitchen.
“What does your aunt do?” I asked Vivvie, ignoring the elephant in the room. Or maybe the elephants, plural.
“I’m not really sure,” Vivvie replied. “She works overseas. Or worked. Or . . .” Vivvie punctuated that sentence with a shrug.
I wondered if Vivvie was thinking, like I was, of my first day at Hardwicke, when I’d had to ask her what Ivy did for a living.
Ivy with a bomb strapped to her chest. The memory of that image came over me with no warning. It felt like someone had thrust a hand into my chest, like there was a vise around my heart. I couldn’t think, and I couldn’t breathe.
“Hey, Tess?” Vivvie said. I forced air into my lungs. Vivvie’s face was shadowed with the toll the past few weeks had taken. I wanted to push her away, but I couldn’t, because we were the same.
“Yeah?”
Vivvie reached out and grabbed my hand. “The offer about my favorite romance novel and/or horror movie,” she said, her voice hoarse with all the things neither one of us could bear to say. “It still stands.”
Adam didn’t come for me that night. I slept on the sofa, even though Vivvie offered to share her king-size bed. It felt wrong for me to be with people when Ivy had no one but the man who might kill her for company. It felt wrong to even be lying on the sofa when Ivy had a bomb strapped to her chest.
If I’d thought it wouldn’t raise questions, I would have slept on the cold, hard floor.
If I hadn’t gotten snatched, if I’d been more suspicious when I’d seen an orderly outside my grandfather’s room, if I’d fought back harder, if I’d been stronger—
If, if, if, then Ivy might be okay.
The next morning came and went. I couldn’t bring myself to get up.
If I hadn’t gone to the state dinner, Ivy wouldn’t have flipped out and sent me to Boston. And if I hadn’t gone to Boston, I would have been at my more-secure-than-most-consulates private school instead of outside my grandfather’s room.
If, if, if
. . .
Vivvie tried to get me to sit up, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t take my eyes off the clock, masochistically watching the minute hand crawl along, closer and closer to Ivy’s final hours.
At some point, Vivvie went to the door. I heard murmuring, but my gaze stayed fixed on the clock.
“Tess.” I could tell by the tone in Vivvie’s voice that she’d said my name more than once.
I blinked. In addition to Vivvie’s bodyguard, we now had three other visitors: Asher, Henry, and a woman who was almost certainly Henry’s bodyguard.
Asher sat down on the sofa beside me. I couldn’t even summon the energy to shove him off the sofa.
“Vivvie told us.” Henry didn’t specify what she had told them.
If, if, if . . .
“I am sorry about your sister,” Henry told me. “For what it’s worth, I have to believe she has a contingency plan of some sort.”
A rush of anger went through my body, and with it, came my voice. “You’re the authority, aren’t you? On Ivy? She can’t be trusted and all that?”
“Tess.” Henry knelt next to me. “You have to know, I never would have wanted—”
“Wouldn’t you?” I sat up, then stood, all in one motion. He could stay kneeling for all I cared. “You did this,” I told Henry. “If you hadn’t opened your mouth with the reporter, if you hadn’t insisted on going to that state dinner, then I might have been here, in DC! I might not have gotten taken, and Ivy would never have had to trade herself for me. You did this,” I told Henry.
Henry stood and took a step back.
“Hey!” Asher objected, but I barely heard him.
“We did this,” I said, my eyes still locked on to Henry’s. “She’s going to die. I did that. I did—”
Henry stood. “You were right the first time,” he said. “Blame me. If you have to blame someone, blame me.”
If, if, if . . .
“She didn’t even let me say good-bye.” I sounded small and broken and weak. I didn’t know how to sound any other way.
“No.” That word burst out of Vivvie with the strength of a small whirlwind. “You don’t get to blame yourself,” she told me, her voice vibrating with emotions I recognized all too well. “Blaming yourself is easy. Blaming other people is, too. You think that I don’t think about the fact that if I hadn’t said anything, if I’d just kept my mouth closed, my father might still be alive? You think it wouldn’t be easier to hate myself for that? To hate you? To hate Ivy? You have a choice, Tess, and you don’t get to make the easy one, because if you give up, if you can’t make it through this—what chance do I have?” Her eyes shone with tears, but she didn’t shed them. “You don’t get to check out. You don’t get to give in. You can’t.”
My eyes were drawn back to the clock again. How many hours did Ivy have left? “I don’t want to give up,” I said softly, “but I don’t know what else to do.”
“What would your sister do?” Asher’s question hurt, but instead of shrinking from it, I absorbed the pain. I let myself feel it, and then, I made myself use it.
What would Ivy do?
“She’d find a way to fix this,” I said, my voice hardening. But how? If Ivy had been able to take care of the situation, she would have taken care of it when I got kidnapped. What chance did I have, if even DC’s most prominent problem solver hadn’t been able to come up with an answer that didn’t leave her own head on the chopping block?
“I can’t change the president’s mind,” I said, thinking out loud, trying to channel Ivy, trying—in vain—to be like her, to prove that there was something of her in me. “I could try to talk to the First Lady, but I doubt I could even get a hold of her. Everyone’s out looking for Ivy.”
“What does that leave?” Henry asked quietly.
I blew out a long breath of air. “Who besides the president can issue a pardon?”
