The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(86)

He wanted his son to do what he couldn’t.

William Keyes wanted a legacy.

A plan began to take hold in my mind. Maybe Adam had been going about this all wrong. Maybe he shouldn’t have been asking his father for help.

Maybe he should have tried blackmail.





CHAPTER 62

William Keyes lived in Virginia. His residence—and I doubted it was his only one—was nothing short of palatial. The guard out front hadn’t wanted to buzz me through the gate, but I could be very convincing.

Ultimately, William Keyes had a weak spot, and I could tap into it with just four words: It’s about your son.

The others waited outside. Fifteen minutes after I’d been let into the Keyes house and seated in some kind of formal library, the old man joined me.

“You,” he said after a moment, “surprise me.”

It wasn’t clear from his tone whether that was a compliment or a complaint.

“I haven’t surprised you yet,” I replied. “But I’m about to.”

Despite himself, the old man looked slightly intrigued. “Your sister wouldn’t approve,” he said, coming to stand closer to me. I got the feeling that he liked towering over me, that it didn’t matter that physically, I was small.

An enemy could always be made smaller.

“Ivy is being held captive by a rogue Secret Service agent,” I said, not beating around the bush. “President Nolan has received a ransom demand.”

“He won’t negotiate.” The corners of Keyes’s lips twitched. It wasn’t a smile, but it wasn’t a grimace, either.

“She’s got a bomb strapped to her chest.” I kept my voice calm but couldn’t tamp down the intensity in it. “If you can’t get the governor of Arizona to issue a pardon, she’s going to die.”

After exactly three seconds of silence, William Keyes took a seat across from me. “What makes you think I have any sway over the governor of Arizona?”

“If you don’t, you know someone who does.”

This time, he did smile. “You,” he said, lingering on the word, “are very much like your sister.”

I could hear, in those words, that he’d been fond of Ivy once. Keyes stiffened, like he’d heard the same thing and didn’t appreciate the reminder.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, leaning back in his chair, “your sister is no longer my concern. She put Nolan in office. Clearly, she prefers his judgment to mine.”

Whatever bad blood there was between Keyes and the president, the man sitting across from me would never forgive Ivy for helping Peter Nolan make it to the White House.

Luckily, I hadn’t come here to beg forgiveness.

“She’s not my sister.” I let those words sink in, knowing they weren’t what he’d expected—knowing that I wasn’t what he’d expected. “She’s my mother, and I don’t think you want anyone figuring out who my father is.”

Keyes was on his feet again in an instant. “What precisely are you trying to say, young lady?”

“I’m saying that Ivy got pregnant at seventeen. I’m saying that the man who got her pregnant was young and recently enlisted. I’m saying she hid the pregnancy and gave me to her parents to raise, and I am saying that from the moment I stepped foot in this town, Ivy has done everything she can to keep you from looking too hard at me.”

Keyes was staring at me now, as if he could see into my cells and disassemble my DNA, piece by piece.

“How long have Ivy and Adam known each other?” I asked him. I didn’t wait for an answer as I pelted him with question after question. “Did you know he’s teaching me how to drive? Or that the first time he ever saw me, he looked at me like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach?”

The old man came to stand behind the chair he’d been sitting in moments before. His hands closed over the back of it, his grip turning his knuckles white.

“Did you know,” I said slowly, “that I heard Adam tell Ivy that bringing me to DC was a mistake because she’d made an enemy of you? I heard you say that Ivy had gotten under Adam’s skin, that you had no idea how she’d done it. I have a theory.”

Keyes took a step forward. “You think Adam is your father.”

There was a ferocity in his voice when he’d said those words, like it took every ounce of determination and power he had just to choke out that one statement.

“I asked him,” I said. “He didn’t deny it. We’d need a DNA test to know for sure, but a DNA test might raise some questions.” I paused. “You’re still hoping that someday, Adam might retire from the military and go into politics.”

William Keyes had barely interacted with me, but I’d watched him. I’d heard him talking. I knew, instinctively, how to go straight for his heart.

“You have a plan for Adam,” I said, “and I doubt that I am part of that plan.”

“Are you attempting to blackmail me?” Keyes said. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought he sounded pleased.

“I prefer to think of it as a negotiation,” I said. “You want to see your son in the Oval Office someday, and I want the governor of Arizona to issue either a pardon or a permanent stay of execution for Damien Kostas’s son.”