All Fall Down
Page 51“A party, dear,” Ms. Chancellor calls back.
“What guests?” I say, though, in my gut, I’m already certain of the answer. I know who the target is even before Ms. Chancellor turns and tells us, “Well, the President and First Lady, of course!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
There is a big room in the embassy. Once upon a time, I think it used to be the main entrance hall, back when the building was the home of a spice baron. The ceilings are fifty feet tall here. There are two staircases that sweep upward from the parquet floors and then turn into a second-story balcony that runs around the entire room.
This is where we hold the parties.
It only took Ms. Chancellor forty-eight hours and five teams of florists to transform the space. There’s a stage in the center of the room, between the two curving staircases. A string quartet plays Mozart and Ms. Chancellor floats through the party in a tailored black dress and sky-high heels.
It isn’t a ball. This isn’t the palace. The dress Ms. Chancellor forced me into this time hits me at my knees and has a wide skirt lined with crinoline — it actually bounces and makes a noise when I move. But I’m not moving.
There are lots of offices on the second-story balcony, doors that are perpetually closed and locked. That is where I’m standing, watching, when they find me.
Megan has abandoned her camo cargo pants and is wearing a sundress with a little white sweater. She actually has flowers in her hair. Rosie is in a white dress with a full skirt and a big satin bow. She looks like she’s about to be somebody’s flower girl. And she hates it.
But I can’t really focus on them. Not when Alexei is wearing a dark suit with a blue tie that is the exact same color as his eyes. When he looks at me, I realize that that night on the wall wasn’t a dream. And now, when I look at him, I no longer think about Jamie.
“You okay?” When Alexei speaks, the words are low and almost under his breath. He’s speaking only to me — looking only at me. And the intensity of it is almost too much. I’m afraid that I might burn.
“No.” Alexei shakes his head. “You aren’t.”
It makes me want to fight — to run. Not because he’s wrong, but because he is right and I hate how easily he sees through me.
So I look away — anywhere but at him.
“Anything happening?” Rosie climbs onto the railing, leaning over in a way that might make anybody else tumble onto the floor below. But the difference is I know that Rosie might be secretly hoping that will happen.
“I don’t know,” I tell them, shaking my head and scanning the floor. “The guests are arriving, and everything looks okay.”
But things are definitely not okay. I can feel it. So I just keep leaning against the railing, watching the scene below, thinking how much easier this would be if I could just tell someone what was happening, wishing I could be the kind of girl that people would believe.
I’m still watching when Noah and Lila step through the metal detector by the door. Marines scan Lila’s bag. They sweep a wand over Noah’s pockets. I keep waiting for him to look up and see me, give that exaggerated curtsy, to make me laugh and feel like everything is going to be okay.
But Noah isn’t looking for me, and I can’t shake the feeling that nothing will ever be okay again.
“Do you want to dance, Grace?” Alexei asks me.
“No.”
“No, thank you, Alexei,” I try again. Megan and Rosie just roll their eyes as if I have totally missed the point.
I keep my own eyes on the doors and the metal detectors and the Secret Service agents that survey the perimeter of the room. Everyone who enters tonight will be scanned. The staff was all searched this morning. There are alarms on every window, guards at every door.
Well, almost every door.
“Is it secure?” I ask Alexei, who nods.
“No one is opening that passage tonight,” he tells me. “We’ve barricaded it shut.”
“Yeah,” Megan chimes in. “I booby-trapped it every way I know. And I know a lot of ways. Trust me. If it budges” — she holds up her phone and shows me a blinking red dot on the screen — “I’ll know it.”
It should offer me a great deal of comfort, but it doesn’t. I’m not exactly sure that comfortable and I will ever be on a first-name basis again.
And that is when I see him.
“There he is,” I say. “There’s Dominic. He’s here.”
The Scarred Man is down below us. I watch him walk through the metal detectors. When the machine beeps and the red lights flash, he raises his arms and steps aside so an agent can examine him more closely.
Megan shakes her head. “Doesn’t matter. Secret Service won’t allow anyone to enter with a weapon tonight.”
It’s supposed to soothe me. But it doesn’t. I keep thinking of the Scarred Man’s words, the truth in what he said:
There are many perfectly adequate ways to die. I just have to find one.
“Rosie,” Alexei says. He sounds so sure of himself — of the situation. Like he’s in control. I’ve never felt in control a day in my life, and a part of me hates him for it. The other part of me is just grateful he’s on our side. “Why don’t you make yourself at home in his shadow?”
Rosie smiles. She looks as if she has been waiting for this moment her whole life — like at some point fairies came into her nursery, leaned over her crib, and said that someday she would get to trail an international assassin for an entire night. It’s like watching someone finally find her destiny as she says, “I’m on it.”
She bolts down the stairs, skirting between couples, dodging waiters. She is a tiny blond blur as she makes her way to where the Scarred Man stands and takes up her position no more than three feet from him.
“Okay, Megan,” Alexei says, turning to her. “Stay with your mother. Be close to her in case we need to tip off the authorities to something.”
“On it.” Megan turns and starts off.
I watch her go, but I can feel Alexei staring at me.