Asher raised the index finger on his right hand. “The governor of the state in question.”
I glanced at Vivvie. “I don’t suppose anyone at Hardwicke has an uncle who’s the governor of Arizona?”
She shook her head.
“What about William Keyes?” Henry asked. “My mother refers to him as the kingmaker. His support can make or break a political career. If the governor is looking to curry favor—”
“Adam already asked him to help,” I cut in. “Keyes has a grudge against Ivy. He won’t lift a finger.”
My father collects things: information, people, blackmail material. Adam’s voice echoed in my mind. He wouldn’t have asked his father for help unless he’d believed the man could actually deliver.
“In my experience,” Asher said thoughtfully, “sometimes ‘there is no way I am doing that for you, Asher’ just means ‘make me a better offer.’”
I got the distinct feeling he was talking about Emilia, but set that aside. What does Keyes want? What could I possibly offer him? He’d wanted Pierce on the Supreme Court, but Pierce was dead. I racked my mind for everything I’d overheard William Keyes say in his conversation with Adam.
He wants Adam to retire from the military and run for the Senate. I rolled that over in my mind. He thinks Adam could be president someday.
Ivy had said that a kingmaker was someone with enough money and power to affect the outcome of elections, but who—for whatever reason—wasn’t a viable candidate himself. I didn’t know why William Keyes couldn’t—or wouldn’t—run for office, but I did know that he wanted more than being the person who called the shots behind the scene.
He wanted his son to do what he couldn’t.
William Keyes wanted a legacy.
A plan began to take hold in my mind. Maybe Adam had been going about this all wrong. Maybe he shouldn’t have been asking his father for help.
Maybe he should have tried blackmail.
CHAPTER 62
William Keyes lived in Virginia. His residence—and I doubted it was his only one—was nothing short of palatial. The guard out front hadn’t wanted to buzz me through the gate, but I could be very convincing.
Ultimately, William Keyes had a weak spot, and I could tap into it with just four words: It’s about your son.
The others waited outside. Fifteen minutes after I’d been let into the Keyes house and seated in some kind of formal library, the old man joined me.
“You,” he said after a moment, “surprise me.”
It wasn’t clear from his tone whether that was a compliment or a complaint.
“I haven’t surprised you yet,” I replied. “But I’m about to.”
Despite himself, the old man looked slightly intrigued. “Your sister wouldn’t approve,” he said, coming to stand closer to me. I got the feeling that he liked towering over me, that it didn’t matter that physically, I was small.
An enemy could always be made smaller.
“Ivy is being held captive by a rogue Secret Service agent,” I said, not beating around the bush. “President Nolan has received a ransom demand.”
“He won’t negotiate.” The corners of Keyes’s lips twitched. It wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a grimace, either.
“She’s got a bomb strapped to her chest.” I kept my voice calm but couldn’t tamp down the intensity in it. “If you can’t get the governor of Arizona to issue a pardon, she’s going to die.”
After exactly three seconds of silence, William Keyes took a seat across from me. “What makes you think I have any sway over the governor of Arizona?”
“If you don’t, you know someone who does.”
This time, he did smile. “You,” he said, lingering on the word, “are very much like your sister.”
I could hear, in those words, that he’d been fond of Ivy once. Keyes stiffened, like he’d heard the same thing and didn’t appreciate the reminder.
“Unfortunately,” he continued, leaning back in his chair, “your sister is no longer my concern. She put Nolan in office. Clearly, she prefers his judgment to mine.”
Whatever b
ad blood there was between Keyes and the president, the man sitting across from me would never forgive Ivy for helping Peter Nolan make it to the White House.
Luckily, I hadn’t come here to beg forgiveness.
“She’s not my sister.” I let those words sink in, knowing they weren’t what he’d expected—knowing that I wasn’t what he’d expected. “She’s my mother, and I don’t think you want anyone figuring out who my father is.”
Keyes was on his feet again in an instant. “What precisely are you trying to say, young lady?”
“I’m saying that Ivy got pregnant at seventeen. I’m saying that the man who got her pregnant was young and recently enlisted. I’m saying she hid the pregnancy and gave me to her parents to raise, and I am saying that from the moment I stepped foot in this town, Ivy has done everything she can to keep you from looking too hard at me.”
Keyes was staring at me now, as if he could see into my cells and disassemble my DNA, piece by piece.
“How long have Ivy and Adam known each other?” I asked him. I didn’t wait for an answer as I pelted him with question after question. “Did you know he’s teaching me how to drive? Or that the first time he ever saw me, he looked at me like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach?”
The old man came to stand behind the chair he’d been sitting in moments before. His hands closed over the back of it, his grip turning his knuckles white.
“Did you know,” I said slowly, “that I heard Adam tell Ivy that bringing me to DC was a mistake because she’d made an enemy of you? I heard you say that Ivy had gotten under Adam’s skin, that you had no idea how she’d done it. I have a theory.”
Keyes took a step forward. “You think Adam is your father.”
There was a ferocity in his voice when he’d said those words, like it took every ounce of determination and power he had just to choke out that one statement.
“I asked him,” I said. “He didn’t deny it. We’d need a DNA test to know for sure, but a DNA test might raise some questions.” I paused. “You’re still hoping that someday, Adam might retire from the military and go into politics.”