THE LONG GAME (34 page)

Something to tell me I’m not crazy.
Or, better yet—something that would tell me I was wrong.

I’d had forty-eight hours to think about Dr. Clark telling me that the Nolan administration was corrupt. She’d convinced Henry that the president was the fourth player in the conspiracy to kill Justice Marquette. The one who’d brought the other
men together. The one who’d walked away scot-free.

Over the past two days, I’d found myself wondering if that was true.

The
president’s
doctor
, Dr. Clark’s voice whispered in my memory as I took my seat opposite Georgia Nolan.
A Secret Service agent on the
president’s
detail. That doesn’t strike me as a coincidence.

It shouldn’t strike you as one, either.

If President Nolan was the kind of
man who could arrange to have himself shot for approval ratings, what else was he capable of?
Could
he have been involved with the assassination of Justice Marquette?

Brunch was served in the family dining room. The residence was different from the public face of the White House, but I couldn’t forget—even for a second—where I was.

President Nolan was out of the hospital and back to work. Ivy
was off doing damage control for a famous philanthropist who had apparently gotten caught up in some not-so-philanthropic things.

It was just the First Lady and me.

How well do you know your husband?
I thought, as Georgia dished out the food.
If I told you what I suspect, would it shock you? Would you turn around and tell him what I’d told you?

Georgia speared a piece of fresh fruit with her
fork and assessed me across the table.

“How are you doing, Tess?” she asked. “Truly?”

I considered my answer. “I’ll survive.”

“I have no doubt of it,” the First Lady replied. “Ivy is one of the strongest women I have ever met, and you, my dear, are very much your mother’s daughter.”

I am.

That was why I was here. That was why I would watch and wait and look for patterns, hints that no one
else would think to see.

“I’m so glad we were able to sit down like this,” Georgia said. “I must confess, I did have an ulterior motive for asking you here today.”

I’d told the First Lady—told the president—that the terrorists had said, again and again, that they weren’t responsible for the attack on the president.
Did you ask me here to figure out what I know? What I suspect?

Georgia gave
me a considering look. “I understand that your grandfather may have told you certain . . . truths, shall we say?”

My heartbeat evened out. “Truths,” I repeated. “About Walker.”

That’s what this is about. That’s why you called me here.

“My Walker,” Georgia told me, “is very much like you, very much like his father.”

Had we been overheard, an observer would have assumed she was talking about
the president. I knew better.

“I know my son must be struggling,” the First Lady continued. “I know that his heart is broken. But he doesn’t say much. Not to me. Not to his father.”

This time, she
was
referencing the president. He was the man who’d raised Walker. In the ways that counted, he
was
Walker’s father.

“It would hurt them,” Georgia said, “both my husband and my son, if certain truths
were to come to light.”

“I know how to keep a secret,” I told Georgia.

She smiled slightly. “I suspect that you do.”

Not long ago, I’d put my life in Daniela Nicolae’s hands. I’d chosen to trust a known terrorist because Walker Nolan was her child’s father. Because family mattered. Because we were connected by blood.

Sitting there, opposite Georgia Nolan, I thought about the connections between
us. She’d had an affair with my grandfather, the result of a relationship that went back decades. Georgia treated Ivy like a daughter. I was a Kendrick, and I was a Keyes, and in some twisted way, that made me hers.

“What would you say,” I asked the First Lady, my heart thudding in my chest, “if I told you that I thought there was a chance that your husband had himself shot?”

To mitigate the
damage done by the Daniela Nicolae scandal. To protect himself from the fallout. To play on people’s emotions on the eve of midterm elections.

“Tess, darling,” Georgia said, “don’t be ridiculous.” She wasn’t looking at me like a threat. She wasn’t looking at me like a target. She was looking at me like a child. “The president simply is not capable of something like that.” Georgia’s tone was as
polished as ever, but beneath the gentle Southern accent, I could hear a thread of sincerity.

A thread of steel.

