by Lynn Barnes
“Not bad,” Vivvie said, looking at the pictures on my phone. Each of us was slumped against the wall, our positions mimicking Emilia’s in the picture almost exactly. The sign propped up against my chest read, DOUBLE STANDARD.
I scrolled from my picture to Vivvie’s. Her sign said simply, I STAND WITH EMILIA.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” I asked Vivvie. She looked nearly unconscious in her picture—and just as wasted as Emilia.
Vivvie thrust out her chin. “I’m sure.”
So was I. Five minutes later, the pictures were uploaded. Ten minutes after that, the others started trickling in.
“Vivvie?” an accented voice called out.
“In here,” Vivvie called back. She tried to look like she wasn’t up to anything and failed miserably.
Her aunt appeared in the doorway. The woman did not ask what her niece and I were doing in Vivvie’s bathroom. “I see we have a guest,” she said instead. Her accent sounded British—and very posh. Like Vivvie, she had brown skin and black hair, though hers had a bit more natural curl. “Hello, Tess.”
“Hey, Ms. Bharani,” I said.
“Priya,” she corrected. “Please.”
“Priya.”
“I am assuming that Ivy and Bodie know you are here?” Priya asked me.
I nodded. Priya’s gaze lingered on my face for a moment. She wasn’t the type of woman who missed much.
“I hope you’ll stay for dinner,” she said finally.
I got the sense that wasn’t a request.
By the time takeout arrived a few hours later, my picture and Vivvie’s had been joined by more than thirty others. It had started with Anna, Lindsay, and Meredith and spread from there. Their friends. Their friends’ friends.
All Hardwicke students. All girls.
I STAND WITH EMILIA.
“What did you girls do today?” Vivvie’s aunt asked.
Vivvie and I looked at each other. “Nothing,” we chimed in unison.
Priya arched an eyebrow. “I find I doubt that very much.” She tilted her head to the side. “Vivvie, I noticed that Jacques is on duty downstairs. Since it appears we will have leftovers, perhaps you could bring him a plate?”
Vivvie’s eyes sparkled. She whispered something to me about her aunt and the night guard having a surplus of sexual tension before bounding off to deliver the food. Once the front door clicked behind her, Vivvie’s aunt turned her attention to me.
“Ivy has been trying to get in touch with me.”
That wasn’t what I’d been expecting her to say, but the second the words left her mouth, I realized that she’d sent Vivvie out of the room for a reason.
“I cannot give Ivy the information she seeks,” Priya continued. “You may tell her that it would not behoove either of us for certain parties to realize that she’d been making inquiries. I certainly cannot be seen answering them.”
When I’d asked Vivvie what her aunt did for a living, all Vivvie had been able to tell me was that her aunt had worked overseas. Taking in the measured tone in Priya Bharani’s voice and the pleasant smile on her face, I doubted suddenly that she’d been working in an art gallery over there.
Priya put her hand over mine and lowered her voice. “I am grateful,” she said, “for what Ivy has done for my niece. But I cannot tell her that the group she is looking for is known by Interpol as Senza Nome. The Nameless,” Priya translated. “I cannot,” she continued quietly, “tell her that they’ve been on various watch lists since the 1980s, or that they seem to operate primarily through infiltration—of other terrorist organizations, as well as world governments.
“I cannot speak of this—not to your sister, not to her friends at the Pentagon, not to anyone.”
Except for me. I was a teenager. Even a cursory check would show that Vivvie and I were friends. Vivvie’s aunt couldn’t take Ivy’s call. She couldn’t be seen talking to her, or to Adam.
But she could whisper in my ear, and I could whisper in Ivy’s.
The front door slammed, and Priya began clearing away the plates, like nothing had happened.
“So,” Vivvie said, popping back into the kitchen and grinning, “what did I miss?”
CHAPTER 17
I delivered the message. To say that Ivy and Adam weren’t pleased that Priya had made me her messenger would have been an understatement.
