The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(85)

“Tess.” I could tell by the tone in Vivvie’s voice that she’d said my name more than once.

I blinked. In addition to Vivvie’s bodyguard, we now had three other visitors: Asher, Henry, and a woman who was almost certainly Henry’s bodyguard.

Asher sat down on the sofa beside me. I couldn’t even summon the energy to shove him off the sofa.

“Vivvie told us.” Henry didn’t specify what she had told them.

If, if, if . . .

“I am sorry about your sister,” Henry told me. “For what it’s worth, I have to believe she has a contingency plan of some sort.”

A rush of anger went through my body, and with it, came my voice. “You’re the authority, aren’t you? On Ivy? She can’t be trusted and all that?”

“Tess.” Henry knelt next to me. “You have to know, I never would have wanted—”

“Wouldn’t you?” I sat up, then stood, all in one motion. He could stay kneeling for all I cared. “You did this,” I told Henry. “If you hadn’t opened your mouth with the reporter, if you hadn’t insisted on going to that state dinner, then I might have been here, in DC! I might not have gotten taken, and Ivy would never have had to trade herself for me. You did this,” I told Henry.

Henry stood and took a step back.

“Hey!” Asher objected, but I barely heard him.

“We did this,” I said, my eyes still locked on to Henry’s. “She’s going to die. I did that. I did—”

Henry stood. “You were right the first time,” he said. “Blame me. If you have to blame someone, blame me.”

If, if, if . . .

“She didn’t even let me say good-bye.” I sounded small and broken and weak. I didn’t know how to sound any other way.

“No.” That word burst out of Vivvie with the strength of a small whirlwind. “You don’t get to blame yourself,” she told me, her voice vibrating with emotions I recognized all too well. “Blaming yourself is easy. Blaming other people is, too. You think that I don’t think about the fact that if I hadn’t said anything, if I’d just kept my mouth closed, my father might still be alive? You think it wouldn’t be easier to hate myself for that? To hate you? To hate Ivy? You have a choice, Tess, and you don’t get to make the easy one, because if you give up, if you can’t make it through this—what chance do I have?” Her eyes shone with tears, but she didn’t shed them. “You don’t get to check out. You don’t get to give in. You can’t.”

My eyes were drawn back to the clock again. How many hours did Ivy have left? “I don’t want to give up,” I said softly, “but I don’t know what else to do.”

“What would your sister do?” Asher’s question hurt, but instead of shrinking from it, I absorbed the pain. I let myself feel it, and then, I made myself use it.

What would Ivy do?

“She’d find a way to fix this,” I said, my voice hardening. But how? If Ivy had been able to take care of the situation, she would have taken care of it when I got kidnapped. What chance did I have, if even DC’s most prominent problem solver hadn’t been able to come up with an answer that didn’t leave her own head on the chopping block?

“I can’t change the president’s mind,” I said, thinking out loud, trying to channel Ivy, trying—in vain—to be like her, to prove that there was something of her in me. “I could try to talk to the First Lady, but I doubt I could even get a hold of her. Everyone’s out looking for Ivy.”

“What does that leave?” Henry asked quietly.

I blew out a long breath of air. “Who besides the president can issue a pardon?”

Asher raised the index finger on his right hand. “The governor of the state in question.”

I glanced at Vivvie. “I don’t suppose anyone at Hardwicke has an uncle who’s the governor of Arizona?”

She shook her head.

“What about William Keyes?” Henry asked. “My mother refers to him as the kingmaker. His support can make or break a political career. If the governor is looking to curry favor—”

“Adam already asked him to help,” I cut in. “Keyes has a grudge against Ivy. He won’t lift a finger.”

My father collects things: information, people, blackmail material. Adam’s voice echoed in my mind. He wouldn’t have asked his father for help unless he’d believed the man could actually deliver.

“In my experience,” Asher said thoughtfully, “sometimes ‘there is no way I am doing that for you, Asher’ just means ‘make me a better offer.’”

I got the distinct feeling he was talking about Emilia, but set that aside. What does Keyes want? What could I possibly offer him? He’d wanted Pierce on the Supreme Court, but Pierce was dead. I racked my mind for everything I’d overheard William Keyes say in his conversation with Adam.

He wants Adam to retire from the military and run for the Senate. I rolled that over in my mind. He thinks Adam could be president someday.

Ivy had said that a kingmaker was someone with enough money and power to affect the outcome of elections, but who—for whatever reason—wasn’t a viable candidate himself. I didn’t know why William Keyes couldn’t—or wouldn’t—run for office, but I did know that he wanted more than being the person who called the shots behind the scene.