The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(56)
“Would you mind giving us a moment, Chester?” Georgia had a way of issuing requests, sweet as honey, but rhetorical nonetheless. The headmaster was out of the room before he knew it. Georgia nodded to the Secret Service agent, and he positioned himself just outside the door.
Georgia shut it, leaving the two of us alone.
“How are you really, Tess?” she asked once it was just us. “Ivy told me that Vivvie Bharani is a friend of yours. I can only imagine what she’s going through.”
I didn’t want to talk about Vivvie, but Georgia looked content to stand there indefinitely until I said something. “They buried her father this morning.”
“I regret not being able to attend.” Georgia studied me for a moment. “Ivy indicated that Ms. Bharani and her father were having some problems before his death?”
Why do you want to know? I caught those words in the filter between my brain and my mouth. When she realized that I wasn’t going to respond, Georgia let out a light, airy sigh, then leaned back against the headmaster’s desk. “I know when I’m being kept in the dark, Tess,” she said. “Quite frankly, there’s not much that goes on in Washington that I don’t know.”
The president is rarely the most powerful person in Washington. Standing across from Georgia Nolan, I suddenly found myself wondering where she stood in that hierarchy.
“I know your sister flew out to Arizona this weekend. I understand she’s due back today. What I don’t know is what, precisely, she is doing there.” Georgia’s Southern drawl softened every word she said, but there was no mistaking the thread of steel underneath. “In the past week, it’s become perfectly clear that William Keyes is pushing for Pierce’s nomination. Hard. William’s calling in a lot of chips on this one. I have known the man for a very long time, Tess. He excels at getting what he wants. And when he doesn’t get it, well, let us say that the man holds a grudge.” She clicked her nails lightly along the surface of the desk. “If Ivy is in Arizona looking for information to discredit Pierce, it would be in everyone’s best interest if I were prepared to deal with the fallout. Believe me when I say that I can deal with William Keyes if and only if I am forewarned.”
She wanted to know what was going on, why Ivy was in Arizona, what Ivy was looking for. I felt the pull to tell her what I knew, but resisted.
“Your husband asked Ivy to dig for skeletons in Pierce’s closet,” I said instead. “I’d guess that’s why she’s in Arizona.”
“Would you?” Georgia mused.
“Ivy’s very thorough.”
“Thorough,” Georgia repeated. “And that’s why she had Major Bharani removed from duty at the White House when she discovered the altercation with his daughter. Because she’s thorough.”
Georgia didn’t sound skeptical, but I knew suddenly, studying her warm hazel eyes, that she was. The First Lady knew Ivy well enough to know that there was something else going on here.
The question was: Did she know what that something else was?
The president was there when Vivvie’s dad and Judge Pierce met, I thought. The president was at the gala. And the First Lady had said that there wasn’t much that went on in Washington that she didn’t know.
“Your sister isn’t the type to ask for help, Tess.” Georgia pushed off the desk and began slowly pacing the room, her hands clasped in front of her body, like a bride carrying a bouquet. “Our Ivy is, I’m afraid, better at solving other people’s problems than allowing them to assist with her own.”
That had the ring of truth to it. Ivy had swooped into my life and taken charge in an instant, but she’d always shut me out of her own.
“I would like, very much,” Georgia continued, “to know if your sister requires my help now.”
If whatever Ivy discovered in Arizona led her somehow to the third party involved in the chief justice’s murder—if that third party was either of the men I suspected—Ivy would need all the help she could get.
But one of those men was Georgia Nolan’s husband.
“Is it true, what they said in the Post?” I asked. Georgia had been pumping me for information. Turnaround was fair play. “Is your husband really getting ready to nominate Pierce?”
Georgia waved away the question with one hand. “Peter would hardly move on anything until he hears back from Ivy. You mustn’t believe everything you read, Tess.”
“So the reporter’s sources were wrong?” I asked. That wasn’t what she’d said—not exactly—and I knew it.
“I’d be willing to bet his source, singular, is nothing more than an intern looking to forge some connections, and quite frankly, Tess, it isn’t worth my time to track it down. The reporter is unlikely to reveal his source, and even if he could be persuaded to do so, he would want something in return.” Georgia returned to stand directly in front of me. “In politics, Tess dear, you’re rarely given something for nothing.”
I wondered if she knew those words sounded like a warning.
I wondered if she meant them that way.
“Well,” Georgia said, seeming to realize that she wasn’t going to get anything else out of me. “Thank you for speaking with me, Tess. It has been illuminating. And I do hope you know that when I inquired about your well-being, I meant it. Ivy is not much older than my own sons, and I’ve grown to care about her very much. You matter to her, and that matters to me.”