“I’ve been married to the man for nearly forty years, Tess. I know him as well as it is possible to know anyone in this world, and I am telling you, he could no more arrange for his own shooting than he could kill our children in their sleep.”

Everything in me wanted to believe what
Georgia was saying. But I couldn’t help thinking:
Do you know what heroically surviving a terrorist’s bullet does to someone’s approval rating?

I couldn’t help thinking about the Supreme Court justice, murdered by the
president’s
doctor and an agent on the
president’s
detail.
They could have been working for him.

“You’ve been through a very traumatic event,” Georgia told me. “It’s understandable
that there would be some lingering aftereffects.” Georgia softened her voice. “Have you talked to Ivy about any of this? To Adam, or your grandfather?”

She said the words like they were a suggestion, but part of me couldn’t help wondering if they were a probe.

“Ivy knows Peter,” Georgia continued. “Almost as well as I do. She knows he is not capable of something like this.”

This time, when
the First Lady said the word
capable
, I heard it in a different way. What if
capable
wasn’t a value judgment, a comment on the president’s moral compass? What if it was a statement of fact?

The First Lady was the one who held the press conference after the president was shot. She was the one who made it a call to action.

From things I’d overhead here and there, I knew that Georgia Nolan took
an active hand in her husband’s administration. I knew that Ivy and Adam and Bodie considered her a force to be reckoned with.

I knew she was a woman with whom the kingmaker had fallen in love.

When I asked the headmaster why he took down the photo of the Camp David retreat
, I thought suddenly,
he said that someone had told him it was a bit gauche.

That photo connected the three men who’d conspired
to kill Justice Marquette. There was a chance—a good one—that the fourth conspirator had been there, too.

I was told displaying that photograph so prominently was a bit gauche.
That didn’t sound like something the president would say. The word
gauche
sounded polished. Female.

I was told displaying that photograph so prominently was a bit gauche.

I was sure, suddenly, irrevocably sure that
someone
was Georgia Nolan.

Why would Georgia tell the headmaster to take that photo down?

She held a press conference after her husband was shot, rallying support for him, for the party.

“You really should talk to someone,” Georgia told me, “about everything you’ve been through.”

Even now that I’d put my initial suspicions on the table, Georgia wasn’t treating me like I was a threat. She wasn’t
telling me to keep my suspicions to myself.

“Everything,” Georgia repeated softly. “Including the truth about Henry Marquette.”

Slowly, I registered the meaning behind those words.
Georgia knew.
Somehow, she knew that Henry had betrayed me. She knew that he’d been working with the terrorists.

Just like I knew that she was the one who’d had her husband shot.

“I care about you, Tess,” Georgia
told me. “You’re very dear to people who are very dear to me.”

People who would scorch the earth to find the person responsible if anything ever happened to me.

The First Lady wouldn’t attack
me
. But she knew about Henry—and whether I was family or not, whether she cared about me or not, she’d come at him to get at me.

You really should talk to someone about everything you’ve been through.

I could tell Ivy what I suspected. I could tell the kingmaker. I could start them down the path of tying the First Lady to the attack on the president, maybe even the assassination of Justice Marquette.

Everything. Including the truth about Henry Marquette.

This was what it looked like to play five moves ahead. This was strategy. This was power.

I stood. Georgia came over and pressed a kiss
to my cheek. All I could think, as I made my way out of the residence and was escorted onto the White House lawn, was that William Keyes had been right.

The queen is the most dangerous piece on the board.

CHAPTER 70

In the weeks that followed, I found myself going back over the conversation I’d had with Georgia Nolan: every word, every nuance, the expression on her face. There were days when I found myself wondering if I’d imagined the subtext to our exchange, the underlying threat. Georgia had admitted nothing. She’d said nothing incriminating. She’d told me I should talk to Ivy, to Adam, to
the kingmaker. She’d done nothing but express concern.

And let me know that she knows about Henry.

She’d threatened me, so subtly that I couldn’t even use that as evidence against her. She had a light touch. She played to win. I could picture her, using that light touch to draw together three men, to plant the idea in their heads that together, they could get away with murder. I could see her
pulling their strings. I could see her doing it all without leaving even a trace of evidence behind.

