THE LONG GAME

by Lynn Barnes

  “I didn’t,” Ivy said, eyes on Tyson, “hire an attorney.”

  “I work for Ms. Keyes’s grandfather,” the lawyer volunteered. “I’m merely here to ensure that things go smoothly for everyone involved.” Brewer Tyson folded his hands on the table. “Shall we proceed?”

  There was a second or two of silence, during which I thought Ivy might actually kick the kingmaker’s lawyer out of the room, but instead she turned, closemouthed, back to the detectives.

  “You were getting ready to tell us why you considered John Thomas Wilcox to be a cruel person,” one of the detectives said.

  “Was she?” Tyson asked. “I’ll advise my client,” he said, his gaze going briefly to me before returning to my interrogators, “that she is under no obligation to answer that question.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll answer. John Thomas liked to hurt people.” I stuck to simple, declarative sentences. “He picked on younger kids, anyone he saw as weak. He especially liked playing games with girls.”

  “What kind of games?” the detective on the right asked.

  I measured my reply. “He liked pictures. Taking them. Sharing them. He made a lot of innuendos. He’d get in your personal space, touch you when you didn’t want to be touched.”

  “Did he ever lay hands on you?” the officer on the left asked. “Did he play games with you?”

  Maybe they were just trying to establish the facts—or maybe they were trying to establish motive. Either way, I stayed calm as I replied. “He grabbed my arm a few times when I wasn’t appropriately cowed by who he was and what his father did. But that was it.”

  The detective laid a picture on the table. Emilia, slumped against the bathroom wall. “We were able to trace this picture to a disposable cell phone in John Thomas Wilcox’s possession.”

  That wasn’t a question, so I didn’t reply.

  “Would you consider this girl to be one of John Thomas’s targets?”

  This girl. Emilia didn’t even get a name.

  “I understand that this picture was distributed to the whole school,” the detective continued. “Was that why Asher Rhodes attacked John Thomas?”

  For the first time, I had to work to stay calm. “You’d have to ask Asher,” I said.

  The detective who’d asked the question leaned forward. “I understand that you witnessed the attack.”

  The attack. The way he referred to it set my teeth on edge.

  “John Thomas incited that fight on purpose,” I said. “He baited Asher.”

  “And why would John Thomas Wilcox do that?” the detective pressed.

  “To prove that he could.”

  There was a beat of silence. “If that’s all you have to ask my client,” Tyson put in, “let’s wrap this up.”

  The last thing the detectives wanted was to “wrap this up” so soon.

  “Would you say that Asher Rhodes has a temper?” the one who’d asked me about the fight said. “Is he easy to provoke into violence?”

  “No.” The response came out sharper than I’d meant it to, so I forced myself to tone it back a notch before continuing. “Asher is very easygoing. A little goofy.” I searched for a better way to describe Asher. “Kind.”

  “Then why rise to the bait?” the officer asked. “What could our victim have possibly said that could justify—”

  I snapped. “John Thomas told Asher that he’d slept with his sister. He said that if Emilia claimed she didn’t want it, that was a lie.” Those words hung in the air. My tone was low and deadly. “Like I said, John Thomas liked to hurt people.” I paused. “I despised him. He was a bully and a coward and I didn’t think he was worth the breath it took to say his name. But—” I held fast against the memories that wanted to come. “I tried to save him. I tried to stop the bleeding. I yelled for help. I called 911.” I never broke eye contact, never slowed or sped up my speech. “I didn’t have anything to do with John Thomas’s murder. And neither did Asher. He was suspended yesterday. He wasn’t even on campus when John Thomas was shot.”

  There was a beat of silence.

  “We’re done here,” the lawyer said, gathering his things. I glanced at Ivy. She gave a slight nod. I stood.

  “To be clear,” one of the detectives said, standing as he spoke, “Ms. Kendrick Keyes is not a suspect in John Thomas Wilcox’s murder. Surveillance footage taken just outside the Hardwicke library confirms her statement about how and when she discovered the body.”

  It was not lost on me that they had waited to point out that I wasn’t a suspect until now. They’d probably hoped that I would point the finger at someone else if I thought that they suspected me.

  They’d probably hoped that I would jump at the opportunity to tell them Asher was a violent, violent boy.

  “What about security footage from inside the library?” I asked. If security had caught the shooter on camera, the police wouldn’t have been sitting here cross-examining me. And that meant either that John Thomas’s killer hadn’t been caught on camera, or the footage had been erased.

  “I’m afraid we’re not at liberty to discuss the details of this case.”

  I hadn’t been holding my breath that they would.

  “One last thing, Tess,” the quieter of the two detectives said, using my name in what I suspected was an attempt to put me at ease. “Can you identify this young man?”

  Another photograph was placed on the table. It was a bit grainier than the photo of Emilia, like it had been obtained by freezing a frame of video surveillance footage. It had been taken in the courtyard. I could see the Hardwicke chapel in the background.

  Even from a distance, I recognized Asher’s red hair, the set of his features.

  My eyes were drawn to the time stamp on the video.

