The Long Game (The Fixer #2)(53)

His jaw clamped down, and he said nothing.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” I said. “Ivy shouldn’t have sent me.” I grabbed my bag off the floor and went to move past him.

“Not. Another. Step.” The kingmaker turned. “Is this what we’ve come to?” he asked me. “You fleeing my presence?”

A Keyes doesn’t flee. A Keyes doesn’t back down from a battle. In other circumstances, I could see him telling me those words.

“Ivy sent you here because I have the resources and the manpower to protect you.” He took a step forward. “I am also,” he said, “not inclined to indulge childish tantrums or impulsive acts the way she might.” He walked toward me. I pushed down the urge to step back. “You, my dear, are not leaving this house anytime soon.”

“I have school on Monday,” I said.

“And to school,” the kingmaker countered, “you will go.” The hand on my shoulder went to the side of my face. A moment later, he cupped the back of my head, his touch gentle. “I apologize,” he said, “if my questions frightened you.”

“I’m not frightened,” I said. “I’m just wondering what you’re capable of. If there are lines you won’t cross.”

“What must you think of me?” Keyes said, his voice soft and deadly, “to ask that question?” He ran his hand gently over the back of my head, then squeezed my shoulder. For a moment, I didn’t think he would let go.

But he did.

He let loose of me, and he turned and walked over to the nightstand. He picked up a picture frame, then returned to my side.

In the picture, I could make out two young boys and their mother. Theresa Keyes. The woman I’d been named after, the woman who’d decorated this room.

Keyes stared at the photo, stroking his thumb along the frame. “You’re right to be suspicious of me,” he said, staring at his dead wife, at the boy my dead father had been. “I have my motives. I always do. But they’re not what you think they are, Tess. There are lines I would not cross.”

“Then why?” I said hoarsely. Why pump me for information about Daniela Nicolae? If you’re not with them, if you’re not one of them—why do you need to know?

I felt something shift in the room, in him.

“Walker Nolan is my son.” The kingmaker stared at the photograph a moment longer, then looked up. “My wife didn’t know. Adam doesn’t know. Walker doesn’t know.” The kingmaker walked over to the nightstand and set the frame gingerly back down. “No one knows,” he said. “Except for Georgia and me, and now you.”

Georgia Nolan and William Keyes . . .

Adam had implied that they’d been involved, before either of them were married. When Keyes had found out that Walker had come to Ivy, he’d shown up on our front porch, demanding answers.

Demanding to know what kind of trouble Walker was in.

He and Georgia met that day. . . .

“You see now why I needed to know what Ivy knows about this whole sordid situation,” the kingmaker said. “That terrorist girl isn’t carrying the president’s grandchild.” His voice was rougher than I’d ever heard it. “She’s carrying mine.”

I forced myself to process, forced my mouth to form words. “Why are you telling me this?”

Why would he tell me a secret he’d kept for decades?

The kingmaker’s gaze went back to the picture. “I lost Tommy,” he said. “Adam thinks me a monster. Walker will never really be mine.” His fingers tightened around the edges of the frame. “I treated Ivy like a daughter, and she chose Peter Nolan over me.” He forced himself to walk back over to the nightstand and set down the frame. “Come what may, my dear,” he said, turning back to me, “I will not lose you.”





CHAPTER 46

True to his word, the kingmaker didn’t allow me out of the house until he personally delivered me to school Monday morning. Headmaster Raleigh called a school-wide assembly for first period. I sat next to Vivvie and tried not to feel anything when Henry walked straight by us both.

I tried not to think about the fact that I hadn’t heard from Ivy in twenty-four hours.

“Did something happen that I don’t know about?” Vivvie asked. “Because you’re making this face”—Vivvie adopted a stormy countenance—“and Henry’s making that face, and—”

Headmaster Raleigh saved me from the rest of Vivvie’s inquiry. “Starting today,” he announced, signaling the beginning of the assembly, “our new security measures will be going into full effect.” He began going through the measures: double the number of security personnel, changes to school policy on search and seizure, strict enforcement of all existing security protocol.

I wondered if I was the only one who noticed how heavily the new security personnel were armed.

The police still hadn’t made an arrest in the murder of John Thomas Wilcox. That left the Hardwicke administration on edge.

John Thomas’s father is in bed with terrorists, and now John Thomas is dead, I thought. Someone at this school killed him. The Hardwicke administration should be on edge.

“Tess.” Vivvie nudged me in the side. With a start, I realized the headmaster had stopped speaking. The assembly was over.