Months ago, I’d told Georgia that a dead Supreme Court justice was a problem, and she’d corrected me.
Theo Marquette’s
death is a tragedy
, she’d said.
And, quite frankly, it’s an opportunity, tragic though it may be.

I couldn’t prove anything. I couldn’t tell anyone. But in the pit of my stomach,
I knew.

The First Lady was the most dangerous player in this game.

“In the past weeks, each and every one of you has demonstrated the qualities that the Hardwicke School values above all else: integrity, perseverance, courage.” The new headmaster spoke from the front of the chapel. “With the start of the new semester,” she continued, “we are looking forward, as a community, as a family, as a
school. You are all survivors. I feel awed to be standing here in front of you, with you, as we move into the future.”

Beside me, Vivvie slipped a hand into mine. Asher sat on my other side, folding what appeared to be an origami flamingo. He bumped his shoulder into mine. On his other side, Henry eyed the flamingo with some level of distrust.

Henry’s eyes flitted briefly toward mine. I looked
away.

“You are all changed,” the headmaster said. “What happened at this school will never leave you. You will carry it with you—but it isn’t a burden that any of you have to carry alone. You are part of a long tradition of excellence, a family of scholars, a community that will come through this stronger than ever.
You
,” the headmaster said, emphasizing the word, “are the leaders of tomorrow.”

Leaders.
My mind went to the president, to the First Lady, to everything I suspected and knew and couldn’t tell.

“To that end, next week, we will begin anew with a fresh round of student council nominations. I hope that many of you
will run, that your pride in your school—and yourselves—is stronger than ever, for what you have survived.”

My gaze found its way to Emilia. She was sitting a few
rows in front of us, between Maya and Di.

Stronger than ever, for what you have survived.

Emilia deserved to win.

As chapel let out, and we began to walk back to the main campus, Henry fell in step beside me. “I won’t run,” he told me.

I heard what he didn’t say:
Emilia deserves it. I don’t. I’m not what they think I am. I’m not what
I
thought I was. I don’t know who I am anymore.

I heard
all that in those three words of Henry’s. I also heard the underlying assumption: that if he ran, he would win.

“Go ahead,” I told Henry. “Run.”

Emilia would beat him. Somehow, some way, I would make sure of it. Just like somehow, some way, I would find a way to prove what I suspected about Georgia Nolan.

Power.
The First Lady had it. I didn’t. But I was Ivy Kendrick’s daughter. I’d been raised
by Gramps and taught strategy by the kingmaker. When I saw a problem, I solved it.

I wouldn’t stay powerless for long.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The Fixer books, more than any of my others, are stories that have been made in revision. I am incredibly grateful to Catherine Onder for her feedback and guidance as we zeroed in on Tess’s adventures in
The Long Game
. Special thanks also go out to Nick Thomas, who helped see this book from start to finish. As always, I’m indebted to my agent, Elizabeth Harding, who has fought
incredibly hard for this series at every step along the way. Thanks also to Holly Frederick, Sarah Perillo, Kerry Cullen, and Jonathan Lyons at Curtis Brown, as well as the fabulous Ginger Clark, who’s been a huge advocate for
The Fixer
since day one. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone at Bloomsbury who has worked on these books and owe a special thank you to my publicist, Courtney Griffin.

This book could not have been written without the lovely Rachel Vincent, who kept me company (and kept me sane) as I wrote it! Rachel, I appreciate how many times you listened to
me say “I just need to get the [spoiler] into the [spoiler]!” I truly could not have written this book without you.

I also owe a huge debt to my mother, Marsha Barnes, who took over planning my wedding (and made it the
most incredible, perfect day) when I was on deadline. Thank you to my dad for spending nine hours stuffing invitations, ordering a flower girl dress, keeping track of RSVPs, and doing all of the table and menu arrangements, so that I could write and revise (and revise!) this book. I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful family and am grateful for each and every one of you.