  “Asher Rhodes may have been sent home yesterday morning, but he came back to campus.” The detective confirmed what I was seeing. “This footage puts him at Hardwicke just prior to the murder.”

  I tried not to let the question—or the sickened feeling in the pit of my stomach—show on my face. What were you thinking, Asher? What were you doing at Hardwicke?

  The detective leaned forward. “Is it your testimony that Asher Rhodes believed that John Thomas Wilcox had assaulted his sister?”

  Opportunity.

  Motive.

  If I’d realized Asher had been on campus that afternoon, I wouldn’t have given them the latter—not if I could have helped it.

  “I don’t know,” I said, my mind racing as I stared at the time stamp on that picture. “You’d have to ask Asher.”

  CHAPTER 32

  As I stepped out into the sunshine, Ivy on one side and the lawyer on my other, I went for my phone. Brewer Tyson cleared his throat.

  “Calling your friend at this juncture would not be wise,” the lawyer said.

  I understood that it might not look good if phone records showed that I’d contacted Asher as soon as the police finished with me. But I needed to talk to Asher. I needed to ask what he’d been doing on campus.

  I needed to warn him.

  “Visiting your friend,” the lawyer continued, “would also not be wise. You should plan on giving Mr. Rhodes a wide berth for the time being.”

  It wasn’t in me to give any friend a “wide berth”—especially one who might be in trouble.

  “Shockingly,” I told Brewer Tyson, “you don’t get a vote about who I talk to or who I see.”

  The lawyer glanced at Ivy. “She sounds just like you.”

  Ivy narrowed her eyes at him. “Your presence is no longer required,” she said tersely. “And tell Keyes that the next time he blindsides me like this, he won’t like the outcome.”

  Ivy didn’t wait for a response before guiding me to the car.

  “He’s right,” she said quietly once the lawyer was out of earshot. “I know that Asher is a friend, Tess, and I know it goes against everything in you to stay away from a friend at a time like this, but I don’t trust the police. The surveil
lance footage might have convinced them that you didn’t shoot John Thomas, but I don’t want them wondering if you helped plan it.”

  “Asher had nothing to do with this,” I said. “I have no idea what he was doing back on campus, but Asher didn’t shoot John Thomas.”

  “I’m not saying that he did,” Ivy replied. “But we both know that Hardwicke is more secure than most of the Hill. There’s no way a visitor could have gotten a weapon into the school, and that means the police will be looking at students.”

  Ivy pinned me with a look. “There will be pressure to close this case and close it fast. I won’t let you get caught in the crosshairs.” Ivy walked around to the passenger side of the car. “I’ll do what I can for Asher, Tess, but I need you to steer clear.”

  Before I could reply, Ivy had climbed into the front seat of the car and closed the door behind her, taking it for granted that she’d been heard and understood and that her dictate would be obeyed.

  I climbed into the backseat and shut the door—a little harder than necessary.

  “Georgia called.” Bodie directed those words to Ivy, not me. “She’s holding a press conference at the hospital.”

  And just like that, helping Asher was on the back burner. Within an instant, Ivy was dialing and on the phone. “Jason. Put Georgia on. I don’t care if she’s busy. She is not addressing the American public until I can verify that she is in a place, mentally, where she can handle the questions they are going to throw at her.”

  Fifteen minutes later, Bodie pulled up to the hospital where the president was being treated. From what I’d gathered based on Ivy’s side of her conversation with the First Lady, this press conference was happening, whether Ivy liked it or not.

  “Tessie?” Ivy was already halfway out the door when she remembered I was in the car. “I meant what I said about Asher. You can’t call him, you can’t go over to his house, you can’t e-mail—not until things die down.”

  I tried to imagine someone telling Ivy that she had to stay away from a friend at a time like this.

  “You need to trust me on this one, Tess. I told you I would take care of this situation—take care of you—but you have to let me.”

  “Trust,” I repeated sharply, unable to keep a wealth of emotion from marking that word.

  “Fine. You don’t have to trust me,” Ivy corrected, her voice tight. “You just have to listen to me.” She turned around in her seat, pinning me with an intense stare. “This is a high-profile murder investigation. I will do whatever I have to do to protect you, even if I have to protect you from yourself.”

  The last time Ivy had decided I needed to be protected from myself, she’d thrown me on a private jet and shipped me off to Boston. The great Ivy Kendrick didn’t mess around, and she didn’t bluff.

  “I need your word that you won’t try to get in touch with Asher,” she told me. “And if you won’t give me your word, I need your phone.”

  Give me your word or give me your phone. That was an ultimatum.

  “You don’t get to tell me what to do,” I snapped back. “You don’t get to make this kind of decision for me.” I meant to stop there. “You don’t get to make any decisions for me, not ever.”

  There was a moment of stark silence. Ivy didn’t flinch, didn’t argue, didn’t so much as raise an eyebrow. “Your word or your phone,” she repeated.

  Bodie caught my eyes in the rearview mirror. If there was understanding in his eyes, there was a warning, too.

  I was treading on thin ice.

  “Fine,” I said tersely, my fingers closing around my phone. “You have my word. I won’t call Asher. I won’t e-mail him. I won’t go see him.”