Bodie just rolled his eyes. “Intelligence types,” he scoffed. “When things go cloak and dagger, you can’t trust them farther than you can throw them.”
Adam gave Bodie a disgruntled look that reminded me that Adam was in military intelligence.
“So Vivvie’s aunt is—” I started to say.
“Vivvie’s aunt is an appraiser,” Ivy cut me off, “specializing in non-Western antiquities.”
“Retired,” Bodie clarified. “A retired appraiser.”
In other words: whatever Vivvie’s aunt had done overseas and whoever she’d done it for—it was classified. And that meant that there was a good chance that what she’d told me was classified, too.
“Would I be right in assuming you have homework?” Ivy asked me.
“Really?” I said incredulously. After what I’d just told her, she expected me to trot upstairs and do my homework?
“Please, Tess.” Ivy caught my gaze and held it. “I’m sorry Priya put you in the middle of this. It won’t happen again.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that it would happen again. For as long as she was Ivy Kendrick, there would always be people who saw me as a path to her. No matter how hard Ivy tried to keep me out, there would always be times when I knew things I shouldn’t.
Daniela Nicolae works for a terrorist group that specializes in infiltrating governments and other terrorist groups. My brain didn’t stop there. It’s not a coincidence that her time in Doctors Without Borders overlapped Walker Nolan’s. It can’t be.
I didn’t say any of that out loud. “Were they involved?” I asked instead. “Walker Nolan and that woman they have in custody.”
That was a stab in the dark, but Ivy’s lack of response told me it had been a good one. I turned that over in my head. The fact that Walker had come to Ivy in the first place suggested that he wasn’t part of this group. But for all we knew, Nicolae’s assignment could have been trying to convert him.
“Walker found out what his girlfriend was doing,” I said, putting the pieces together. “He found the plans for the bombing, and he came to you. Why didn’t he go straight to his father?”
There was another silence, but this time Ivy was the one who broke it. “The goal was to keep the president’s hands as clean as possible, given the circumstances.”
The circumstances being that the president’s son was involved—quite possibly intimately involved—with a member of a terrorist organization.
“Your job is to keep this quiet.” I looked from Ivy to Adam to Bodie.
“Once the terrorist was in custody, I briefed the president.” Ivy measured her words. “This is coming out,” she said bluntly. “The ball is rolling. People are talking. It’s only a matter of time before someone obtains proof. My job,” she said emphatically, “is to make sure it doesn’t come out until after the polls close next Tuesday.”
Until after midterm elections.
Presidential approval rating. Transparency. Corruption. I imagined what the redheaded pundit I’d seen on the news would have to say if she knew there was a connection between this terrorist group and Walker Nolan. Any hint of a scandal could sway the results of midterm elections. But something like this? The president would lose his majority in the House and the Senate. He’d lose any chance at a second term himself.
“I should get to work,” Ivy said. I heard the words buried underneath: I’ve told you everything I can tell you. I’ve told you more than I should.
I understood where she was coming from. Logically.
Ivy walked me to the bottom of the stairs. I could see her, wanting to say something, n
ot knowing what to say. I could also feel her wanting to get rid of me, needing to pursue the lead that Priya had given her.
I mattered to Ivy. But there were times when her job had to matter more.
“Just for the record,” I said as I started climbing the stairs, “there’s a decent chance you might get a call from the Hardwicke headmaster sometime in the next couple of days.”
There was a beat of silence. “I don’t want to know,” Ivy decided.
It was probably better that way. She had her job—and I had mine.
CHAPTER 18
It took thirty-six hours for our little social media experiment to come to the headmaster’s attention. On Friday morning, I was called into his office.
Mrs. Perkins gave me a sympathetic look. “Tess, dear, there are times when it’s best not to poke a hornet’s nest,” she advised.
I didn’t reply.
Mrs. Perkins sighed. “Go on in.”
The headmaster was standing at his window. “Sit,” he said without turning around.
