The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(70)

“What are you doing here?” I asked her. She hadn’t been present for appetizers or dinner.

“What am I doing here?” Ivy asked, her voice dangerously pleasant. “What am I doing here?” The second time, even the veneer of pleasantness began to slip from her tone. “What are you doing here?”

I was grounded and this was a high-security, invitation-only affair. It was a fair question, but all I could think was that I’d lost track of Henry.

“Tess.” Ivy shook me slightly.

“I tried calling you.” I stepped toward her so that I could whisper without fear of anyone overhearing. She loosened her grip on my arm—slightly. “Henry Marquette knows. Everything I knew, he knows, and he went to the press. He told the reporter who wrote the Pierce article everything.”

Ivy went pale as a sheet. An instant later, a mask of calm slid over her face, her lips held in a soft smile that sent a chill down my spine.

“Henry’s been making noise about his grandfather’s death,” I reiterated, afraid to stop talking. “And then he came here.”

Understanding shone in Ivy’s brown eyes. “He hoped someone was listening.”

“I have to go.” I tried to push past Ivy.

She brought her free hand up and grabbed my free arm. She held me out in front of her, one of her hands on each of my shoulders.

“He went off by himself a few minutes ago. I should have gone with him, but Keyes stopped me.” I kept talking as I tried to pull out of her grasp. “I have to find Henry.”

“No. I have to find Henry,” Ivy replied tightly. “You are going to go introduce yourself to the Icelandic ambassador and tell him you go to school with his daughter. Don’t leave his side. Don’t say anything to anyone. Do you understand?”

Before I could say a word, she’d whisked me over to Di’s father, who vigorously shook my hand and seemed to have no intention of letting go. Ivy disappeared into the crowd, and I was left trying to extract myself from a very enthusiastic Icelander, who seemed intent on educating me about the relations between Iceland and Denmark.

By the time I managed to shake him, Ivy was long gone.

I started off in the direction I’d seen Henry go. The edges of the room were crowded. The farther I walked, the harder it became to make my way through the ball-gowned masses without giving in to the urge to throw some elbows.

“Tess.” A light hand was laid on my shoulder. “Is everything all right?”

Georgia. I tried to step back, but suddenly the hand on my shoulder wasn’t so light.

“I understand from your sister that we have a situation,” Georgia said. She gave every appearance of someone chatting about the weather as she linked her arm through mine and turned me back toward the dance floor. “It’s important that we stay calm and trust the proper authorities to get to the bottom of this . . . unfortunate situation.”

Authorities? What did she know? What had Ivy told her?

“What situation?” I asked out loud.

“The situation,” Georgia repeated. “With the reporter.”





CHAPTER 52

The reporter, I thought. The First Lady knows Henry and I talked to the reporter.

Ivy was nowhere in sight. I hadn’t laid eyes on Henry in at least five minutes. When I scanned the room, I didn’t see the president, either.

Stay calm. Think. I had to get out of here. I had to find my sister, or Henry, or both.

The First Lady studied me with eyes every bit as knowing as Adam’s father’s.

Just as she opened her mouth to say something, Ivy reappeared beside us. She said something to Georgia, too low for me to hear, then steered me out of the room.

I tried to turn around and look at my sister, and found myself turned forcibly back to face forward. “Henry—”

“Henry is fine,” Ivy said calmly. “At least, he will be until his mother finishes with him.”

We passed two security teams on our way out of the White House. As we stepped out the East entrance, I tried again. “What happened back there?” I asked, my body dwarfed by massive columns that reminded me that this was the White House. The center of power for the entire country—by some definitions, the world. “Georgia knows about the reporter.”

“She knows,” Ivy said sharply, “that the reporter is dead.”

“Dead?” The word got caught in my throat. The man we’d talked to the day before—the one Henry had tipped off about his grandfather’s death—was dead?

“The police found his body in an alleyway.” Ivy’s words were remarkably unemotional given the content of what she was saying. “Someone slit his throat.”

Bodie pulled the car up. Before I could say anything, my sister had forcibly deposited me in the backseat and climbed into the front.

“What’s she doing here?” Bodie asked Ivy, nodding toward me.

“Tess and Henry Marquette decided a state dinner was a good place to play bait.” Ivy’s answer was laced with barely contained fury.

My brain wouldn’t stop racing, couldn’t stop racing. Someone killed the reporter. Is the killer here? Does he know about us? My skin felt clammy all of a sudden. I felt my fingers digging into the seat beneath me.

“Reagan National,” Ivy told Bodie. He turned and shot her a look I couldn’t quite read from the backseat, but she was already on the phone. “Adam,” she said. “I need a favor. Can you go by the house and pack a bag for Tess?”