THE LONG GAME (16 page)

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 one 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.”

There was enough grit in Ivy’s voice to tell me that Daniela Nicolae wouldn’t be taking her off guard again.

“Did she tell you anything?” I asked. “About Senza Nome?”

About who shot the president?

Ivy’s expression went dangerously neutral, impossible to read.

She told you something
, I thought.
Something that upset you. Something you think might be dangerous for me to hear.

“Enjoy your party, Tessie.” Ivy shut the door on that topic of conversation. “Go. Be a normal teenager for once.”

I didn’t tell her that given what she did—and what I had every intention
of doing tonight myself—
normal
was probably a relative term.

CHAPTER 37

“You have barely said a word since I picked you up, Kendrick.” Henry pulled off the highway and arched an eyebrow at me in challenge. “Meditating on the wisdom of attending a party that requires both breaking
and
entering?”

I’d been quiet because I’d been thinking about Ivy. About the bruise on her wrist. About what she’d done to get it.

I was trying to get a rise out of someone,
and I succeeded.

“Tess?” Henry used my first name rarely enough that I couldn’t keep my eyes from flickering toward his. In the instant before I looked away, I got the sense that he saw more in mine than I meant for him to.

“What’s a little B-and-E between friends?” I said lightly.

I waited for Henry to make some kind of comment about my fondness for felonies. “As your
friend
,” he said instead,
lingering briefly on the word, “am I allowed to ask where you were a moment ago? What you were thinking?”

A month ago, Henry wouldn’t have asked.

A month ago, I wouldn’t have answered.

“Ivy went to see the terrorist behind the hospital bombing.”

I could see the gears in Henry’s head turning as he processed that information. My heart thudded against my rib cage. I hadn’t planned on telling
him—on telling anyone—this.

I had always been better at keeping other people’s secrets than sharing my own.

“Ivy had a bruise on her wrist.” I kept my sentences short. “I saw it. I asked her about it.”

Henry read between the lines. “I am going to go out on a limb and wager that Ivy was not in what one would call a
sharing mood
about the bruise—or the terrorist.”

I could have snorted. I could
have made a wry comment about the fact that the phrases
Ivy Kendrick
and
sharing mood
didn’t belong in the same sentence.

Instead, I found myself saying, “Ivy told me that she was trying to get a rise out of the terrorist. I think she was hoping she could bait the woman into saying something about the attack on President Nolan.”

There was a beat of silence.

After the hospital bombing, I hadn’t
told Henry that I suspected Walker Nolan was in some way involved. I hadn’t ever told him that Ivy thought there might be a fourth player in his grandfather’s death. In the short time we’d known each other, the things I hadn’t told Henry Marquette were legion.

But he was there, and he was listening, and all I could think about was Henry playing my partner in crime in the front seat of Bancroft’s
car, Henry washing the blood from my hands the day John Thomas was killed.

“The group that claimed responsibility for the attack against the president?” I said, letting my eyes linger on his. “The intelligence community calls them Senza Nome. The Nameless. They specialize in government infiltration.”

Henry pulled the car to a stop in a residential area about a mile away from the school. His
hand hovered over the key for a moment before he turned it, killing the engine.

“I don’t suppose Ivy volunteered any additional information,” Henry said, his face moonlit through the dash. “About this Senza Nome.”

I looked out the window at the darkness enveloping the neighborhood around us. “Ivy doesn’t volunteer much.”

There was another long silence, and in that silence, Henry’s hand made
its way to the very edge of mine.

I couldn’t make myself pull back.

“Do you have any idea what Ivy was hoping to get out of the terrorist?” Henry asked.

If Henry had said a word—a single word—about my relationship with Ivy, I would have decked him. Better, by far, to talk about government conspiracies than
feelings
.

“Ivy said something the other day,” I told Henry. “She said that Walker Nolan
didn’t have the kind of insider information that Senza Nome would have needed to pull off this attack.”

“But someone did,” Henry filled in.

“Someone did,” I repeated. “I think Ivy suspects they might have someone high up in the government, someone close to the president.”

Saying the words out loud solidified the thought in my mind.
Infiltration. Assassination.
It made sense.

“Does Ivy have
any suspects?” Henry asked quietly.

“I don’t know,” I said, my hand easing away from his and his from mine. “I don’t know what she suspects or what she’s planning.”

Or if she’ll come home with worse than a bruise the next time around.

Before Henry could reply, I opened the car door. I had two choices: sit around and think about what Ivy was doing, or get out of this car and do something myself.

CHAPTER 38

In the process of breaking into my exclusive private school in the dead of night, I learned three things.

First: there were tunnels that ran underneath the school, a vestige of a train station project that had been abandoned before Hardwicke had acquired the land in the early 1900s.

Second: the Hardwicke administration had sealed all the tunnels but one, which had been cleared by
the Secret Service as an additional escape route, should the need to get presidential and vice presidential children off campus arise.

And third: the one functional tunnel wasn’t
that
hard to breach after hours if you somehow discovered its existence and had a student ID, a begrudging accomplice in the Icelandic Secret Service, and a lack of basic self-preservation as reflected in a willingness
to both scale security walls and risk being caught on camera.