THE LONG GAME (2 page)

“The possum has fallen
on the nun!” Vivvie called to Asher.

Asher didn’t miss a beat of choreography. He shimmied and punched a fist into the air. “Long live the possum!”

CHAPTER 2

I had exactly three hours to recover from my confrontation with Jeremy Bancroft’s father before I found myself facing off against a very different opponent.

“What do you know about the War of the Roses?” My paternal grandfather closed his fingers around a black knight and then used it to remove my rook from the chessboard.

No mercy. No hesitation.

“
Wars
of the Roses,” I said, countering
his move. “Plural.”

The edges of the old man’s lips quirked upward. He inclined his head slightly—both an acknowledgment of my point and a command to continue.

“Bunch of guys in the fifteenth century fighting for the throne of England.”

I kept my summary short and to the point. As in chess, every move in a conversation with William Keyes came with consequences, either immediate or down the
line. He was grooming me as his heir, attempting to mold me in his own image. If I gave
an inch, he’d take a mile, and I had no desire to be either molded or groomed.

Especially by a man who may or may not have conspired to assassinate the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court.

“The Wars of the Roses were a series of lethal confrontations and political maneuverings between the house
of Lancaster and the house of York,” Keyes corrected, sliding his bishop across the board as he lectured. “Political unrest tends to be unkind to weak and strategically impotent kings.”

His gaze settled on the chessboard—on
my
king—but I knew he was thinking about another ruler and another throne.

Weekly Sunday night dinners at the Keyes mansion had cemented my understanding of my paternal grandfather
as a man with many allies and many enemies. More often than not, he considered President Nolan the latter. Every bump in the road for the Nolan administration was taken as incontrovertible evidence that Peter Nolan had never been the right man for the job.

I picked up my bishop and plunked it back down. “Check.”

“Bloodthirsty girl,” Keyes commented. “You get that from your mother. Patience,”
he continued, eyeing the board, “is a Keyes trait.”

This was the way it was with him, drawing lines between the Kendrick blood in me and the Keyes.

“Did you know that the term
kingmaker
was first used to refer to the role the Earl of Warwick played in the struggle between Lancaster and York?” My grandfather resumed his lecture, but I knew his eyes missed nothing—not the effect that hearing Ivy
referred to as my
mother
still had on me, not the positions of
the pieces on the board. “During the Wars of the Roses, Warwick deposed not one but two kings.”

Kingmaker
was what people called William Keyes. He wielded tremendous power and influence behind the scenes in the American political game.

“Warwick wasn’t just wealthy and powerful,” Keyes continued. “He was
strategic
.”

Power. Politics.
Game theory.
This was what passed for casual conversation in this house. William Keyes had two sons. One of them was dead; the other was estranged. I was his only grandchild. In his eyes, that meant his legacy rested on me.

“I’d like to see you showing a bit more initiative about becoming a part of the Hardwicke community, Tess.”

From the Wars of the Roses to high school extracurriculars in
two seconds flat.

“I’m not really much of a joiner,” I said. That was an understatement.

“The debate club, a sport or two,” William Keyes continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “It’s high time you started making your mark.”

The prestigious Hardwicke School was a microcosm of Washington. The mark I’d made there, up to and including what I’d done for Jeremy Bancroft a few hours earlier, wasn’t the
kind you could put on a résumé—or the kind my newfound grandfather would have approved of.

“The queen,” Keyes told me, returning his attention to our game, “is the most dangerous piece on the board.” His index finger trailed the edge of the black queen for a moment, before moving it forward. “Check.”

He was boxing me in.

I could see, already, how this was going to end. “You’ll have checkmate
in three moves.”

The old man’s lips parted in a dangerous smile. “Will I?”

He’d gone into this game fully expecting to win it, just like he fully expected me to yield to his decrees about Hardwicke.

“Luckily for me,” I told him, my fingers closing around my own queen, “I’ll have checkmate in two.”

CHAPTER 3

Shockingly, I made it through my Monday classes without developing the slightest inclination to sign up for the debate team.

