Authors: Lynn Barnes
That was a stab in the dark, but Ivy’s lack of response told me it had been a good one. I turned that over in my head. The fact that Walker had come to Ivy in the first place suggested that he wasn’t part of this group. But for all we knew, Nicolae’s assignment
could have been trying to convert him.
“Walker found out what his girlfriend was doing,” I said, putting the pieces together. “He found the plans for the bombing, and he came to you. Why didn’t he go straight to his father?”
There was another silence, but this time Ivy was the one who broke it. “The goal was to keep the president’s hands as clean as possible, given the circumstances.”
The circumstances
being that the president’s son was involved—quite possibly
intimately
involved—with a member of a terrorist organization.
“Your job is to keep this quiet.” I looked from Ivy to Adam to Bodie.
“Once the terrorist was in custody, I briefed the president.” Ivy measured her words. “This is coming out,” she said bluntly. “The ball is rolling. People are talking. It’s only a matter of time before
someone obtains proof. My job,” she said emphatically, “is to make sure it doesn’t come out until after the polls close next Tuesday.”
Until after midterm elections.
Presidential approval rating. Transparency. Corruption.
I imagined what the redheaded pundit I’d seen on the news would have to say if she knew there was a connection between this terrorist group and Walker Nolan. Any hint of a
scandal could sway the results of midterm elections. But something like this? The president would lose his majority in the House
and
the Senate. He’d lose any chance at a second term himself.
“I should get to work,” Ivy said. I heard the words buried underneath:
I’ve told you everything I can tell you. I’ve told you more than I should.
I understood where she was coming from. Logically.
Ivy
walked me to the bottom of the stairs. I could see her, wanting to say something, not knowing what to say. I could also feel her wanting to get rid of me,
needing
to pursue the lead that Priya had given her.
I mattered to Ivy. But there were times when her job had to matter more.
“Just for the record,” I said as I started climbing the stairs, “there’s a decent chance you might get a call from
the Hardwicke headmaster sometime in the next couple of days.”
There was a beat of silence. “I don’t want to know,” Ivy decided.
It was probably better that way. She had her job—and I had mine.
It took thirty-six hours for our little social media experiment to come to the headmaster’s attention. On Friday morning, I was called into his office.
Mrs. Perkins gave me a sympathetic look. “Tess, dear, there are times when it’s best not to poke a hornet’s nest,” she advised.
I didn’t reply.
Mrs. Perkins sighed. “Go on in.”
The headmaster was standing at his window. “Sit,” he
said without turning around.
I sat and leaned back in my chair, balancing it on two legs. The headmaster’s silence was probably aimed at making me sweat, but thus far, things were going exactly according to plan. While I waited for Headmaster Raleigh to tell me that my behavior was unfitting of a Hardwicke student, my eyes found their way to the wall behind his desk. It was bare.
The front legs
of my chair thudded against the floor.
Weeks ago, there had been a framed photograph on that wall—of Headmaster Raleigh and five other men, taken at a Camp David retreat. All three of the known conspirators in the murder of Justice Marquette had been there that weekend. It was entirely possible that the fourth co-conspirator—the one whose identity we didn’t know—had been there as well.
The headmaster
took the photo down.
I tried not to read too much into that.
Headmaster Raleigh turned away from the window. He took a seat at his desk and turned his desktop computer screen to face me. “What is the meaning of this?”
This
was a series of pictures—representing more than 80 percent of the female students in grades nine through twelve—like the ones Vivvie and I had taken in her bathroom.
Slumped.
Unfocused. Seemingly drunk—and holding a sign.
“You—all of you—will take these pictures down, or I will have the lot of you up on misconduct charges.”
That was an empty threat. I doubted the headmaster wanted to deal with the parents of
all
those girls—or to explain to those parents that the Hardwicke administration still hadn’t managed to track down the person who was texting around pictures
of borderline unconscious teenage girls.
“Remind me again,” I said. “Is it performance art or organized protest that’s against the Hardwicke code of conduct?”
The headmaster’s eyes narrowed.
