The Long Game (The Fixer #2)(48)

“Tess?”

I relaxed the second I heard Adam’s voice. Bodie rolled his eyes heavenward but let his hand fall away from the weapon.

“In here, Boy Wonder,” Bodie called out.

When Adam came into the kitchen, he and Bodie looked at each other for a few seconds, and then Bodie took a step back from the kitchen island. “I’d offer you a pancake,” Bodie told my uncle, “but I figure you’re probably watching your girlish figure.”

With a wink at me, Bodie strolled out the door.

Adam took a seat next to me at the counter. “For the record, I would have gone with you to the funeral,” he said, picking up a fork and stealing a bite of my pancake. “So would Ivy, if she’d known.”

I looked down at my plate. I hadn’t told them about the funeral, because I hadn’t wanted either of them asking questions about why I’d decided to go. I hadn’t wanted to tip them off to the fact that while Ivy was off investigating the attack on the president, I was running an investigation of my own.

But if there was even a chance that my case was connected to hers, I couldn’t keep that quiet. “Congressman Wilcox is having an affair with a woman named Stephanie Royal.”

It was clear from the expression on Adam’s face that he knew exactly who Stephanie Royal was.

“Does Congressman Wilcox have high-level security clearance?” I asked. “Could he have been the source of the media leaks about the bombing?”

Adam didn’t answer. I took that to mean that a man as powerful and resourceful as John Thomas’s father might have all kinds of access.

“John Thomas broke into his father’s files,” I told my uncle. “There’s a good chance that something John Thomas saw in those files got him killed.”

“Have you mentioned any of this to Ivy?” Adam asked.

I shook my head.

“Why not?” Adam’s expression was deadly serious. He expected an answer, and he wouldn’t back down until I gave him one.

Because Ivy told me to stay away from Asher. She promised that she would take care of it, but she’s done nothing. If she knew I was looking into John Thomas’s murder, she would have told me to stay away from that, too.

Instead of putting any of that into words, I took out my cell, called Ivy, and set the phone to speaker.

It went to voice mail.

Considering my point made, I hit end and turned back to Adam.

Adam was quiet for several seconds. “The vice president is attempting to move Daniela Nicolae to a classified facility.” Adam’s words—the fact that he was telling me this—took me completely off guard. “Ivy thinks Nicolae knows something she’s not sharing about the attempt on the president’s life, and no one trusts the vice president enough to let him remove a piece from the board. That’s where Ivy is right now. She’s working with Georgia to try to block the transfer.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I asked, my brain whirring. “Why are you telling me anything?” Adam didn’t exactly have a history of over-sharing—particularly when it came to things like terrorists and Ivy’s line of work.

Adam caught my gaze and held it for several seconds. “Because,” he said finally, “there’s this dance that you and Ivy do, over and over again. The push and pull—it hurts you, and it hurts her, and I would give anything to keep either of you from being hurt ever again.” He stood up. “I’ll look into the connection between Wilcox and the pundit. I’ll look into the leaks.”

This was the part where Adam told me to stay out of it. This was the part where he read me the riot act and left me under lock and key.

“Thank you,” Adam said instead, looking at me in a way that made me wonder if he was seeing my father. “For trusting me.”

I gave a brief nod. I expected Adam to leave then, but he wasn’t done yet.

“I heard that my father is bankrolling your friend’s defense team.”

My gut told me that this was why Adam had come to see me in the first place. This was what he’d wanted to talk to me about, before I’d dropped the bombshell about the congressman.

“If you trust me, Tess,” my uncle said quietly, putting a hand on my shoulder, “don’t trust him.” Adam gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze and then turned toward the door. “Favors from a man like William Keyes always come at a price.”





CHAPTER 43

I spent hours wondering what Adam was doing with the information I’d given him. Had he managed to pass it off to Ivy? Did they think there was a connection between John Thomas’s death and the information his father had been leaking?

Had Congressman Wilcox really been the source of those leaks?

And if he had been—where had he gotten the information? What other classified information did he have access to?

Does he know anything about the president’s Secret Service detail? The question took my breath away. Could he have acquired that information? Could he have passed it on? Not just to the press—but to the terrorists?

Whenever I needed to think, I walked. Bodie didn’t stop me from leaving the house. I did a loop around the neighborhood, then another. And another. And the entire time, I told myself I was seeing connections where there were none. Even if Congressman Wilcox was the source of the media leaks—and that was still an if—that didn’t mean he was anything more than a dirty politician trying to get ahead.