The Long Game

“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.

Senza Nome specializes in infiltration. They have someone on the Hill. They must.

This time, when I wrapped back around to the house, I saw someone sitting on the front porch. By streetlight, it took me a moment to recognize him.

“Henry?” I called out as I approached the front porch. “What are you doing here?”

He was sitting on the concrete steps. In all the time I’d known him, I had never once seen Henry Marquette sit on the ground. His eyes were shadowed.

“Is everything okay?” I asked him.

Henry looked up at me, his face half in shadow, his eyes catching the streetlight. “The first time I saw you,” he said, “was at my grandfather’s funeral.”

I took a seat beside Henry, unsure where this was going, unsure why he looked like he’d been through a war zone and seen things he couldn’t unsee.

“Then afterward,” Henry continued, “at my grandfather’s wake, I found you with my sister and Asher. The three of you were skipping imaginary rocks.” He paused. “Do you remember that?”

“Yes.” I remembered Henry looking at us like we were crazy, like he couldn’t begin to fathom running barefoot in the grass or playing pretend.

Henry swallowed, then held up one hand. As I watched, he pantomimed tossing a rock. “How was that?” His voice was rough, hoarse.

“Horrible,” I told him. “It sank straight to the bottom and didn’t skip even once.”

Henry let out a bark of laughter.

I showed him how it was done. “It’s all in the flick of the wrist.”

The edges of Henry’s lips curled up slightly. He looked down at his hands, at a “rock” that didn’t even exist. “Thalia wakes up screaming sometimes.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “First my father. Then my grandfather.” Henry’s voice hardened with resolve. “I tell her that I will never let anything happen to her, but it’s not herself she worries about. She worries about me. About my mom.”