I took advantage of his stormy silence. “In the past decade, Hardwicke has had exactly one female student-body president. For a school that claims to value diversity, tolerance, and equality,
that’s shockingly
disproportioned, wouldn’t you say? And now our only female candidate has been strong-armed into dropping out of the race, despite the fact that she has broken no actual Hardwicke rules.”
On my phone, I pulled up the picture Vivvie had taken of me and then slid the phone across the table.
DOUBLE STANDARD.
Raleigh looked at the photo like it was a snake. “There is no double standard at play here,”
he said tersely. “I assure you that had Ms. Rhodes been male, the outcome would have been the same.”
“You can tell the press that when they call for a quote,” I suggested in the most helpful of tones. “I wasn’t sure they’d be interested in our little protest, but given that one of the girls participating in this protest is the vice president’s daughter . . . it’s seeming like we might be able
to find some takers.”
“Is that a threat?”
“That’s a statement of probability,” I told the headmaster.
The headmaster looked as if he might actually leap over the desk to throttle me. “I did not require Ms. Rhodes to step down. I suggested she might find it a wise course of action.”
“Strongly suggested,” I said.
“Fine,” he returned. “Strongly suggested.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out
a stack of pictures. My final phone call had paid off.
“I’m going to
strongly suggest
,” I told the headmaster, “that you take a look at these, and then tell me again that there’s no double standard at Hardwicke.”
I slid the pictures across to him. Luckily for me, some of the freshman boys on the lacrosse team were still holding a grudge about the
extreme hazing. And as it turned out, they’d
taken some very interesting pictures of upperclassmen at a couple of team parties.
“I especially like the one of John Thomas Wilcox doing a keg stand,” I said, a sarcastic edge creeping into my tone. “It’s so much less incriminating than a picture of a girl leaning against a wall, with nary an ounce of alcohol in sight.”
The headmaster thumbed through the pictures. “Where did you get these?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“I suppose you want me to suggest to Mr. Wilcox that he step down from this race as well?”
“You could,” I said. “Of course, then you would probably have to open nominations back up so that Henry Marquette wasn’t running unopposed.” My lips curved up in a subtle smile. “I’m sure the student body wouldn’t have any trouble finding another female nominee.”
“Yes, yes,”
the headmaster said, seeing a way out of this. “Of course.” Then he seemed to realize that I was
still
smiling.
“It’s the funniest thing,” I said. “People keep telling me that
I
should run.”
I could see Raleigh playing the scenario out before his eyes with no small amount of horror. The last thing he wanted was
me
in a position of power.
“Perhaps,” he allowed through gritted teeth, “I could
have another discussion with Ms. Rhodes. Convince her that I might have been . . . hasty. That she
should
run.”
“If you think that’s best.”
“This little social experiment of yours comes down,” he said flatly.
“The pictures come down,” I agreed. I stood and turned toward the door. Halfway out of the office, I stopped. I could feel the headmaster seething behind me.
He wasn’t the only one who
was angry. “My first week at this school,” I said without turning back to face him, “an upperclassman boy was showing off photos he’d taken of a freshman girl, sans clothing.”
I didn’t say who the girl was. I didn’t say who the boy was. That wasn’t my truth to tell him—and he didn’t need to know. He did need to know that Emilia’s situation hadn’t happened in a vacuum. He needed to know that the
Hardwicke administration was culpable, that the way he’d mishandled Emilia’s situation
mattered
.
“I’m the only reason
those
photos weren’t distributed,” I continued, steel in my voice. “You might think I’m a troublemaker, Headmaster, but believe me when I say that I solve more problems for you than I cause.”
When Bodie picked me up after school, there was a garment bag hanging in the backseat.
“Ivy making an appearance at some kind of event tonight?” I asked him.
“Nope.” Bodie took his time with elaborating as he pulled past the Hardwicke gate, nodding to the guard on duty. “You are.”
I eyed the garment bag with significantly more suspicion. “What kind of event?”
“The kind at which
your attendance was imperiously demanded.”