“Hypothetically speaking,” Asher said as he took the seat beside mine in our last class of the day, “if I told Carmen Seville that you could take care of a little problem involving a vengeful ex–best friend on the yearbook staff and some aggressively unflattering
photo angles . . . would that be a bad thing or a good thing?”

Asher smiled when he said the words
good thing
. It was implied that I should find that smile persuasive.

Sliding into the seat behind him, Vivvie took one look at my face. “Bad thing,” she told Asher, correctly interpreting my facial expression. “That would be a very bad thing.”

“Allow me to rephrase,” Asher said. “If I had, by
chance, volunteered your most excellent services—”

I stopped him there. “I don’t have services.” Seeing the skepticism clear on their faces, I clarified, “Yesterday, with Jeremy’s father? That was a onetime thing.”

Asher raised one eyebrow to ridiculous heights. “So when one of the seniors on the lacrosse team was hazing the freshmen and you surreptitiously recorded said hazing and uploaded
it as an attachment to his college applications, that was . . . what, exactly?”

I shrugged. No one had been able to prove that was me.

“What about that rumor you squelched about Meredith Sutton going to rehab?” Vivvie asked.

That hadn’t been a rumor. It had been the truth—and no one’s business but Meredith’s.

“And that time that Lindsay Li’s boyfriend was threatening to tell her parents exactly
how far they’d gone if she broke up with him?” Asher raised his other eyebrow. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t he end up in military school?”

“Your point?” I asked.

“Their point is that you are a meddler.” Henry helped himself to the seat behind me. “An incurable, insatiable
meddler
. You simply cannot help yourself, Kendrick.”

And who was right there beside me yesterday?
I refrained from
pointing that out and turned around to face him. “I don’t
meddle
,” I said.

Unfortunately, all that did was set Vivvie and Asher up to chorus, “You fix!”

During my first week at Hardwicke, I’d inadvertently come to the rescue of the vice president’s daughter. At the time, I’d had no idea who she was—all I’d known was that she’d been humiliated by an older boy who’d talked her into taking some
very
intimate
photos. When I’d heard the jerk was flaunting those photos, I’d lost my temper, stolen his phone, and issued a couple of pointed threats.

Anna Hayden had been very grateful. She’d deemed me a miracle worker, and just like that, the Hardwicke student body had collectively decided that I was to them what my sister was to their parents.

A professional problem solver. Someone who excelled
at crisis management. A
fixer
.

I’m not a fixer.
I’d given up making that particular objection out loud.
And
, a persistent voice continued in the back of my head,
Ivy isn’t my sister
.

As I’d recently found out, she was my mother.

The sound of the bell broke through my thoughts, saving me from going down the rabbit hole of trying to figure out what Ivy really was to me now that I knew the truth.

“I know how much you all love Mondays,” Dr. Clark said from the front of the room. “And the only thing that makes Mondays better is pop quizzes, am I right?”

That elicited audible groans.

“Paper and pencils,” Dr. Clark decreed, ignoring the groans. On the whiteboard, she wrote a single question in all capital letters:
WHAT ISSUE DO YOU THINK WILL MOST AFFECT THE RESULTS OF MIDTERM ELECTIONS?

Instead of history, Hardwicke juniors took Contemporary World Issues. Theoretically, this class was supposed to turn us into global citizens, informed about a wide variety of issues playing out on the international stage. In reality, there were enough of us in this class with political connections that “world issues” all too often struck close to home.

“Your answers to this question will form
the basis for today’s discussion.” Dr. Clark leaned back against her desk. “Since I’m
not
actually
cruel enough to give you a Monday quiz, feel free to leave your names off your papers.”

As my classmates started scribbling down their answers, I turned the question over in my head. I was enough of a Kendrick—and enough of a Keyes—to know that the midterm elections were shaping up to be brutal.
If the president lost control of Congress, his chances of getting a second term in the White House were next to nothing. Ivy was currently working for no fewer than three congressmen up for reelection at midterms. I had no idea what exactly she was doing for them, but a person didn’t come to Ivy Kendrick unless there was a problem—or a secret that needed to stay buried.

Slowly, I put my pen to
the page and jotted down my answer, letter by letter. What factor did I expect to play a role in the midterm elections?

