The Long Game

That wasn’t all. That wasn’t even half of it. But it was all I could say in this room, in front of all four of them.

“I don’t mean to be insensitive to what you’ve been through,” William Keyes said, “but given that my granddaughter has already been released, I do not feel particularly inclined to pay a ransom of any kind.”

“So don’t pay,” I told him, my voice low. “Persuade the other parents to do it. Their children are still in danger. Some of them have deep pockets.” I let that sink in. “You’re always talking about the art of influence,” I told Keyes, “about strategy and manipulation—so make it happen. Coordinate the transfer of the money, and make sure the police can’t trace it.”

For some reason, Senza Nome had believed the kingmaker might have some level of expertise in the kind of money transfers that couldn’t be traced.

“That would be a risk,” Keyes said. “It might mean opening myself up to scrutiny I would rather avoid.”

I didn’t ask him to do this for me. I didn’t say please. The kingmaker would have been the first one to tell me: A Keyes doesn’t beg.

“Does it bother you at all,” Adam asked his father, his voice carefully, dangerously neutral, “to think of someone else’s child in danger?”

I studied the old man’s face in response to that question. It bothers him more than he wants to admit.

“You’ll do it?” I asked quietly.

He stood. “I will.” He looked at Ivy. “When it comes to getting the vice president to release a known terrorist, however,” he continued, “you’re on your own.”

Keyes let himself out of the conference room, and twenty seconds later, I heard him let himself out the front door.

“What aren’t you telling us, Tess?” Ivy’s question took me off guard, just as she’d meant it to.

Ivy Kendrick had a sixth sense for when she was only getting half of the story.

“They had another request,” I said. “For you.”

Still not the whole story. As much as I can give you. As much as you can know.

I kept those thoughts from my face as best I could, pushing back against the black hole of emotion rising up inside me—the desolation, the knife twist of guilt, the white-hot fear at the thing I couldn’t and wouldn’t tell her.

The thing they had asked—demanded—of me.

“They want your files,” I said, sticking to what I could tell Ivy. “The program that releases your client’s secrets if you go offline. They want it, they want your client list—they want everything.”

“How do they even know about the program?” Bodie asked.

My insides twisted as I tried not to think about the fact that Henry had known about the program.

They just asked for money at first. Then information.

Henry had asked me to access Ivy’s files.

Before that, on the day that someone had broken into Ivy’s office, Henry had volunteered to drop me off.

“Senza Nome has eyes and ears everywhere,” I said.

“You can’t give them the program,” Adam told Ivy softly. “If that information got out, it would be devastating. Dangerous. For this country and for you.”

Ivy wasn’t looking at Adam. She was looking at me.

“They have Vivvie,” I told her.

Ivy didn’t flinch, but I saw the moment my words landed.

“They have Henry.”

She didn’t know what Henry had done, what he was. She knew the Henry I’d known—and that boy was worth fighting for.

“There might be a version of my files that I could give them,” Ivy said. “Enough secrets for them to think it was the real thing, not enough to do more damage than I can fix.”

Adam clamped his jaw down in a way that told me he wasn’t happy with the idea of giving the terrorists anything. My stomach twisted for a different reason.

“Whatever you give them,” I told Ivy, “make sure they think it’s real. Pretend it’s my life that depends on it.”

Ivy stood and came to stand behind me. She ran a hand lightly over my head, assuring herself that I was still here, that I was fine.

She’d do what I’d asked of her. I had to trust that—because ultimately, my life did depend on it.

That was what had made this homecoming so impossible. That was why it hurt to be here with Ivy, why I couldn’t bring myself to drink the last of my hot chocolate.

Of all of Mrs. Perkins’s demands, the last one was the only one I couldn’t tell Ivy.