I didn’t have to ask who had demanded my presence. “Since when does Ivy acquiesce to William Keyes’s demands?” I asked.
“Since Monsignor Straight-and-Narrow backed up his father’s request.”
I raised an eyebrow at Bodie. “Monsignor Straight-and-Narrow?” I said dryly. He had to be referring to Adam, but as far as nicknames went . . .
“Not my best,”
Bodie acknowledged. “It’s been a long week.”
It had been four days since Walker Nolan had come to Ivy. Three since the bombing. Two since I’d delivered the message about the group Daniela Nicolae worked for.
“I know Ivy wants me kept in the dark on this whole thing, but can you at least tell me that she’s not being stupid?” I asked. “That she’s just managing the press and plugging leaks and
has no intention of investigating this terrorist group herself?”
There was a pause.
“Ivy doesn’t do stupid,” Bodie told me.
He didn’t say that she wasn’t looking into this terrorist group.
“Of course she does stupid,” I replied, thinking of the way she’d come for me when I’d been kidnapped, trading her life away for mine. “She’s a Kendrick. Self-sacrificing heroics are kind of our thing.”
The dress in the bag was white and floor-length, with just enough fabric in the skirt to swish. Silver beading formed a wide band around the waist and accented the neckline, which cut across my collarbone. A single white strap crossed my back, leaving the rest bare.
“You look beautiful.”
I turned to scowl at Ivy.
She held up her hands. “I come in peace.”
“Tell me again why I have to go to this
thing?”
Ivy came to stand behind me in the mirror. Wordlessly, she zipped the dress up just past the small of my back. I couldn’t help
looking for similarities in our reflections. Ivy’s hair was light brown and dancing on the border of blond. Mine was darker, but just as thick. Her hair was straight; mine had a natural wave. Our faces had the same general shape to them, the same cheekbones, the
same lips, but I had my father’s eyes.
“The event you’re going to is a fund-raiser.” Ivy stepped back from the mirror and answered my question. “For an organization that provides emotional and financial support to veterans and the families of those killed in combat.”
Abruptly, she turned and busied herself with my dresser, picking up stray ponytail holders and pins.
Killed in combat.
I knew
who Ivy was thinking of when she said those words.
“Bodie said that Adam asked you to let me go,” I commented, trying not to think too hard or too long about Tommy Keyes.
Ivy turned back to me. “Adam doesn’t ask me for much.” She turned me back toward the mirror and began working her fingers through my hair.
Don’t.
A voice inside me objected—an unwanted reflex.
Don’t touch me. Don’t pretend
like this is something we do.
That was a knee-jerk reaction. No matter how far Ivy and I had come, I could never quiet the part of me that had wanted her in my life so badly for so long, without even knowing that she was my mother. I couldn’t shut myself off from the Tess who’d grown up on the ranch with Gramps, the one who would have given anything to hear from Ivy more than three times a year.
That part of me had been disappointed again and again.
Ivy pulled two chunks of hair out of my face and into a twist at the nape of my neck and then stepped back. She’d noticed the way I’d stiffened at her touch.
I didn’t enjoy hurting Ivy, any more than she enjoyed hurting me.
“You’re not going tonight?” I asked, trying to pretend that neither one of us had the power to hurt the other.
“No,”
Ivy replied, clipping the word. “I have work to do.”
Work.
I spent three seconds wishing that Bodie had been able to promise me that Ivy wasn’t looking into Senza Nome and another three wondering what she’d already found.
“I hope I’m not interrupting.”
Ivy and I turned in unison. Adam stood in the door to my room, dressed in his most formal uniform. Silver buttons gleamed against his dark blue
jacket. His bowtie was Air Force blue; an assortment of medals and insignia decorated his lapel.
“You’re right on time,” Ivy told him.
“May I?” Adam asked, tearing his eyes from Ivy and approaching me. My gaze went to a box in his hand.
Jewelry.
He withdrew a pair of pearls.
“Knock yourself out,” I told him, unsure why the words felt so heavy in my throat.
He fastened the pearls around my
neck. “They were my mother’s.”