The Fixer (26 page)

CHAPTER 51

Walking in heels while wearing a ball gown was, as it turned out, more difficult than finagling an invitation to a state dinner. I made it past White House security without incident but had to fight to keep my balance. Head held high and trying not to grind my teeth, I strode past the photographers documenting the arrival of the president’s guests, my heels clicking audibly against the marble floor and my heart thudding inside my rib cage. The gown swished lightly around my legs as I was ushered into a long hall lined with massive columns. A red carpet the length of Ivy’s house separated me from my destination. Crystal chandeliers hung overhead.

No pain
, I thought,
no gain.

I walked the length of the carpet, one step after another, my eyes on the prize. When I stepped into the expansive receiving room at the end of the hall, few of the president’s guests marked my entrance—but one who did went ramrod stiff.

To say that Henry Marquette was surprised to see me would have been an understatement. As the shock wore off, he began making his way toward me, weaving through the designer gowns and tuxedos, a polite smile on his face and murder in his eyes. I took possession of the card with my table assignment on it and awaited his arrival.

I didn’t have to wait long.

“What are you doing here?” he asked me sharply. I took his arm as if he’d offered it to me—partially to irritate him and partially for balance.

“I told you I wasn’t letting you do this yourself,” I replied, my smile just as perfunctory and polite as his own. “I’m at table twelve. Where are you?”

He walked me along the edge of the vast, oval-shaped room. “I do not even want to know how you managed this,” he said. Dressed in a long-tailed tuxedo, his resistance to using contractions didn’t seem as out of place as it would have in the halls of Hardwicke.

A waiter came by and offered us appetizers. I spotted the president and First Lady on the other side of the room, near a quartet of windows that looked out over the White House lawn. They were standing next to an older woman wearing a sash and crown, who I could only assume was the queen of Denmark.

“I deeply suspect this is a bad idea,” I told Henry.

He executed an elegant shrug. “The room is crawling with Secret Service. What could possibly go wrong?”

Before I could answer, his mother approached the two of
us, clothed in a deceptively simple black gown with sleeves that hugged her shoulders. “Tess,” she said. “We thought that was you. Is your sister here?”

She looked around, as if Ivy might materialize at any second.

“No,” I said. “A friend from school was supposed to come, but she got sick at the last minute, and she thought I might enjoy taking her spot.” I couldn’t help looking back to the president and First Lady. “Apparently, I’d already been cleared to visit the White House.”

“Of course you had,” Henry said dourly.

Across the room, the Nolans spotted us and began making their way through the crowd. I tried not to read anything into that but found myself taking a step closer to Henry.

The president stopped in front of Henry’s mother. “Your Highness,” he said to the older woman on his arm, “may I present to you Pamela Abellard-Marquette?”

The queen peered at Henry’s mother. “I believe I know your father,” she said in faintly accented English. “Louis Abellard, yes?” She saw Henry and processed Mrs. Marquette’s married name. A fleck of sorrow crossed her eyes.

Henry’s mother saw it, too. Appreciation flickered briefly across her features as she offered a curtsy so naturally that it didn’t even strike me as odd. “And this is my son, Henry,” she said, “and his friend Tess.”

Georgia Nolan looked at Henry and me with a gleam in her eye. “The Marine Band will be playing later,” she told Henry. “You and Tess will have to dance.”

Those sounded more like the words of a matchmaker than someone who, in any way, considered Henry or me a threat.
The president didn’t address either of us at all. As the Nolans continued greeting people, I exchanged a glance with Henry.

Either they’re excellent actors,
I thought,
or they have no idea that we went to the press.

Henry read my expression, then arched an eyebrow slightly in return.
Wait
, I could almost hear him saying,
and see
.

Soon, we were herded toward the Grand Staircase. The president and First Lady, as well as Her Highness, were announced. Slowly, the rest of us descended into the State Dining Room, like Cinderella walking into the ball.

After dinner, there was indeed dancing in the East Room. Music echoed off the twenty-foot ceilings, a trio of chandeliers casting light on the gathered Washington elite below. I caught sight of a graying A-list actor leading his philanthropist wife out onto the dance floor. As others followed suit, a somewhat reluctant Henry offered me his hand.

“I don’t dance,” I said flatly.

“You do,” he replied, “if you want to get a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the room with no one the wiser.”