I sat and leaned back in my chair, balancing it on two legs. The headmaster’s silence was probably aimed at making me sweat, but thus far, things were going exactly according to plan. While I waited for Headmaster Raleigh to tell me that my behavior was unfitting of a Hardwicke student, my eyes found their way to the wall behind his desk. It was bare.
The front legs of my chair thudded against the floor.
Weeks ago, there had been a framed photograph on that wall—of Headmaster Raleigh and five other men, taken at a Camp David retreat. All three of the known conspirators in the murder of Justice Marquette had been there that weekend. It was entirely possible that the fourth co-conspirator—the one whose identity we didn’t know—had been there as well.
The headmaster took the photo down. I tried not to read too much into that.
Headmaster Raleigh turned away from the window. He took a seat at his desk and turned his desktop computer screen to face me. “What is the meaning of this?”
This was a series of pictures—representing more than 80 percent of the female students in grades nine through twelve—like the ones Vivvie and I had taken in her bathroom. Slumped. Unfocused. Seemingly drunk—and holding a sign.
“You—all of you—will take these pictures down, or I will have the lot of you up on misconduct charges.”
That was an empty threat. I doubted the headmaster wanted to deal with the parents of all those girls—or to explain to those parents that the Hardwicke administration still hadn’t managed to track down the person who was texting around pictures of borderline unconscious teenage girls.
“Remind me again,” I said. “Is it performance art or organized protest that’s against the Hardwicke code of conduct?”
The headmaster’s eyes narrowed.
I took advantage of his stormy silence. “In the past decade, Hardwicke has had exactly one female student-body president. For a school that claims to value diversity, tolerance, and equality, that’s shockingly disproportioned, wouldn’t you say? And now our only female candidate has been strong-armed into dropping out of the race, despite the fact that she has broken no actual Hardwicke rules.”
On my phone, I pulled up the picture Vivvie had taken of me and then slid the phone across the table.
DOUBLE STANDARD.
Raleigh looked at the photo like it was a snake. “There is no double standard at play here,” he said tersely. “I assure you that had Ms. Rhodes been male, the outcome would have been the same.”
“You can tell the press that when they call for a quote,” I suggested in the most helpful of tones. “I wasn’t sure they’d be interested in our little protest, but given that one of the girls participating in this protest is the vice president’s daughter . . . it’s seeming like we might be able to find some takers.”
“Is that a threat?”
“That’s a statement of probability,” I told the headmaster.
The headmaster looked as if he might actually leap over the desk to throttle me. “I did not require Ms. Rhodes to step down. I suggested she might find it a wise course of action.”
“Strongly suggested,” I said.
“Fine,” he returned. “Strongly suggested.”
I reached into my bag and pulled out a stack of pictures. My final phone call had paid off.
“I’m going to strongly suggest,” I told the headmaster, “that you take a look at these, and then tell me again that there’s no double standard at Hardwicke.”
I slid the pictures across to him. Luckily for me, some of the freshman boys on the lacrosse team were still holding a grudge about the extreme hazing. And as it turned out, they’d taken some very interesting pictures of upperclassmen at a couple of team parties.
“I especially like the one of John Thomas Wilcox doing a keg stand,” I said, a sarcastic edge creeping into my tone. “It’s so much less incriminating than a picture of a girl leaning against a wall, with nary an ounce of alcohol in sight.”
The headmaster thumbed through the pictures. “Where did you get these?”
“Does it matter?” I asked.
“I suppose you want me to suggest to Mr. Wilcox that he step down from this race as well?”
“You could,” I said. “Of course, then you would probably have to open nominations back up so that Henry Marquette wasn’t running unopposed.” My lips curved up in a subtle smile. “I’m sure the student body wouldn’t have any trouble finding another female nominee.”
“Yes, yes,” the headmaster said, seeing a way out of this. “Of course.” Then he seemed to realize that I was still smiling.