C – O – R – R – U – P – T – I – O – N.

As my pen formed the letters, I thought less about what Ivy was doing
now
than about the secrets I carried, in part, because of her. My first few weeks at Hardwicke had been
very
eventful—the kind of eventful that involved assassinations,
cover-ups, and being kidnapped by a rogue Secret Service agent.

“Answers in,” Dr. Clark called.

I folded my paper in half, then turned and met Henry’s eyes as he passed his to me. He held my gaze, and I wondered what he’d written down.

I wondered if Henry was thinking about the political conspiracy we’d uncovered together.

As Dr. Clark collected our answers, she started lecturing. “Right now,
the Nolan administration has the benefit of a
majority in both the House and the Senate. But—as I’m sure many of you are aware—that could change in a heartbeat with what is shaping up to be one of the closest midterm elections in recent memory.”

Beside me, Asher withdrew a roll of duct tape from his bag. Henry made a slight choking sound, which I translated to mean,
Dear God, who gave Asher that
duct tape and what is he planning on doing with it?

At the front of the room, Dr. Clark resumed her perch on the edge of her desk. “So,” she continued, “let’s see what factors you foresee affecting the very balance of power in this country.” She unfolded the answers, one by one. “Jobs. Health care. Immigration.” She sorted the answers as she read them, pulling out and saving a few for later.
“Jobs again. Terrorism. The economy. Terrorism. Defense.

“And now things get interesting.” Dr. Clark went on to the slips she’d pulled out of sequence. “Ideology. Religion. Voter turnout.” She paused. “Not exactly what I meant by
issue
, but undoubtedly true, Ms. Rhodes.”

Near the front of the room, Asher’s twin sister tossed her strawberry-blond ponytail over one shoulder. Somehow, I wasn’t
surprised she’d written her name on her answer. Emilia Rhodes believed in giving credit where credit was due—particularly if it was due to her.

“Last three,” Dr. Clark announced. “Presidential approval rating.” Her gaze flickered briefly toward my side of the room—to Henry. “Transparency.” She moved on to the next-to-last sheet, then ended with mine. “And corruption.” She paused. “Mr. Rhodes,
while I’m sure you do a passable Houdini
impression, I would prefer you not duct-tape your hands together during class.”

Asher gave her his most charming smile. “Your wish is my command.” He did a good job of pretending his hands weren’t half taped together already.

Only Asher
, I thought. But there was another part of my brain—the part where instinct and emotion blended together, where
fight
and
flight
lived in wait—that couldn’t help remembering a time when I’d been bound hand and foot.

I felt a light touch on my shoulder.
Henry.
I didn’t turn to look at him, but my gut said that he knew exactly where I’d been a moment before.
I was held hostage by a rogue Secret Service agent.
Thinking the words sapped the memory of some of its power.
That rogue agent helped murder the chief justice
of the Supreme Court. And the American public will never know.

Transparency
wasn’t President Nolan’s strong suit.

The rest of the class period passed in a blur. When the final bell rang, I stood.

“About that grudge-holding yearbook editor—” Asher started to say, but before he could recommence wheedling, he was summarily cut off.

“You owe me a favor.” Emilia Rhodes wasn’t a person who bothered
with words as mundane as
hello
. She was as intense as Asher was laid-back—and she was, unfortunately, correct.

I
did
owe her a favor.

“What do you want?” I asked Emilia.

She hooked an arm through mine. “Walk with me.” She didn’t speak again until we’d made it to the hallway. “Tomorrow during chapel, they’ll be taking student council nominations.”

“In November?” I asked.

“Student council elections
take place on Election Day.” Emilia executed a delicate little shrug. “Hardwicke tradition.”

Hardwicke wasn’t a normal school. Most days, it didn’t even pretend to be.

“The next student council term begins in January,” Emilia continued. “I intend to be president. You have a certain amount of . . .
influence
”—it pained Emilia to say that word—“at this school, particularly among freshmen and miscellaneous
social misfit types. When the headmaster calls for nominations tomorrow morning, I want you to nominate me. Maya will second your nomination.”