I gave him my best thousand-yard stare. He was undeterred. “Henry,” I bit out his name.

“Yes?”

I gave in to the inevitable. “Would you like to dance?”

Henry walked me onto the floor. He settled one hand near the small of my back and used his other hand to take mine. After a moment’s hesitation, I wrapped my free arm around his waist.

As we began to move, I tried my best not to step on his toes. He went left. I went right.

“Just follow my lead,” he said.

I got the sense he wasn’t just talking about the dancing. Slowly, we found our rhythm.

“What are we looking for?” I asked as we spun.

“Anyone who’s watching us,” Henry replied.

I caught sight of the Nolans again. The president’s arm was around his wife’s waist. Behind them, I saw a trio of Secret Service agents doing their best to fade into the background. A dozen yards away, William Keyes was talking to a man in his early forties. Every once in a while, Keyes cast a subtle glance away from the conversation he was having, but it wasn’t to look at Henry and me.

Each glance was aimed at the president and the First Lady.

“Smile,” Henry murmured into my ear. A photographer snapped a photo of the two of us, then moved to get the money shot: the president leading the First Lady out onto the floor. For a couple in their sixties, they moved with easy grace.

“What now?” I asked Henry as he led me off the floor.

“Now,” he said, “I go for a little walk.”

Before I could respond, Henry was ducking through the crowd, toward the balcony. He’d made sure we’d been seen, and now he was removing himself from the crowd.

Making himself a better target.

I started after him but didn’t make it three steps before I was intercepted—by William Keyes. He looked dapper in his tuxedo. Powerful, but harmless.

Looks could be deceiving.

“Ms. Kendrick,” he said. “Tess, wasn’t it?”

You know my name. You’re the one who had the police bring Bodie in for questioning. You’re the reason they called Social Services about me.

“Yes,” I told Keyes, meeting his gaze head-on. “It’s Tess.”

I looked past him and tried to find Henry, but couldn’t.

“I understand you’ve been spending some time in the company of my son.” Adam’s father had a disconcerting stare. His eyes were hazel, close in color to my own, but there was an uncanny awareness in them—like he knew what you’d had for breakfast that morning and how you would sleep that night.

“Adam volunteered to teach me how to drive.” Even as I said the words, I sensed that there was something to this conversation that I was missing. It was like the two of us were playing chess, except I didn’t know the rules of the game.

What do you want?
I thought, on guard and on edge.

Keyes gave a small shake of his head. “My son always did have a weakness for your sister.”

The song wound down. The first couple finished with a flourish, the president dipping his wife. The crowd applauded, and then the Nolans melted back into the masses. I tried to track them, both of them, my attention temporarily distracted from Adam’s father.

Where was Henry?

“Would you favor an old man with a dance?” Keyes asked, beginning to lead me to the floor without waiting for a reply.

I tried to resist, but he was polished and smooth, and that was when I realized—Henry’s plan had been to make noise.
Come here. See who approached. For the first time, it occurred to me that if the reporter
had
gone back to his White House source, if someone
had
put two and two together and started looking for the person who’d tipped the reporter off about Justice Marquette’s death, they might not have ended up with the conclusion that it was Henry.

The reporter’s appointment was with me.

“Excuse me.” I tried again to pull away from the grip Keyes had on my arm. “I need to go.”

“I don’t bite,” the old man promised, his voice low enough for only me to hear. “No matter what your sister may have led you to believe.”

This time, I ducked the old man’s grasp a little more firmly, trying not to draw attention to either of us. As I slipped into the crowd, a man in a suit approached me. It took a second for me to recognize him.

Secret Service.
Remembering Bodie’s advice, I searched my memory for a name. He’d been the one on the front porch the day the president had come to see Ivy.

“Is everything all right here?” he asked me, eyeing Adam’s father.

“Kostas, right?” I said. A slight change in the man’s expression told me that Bodie was right. It paid to learn names. “Everything’s fine.”

I started walking toward the balcony. I needed to find Henry. He’d been gone for too long. There were too many people to keep track of.
The president. Georgia. William Keyes.
And who knew how many others.

How many people here work in the West Wing?
I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to that question.

I’d made it three steps when I ran smack into someone heading in the opposite direction with the same speed and force of purpose.
Ivy.
I registered her presence an instant before she registered mine. She’d reached out instinctively to steady me when we’d collided, but now her hand tightened around my arm.

“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—”