“It’s the funniest thing,” I said. “People keep telling me that I should run.”
I could see Raleigh playing the scenario out before his eyes with no small amount of horror. The last thing he wanted was me in a position of power.
“Perhaps,” he allowed through gritted teeth, “I could have another discussion with Ms. Rhodes. Convince her that I might have been . . . hasty. That she should run.”
“If you think that’s best.”
“This little social experiment of yours comes down,” he said flatly.
“The pictures come down,” I agreed. I stood and turned toward the door. Halfway out of the office, I stopped. I could feel the headmaster seething behind me.
He wasn’t the only one who was angry. “My first week at this school,” I said without turning back to face him, “an upperclassman boy was showing off photos he’d taken of a freshman girl, sans clothing.”
I didn’t say who the girl was. I didn’t say who the boy was. That wasn’t my truth to tell him—and he didn’t need to know. He did need to know that Emilia’s situation hadn’t happened in a vacuum. He needed to know that the Hardwicke administration was culpable, that the way he’d mishandled Emilia’s situation mattered.
“I’m the only reason those photos weren’t distributed,” I continued, steel in my voice. “You might think I’m a troublemaker, Headmaster, but believe me when I say that I solve more problems for you than I cause.”
CHAPTER 19
When Bodie picked me up after school, there was a garment bag hanging in the backseat.
“Ivy making an appearance at some kind of event tonight?” I asked him.
“Nope.” Bodie took his time with elaborating as he pulled past the Hardwicke gate, nodding to the guard on duty. “You are.”
I eyed the garment bag with significantly more suspicion. “What kind of event?”
“The kind at which your attendance was imperiously demanded.”
I didn’t have to ask who had demanded my presence. “Since when does Ivy acquiesce to William Keyes’s demands?” I asked.
“Since Monsignor Straight-and-Narrow backed up his father’s request.”
I raised an eyebrow at Bodie. “Monsignor Straight-and-Narrow?” I said dryly. He had to be referring to Adam, but as far as nicknames went . . .
“Not my best,” Bodie acknowledged. “It’s
been a long week.”
It had been four days since Walker Nolan had come to Ivy. Three since the bombing. Two since I’d delivered the message about the group Daniela Nicolae worked for.
“I know Ivy wants me kept in the dark on this whole thing, but can you at least tell me that she’s not being stupid?” I asked. “That she’s just managing the press and plugging leaks and has no intention of investigating this terrorist group herself?”
There was a pause.
“Ivy doesn’t do stupid,” Bodie told me.
He didn’t say that she wasn’t looking into this terrorist group.
“Of course she does stupid,” I replied, thinking of the way she’d come for me when I’d been kidnapped, trading her life away for mine. “She’s a Kendrick. Self-sacrificing heroics are kind of our thing.”
The dress in the bag was white and floor-length, with just enough fabric in the skirt to swish. Silver beading formed a wide band around the waist and accented the neckline, which cut across my collarbone. A single white strap crossed my back, leaving the rest bare.
“You look beautiful.”
I turned to scowl at Ivy.
She held up her hands. “I come in peace.”
“Tell me again why I have to go to this thing?”
Ivy came to stand behind me in the mirror. Wordlessly, she zipped the dress up just past the small of my back. I couldn’t help looking for similarities in our reflections. Ivy’s hair was light brown and dancing on the border of blond. Mine was darker, but just as thick. Her hair was straight; mine had a natural wave. Our faces had the same general shape to them, the same cheekbones, the same lips, but I had my father’s eyes.
“The event you’re going to is a fund-raiser.” Ivy stepped back from the mirror and answered my question. “For an organization that provides emotional and financial support to veterans and the families of those killed in combat.”
Abruptly, she turned and busied herself with my dresser, picking up stray ponytail holders and pins. Killed in combat. I knew who Ivy was thinking of when she said those words.
“Bodie said that Adam asked you to let me go,” I commented, trying not to think too hard or too long about Tommy Keyes.
