The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(69)

I gave him my best thousand-yard stare. He was undeterred. “Henry,” I bit out his name.

“Yes?”

I gave in to the inevitable. “Would you like to dance?”

Henry walked me onto the floor. He settled one hand near the small of my back and used his other hand to take mine. After a moment’s hesitation, I wrapped my free arm around his waist.

As we began to move, I tried my best not to step on his toes. He went left. I went right.

“Just follow my lead,” he said.

I got the sense he wasn’t just talking about the dancing. Slowly, we found our rhythm.

“What are we looking for?” I asked as we spun.

“Anyone who’s watching us,” Henry replied.

I caught sight of the Nolans again. The president’s arm was around his wife’s waist. Behind them, I saw a trio of Secret Service agents doing their best to fade into the background. A dozen yards away, William Keyes was talking to a man in his early forties. Every once in a while, Keyes cast a subtle glance away from the conversation he was having, but it wasn’t to look at Henry and me.

Each glance was aimed at the president and the First Lady.

“Smile,” Henry murmured into my ear. A photographer snapped a photo of the two of us, then moved to get the money shot: the president leading the First Lady out onto the floor. For a couple in their sixties, they moved with easy grace.

“What now?” I asked Henry as he led me off the floor.

“Now,” he said, “I go for a little walk.”

Before I could respond, Henry was ducking through the crowd, toward the balcony. He’d made sure we’d been seen, and now he was removing himself from the crowd.

Making himself a better target.

I started after him but didn’t make it three steps before I was intercepted—by William Keyes. He looked dapper in his tuxedo. Powerful, but harmless.

Looks could be deceiving.

“Ms. Kendrick,” he said. “Tess, wasn’t it?”

You know my name. You’re the one who had the police bring Bodie in for questioning. You’re the reason they called Social Services about me.

“Yes,” I told Keyes, meeting his gaze head-on. “It’s Tess.”

I looked past him and tried to find Henry, but couldn’t.

“I understand you’ve been spending some time in the company of my son.” Adam’s father had a disconcerting stare. His eyes were hazel, close in color to my own, but there was an uncanny awareness in them—like he knew what you’d had for breakfast that morning and how you would sleep that night.

“Adam volunteered to teach me how to drive.” Even as I said the words, I sensed that there was something to this conversation that I was missing. It was like the two of us were playing chess, except I didn’t know the rules of the game.

What do you want? I thought, on guard and on edge.

Keyes gave a small shake of his head. “My son always did have a weakness for your sister.”

The song wound down. The first couple finished with a flourish, the president dipping his wife. The crowd applauded, and then the Nolans melted back into the masses. I tried to track them, both of them, my attention temporarily distracted from Adam’s father.

Where was Henry?

“Would you favor an old man with a dance?” Keyes asked, beginning to lead me to the floor without waiting for a reply.

I tried to resist, but he was polished and smooth, and that was when I realized—Henry’s plan had been to make noise. Come here. See who approached. For the first time, it occurred to me that if the reporter had gone back to his White House source, if someone had put two and two together and started looking for the person who’d tipped the reporter off about Justice Marquette’s death, they might not have ended up with the conclusion that it was Henry.

The reporter’s appointment was with me.

“Excuse me.” I tried again to pull away from the grip Keyes had on my arm. “I need to go.”

“I don’t bite,” the old man promised, his voice low enough for only me to hear. “No matter what your sister may have led you to believe.”

This time, I ducked the old man’s grasp a little more firmly, trying not to draw attention to either of us. As I slipped into the crowd, a man in a suit approached me. It took a second for me to recognize him.

Secret Service. Remembering Bodie’s advice, I searched my memory for a name. He’d been the one on the front porch the day the president had come to see Ivy.

“Is everything all right here?” he asked me, eyeing Adam’s father.

“Kostas, right?” I said. A slight change in the man’s expression told me that Bodie was right. It paid to learn names. “Everything’s fine.”

I started walking toward the balcony. I needed to find Henry. He’d been gone for too long. There were too many people to keep track of. The president. Georgia. William Keyes. And who knew how many others.

How many people here work in the West Wing? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that question.

I’d made it three steps when I ran smack into someone heading in the opposite direction with the same speed and force of purpose. Ivy. I registered her presence an instant before she registered mine. She’d reached out instinctively to steady me when we’d collided, but now her hand tightened around my arm.