  A second later, Ivy was gone.

  As Bodie pulled away from the curb, I gritted my teeth. When I’d given William Keyes my word that I’d let him into my life if he saved Ivy’s, I’d kept it. When I’d told Emilia I owed her a favor, I’d paid it back in full. I kept my promises.

  Ivy was the one who broke hers.

  “Some people would tell you that you can’t keep punishing her forever,” Bodie said. “But they’d be underestimating your dedication to the cause.”

  “I’m not punishing her,” I insisted. I just couldn’t make myself forget. I could never predict when the wound would break back open.

  She promised me I could come live with her, and then she left me. She was my mother, and she left—

  “If Asher were her friend,” I said, cutting that thought off as wholly as I could, “if she knew a friend was in trouble—Ivy wouldn’t stay away.”

  “Can’t argue with that logic,” Bodie admitted. “Pretty sure I’ve been that friend. But them’s the breaks, kitten. She’s the adult. You’re the kid.” Bodie pulled into a parking space and scanned the growing crowd in front of the hospital.

  Georgia’s press conference was starting soon. As angry as I was with Ivy, I couldn’t keep from thinking about the way that Daniela Nicolae had promised that the time for waiting was over. First the bombing, then the president.

  And now Ivy was up there at the First Lady’s side.

  Forcing myself to stay calm, I made a call and lifted my phone to my ear.

  “Breaking that promise of yours already, kitten?” Bodie asked.

  “No,” I said. “You’re going to watch Ivy’s back, and I’m getting a ride home.”

  CHAPTER 33

  As I climbed into the passenger seat of Henry Marquette’s car, his eyes met mine. The last time he’d seen me, I’d been covered in John Thomas’s blood.

  The last time I’d seen him, he’d been stripping off his own shirt for me to wear.

  Henry didn’t ask me if I was okay. Instead, he gave me a sardonic look. “Had I realized the position of getaway driver was a permanent one, I would have brushed up on my defensive-driving technique.”

  I shrugged. “At least this time the car is yours.”

  “Let that be a lesson to me,” Henry said as he pulled into traffic. “Never steal a car for a terrifying girl.”

  In my memory, I could see Henry’s hands covering mine, washing the blood from them in the spray.

  “Care to share what, precisely, we are getting away from?” Henry asked.

  “Sorry,” I retorted. “That information is classified.”

  Henry snorted. “If you were any other girl, I would think you were joking.”

  “If I were any other girl,” I replied, “I would be.”

  An expression I couldn’t quite read crossed Henry’s face. “Based on where I picked you up, I take it that Ivy is assisting the First Lady with something?”

  “A press conference,” I said. “I’m guessing Georgia wants to send a message.”

  Georgia Nolan was honey-sweet, Southern, and formidable in the extreme. I could imagine the kind of message she would want to send to her husband’s attackers. The United States does not negotiate with terrorists. We do not fear them. Two days ago, the president’s words had fallen flat, but now my eyes stung just thinking about them. The war on terror is one we will win.

  Georgia wasn’t the type to back down from a fight.

  Neither am I, I thought, and I focused on my fight. “I went down to the police station this morning,” I told Henry. “The detectives asked a lot of questions about Asher.”

  Henry didn’t need me to spell it out for him. “Asher fought with John Thomas that morning.”

  “And apparently, something brought Asher back to campus that afternoon.”

  Henry processed that information in a heartbeat. “There are a lot of people at Hardwicke who might have had reason to want John Thomas dead.”

  That was Henry’s way of saying that Asher didn’t do this—but someone did.

  “Say you had motive,” I told Henry, thinking out loud. “Say that John Thomas had hurt you, say that he was threatening you or blackmailing you or that he knew something that you didn’t want other people to know . . .” I thought of John Thomas, claiming that he’d accessed Hardwicke’
s medical records. I thought of the way he’d taken pictures of Emilia and Anna Hayden and who knew how many other girls. “If you knew that Asher had punched John Thomas, you’d know that the police would consider Asher a major suspect.”

  “Especially,” Henry added, “if you could lure him back to the school. I take it you’ve spoken with Asher?”

  “No,” I said, steeling myself for his reaction. “Ivy made me promise I wouldn’t.”

  I expected Henry to snap, the way he had the last time Ivy had told me to stay out of something. Instead, he just raised an eyebrow. “Did she make you promise that I wouldn’t?” he asked.

  “No,” I replied, catching on quickly. “As a matter of fact, she did not.”

  I might have been a person who kept her word—but I was also the type to look for loopholes.

  Henry waited until he got to another red light and then he picked up his phone, set it to speaker, and called Asher.

  No answer. Instead, we got Asher’s voice mail. “You’ve reached Asher Rhodes. I’m off being interrogated for crimes I didn’t commit, but if you leave your name and number, I will get back to you as soon as possible.”

  “At least he hasn’t lost his sense of humor,” I said.

  Henry wasn’t amused. “Asher would have a sense of humor on the way to the gallows.” Henry dialed another number. This one went to voice mail, too.

  “Hello! You have reached the magnificent sister of Asher. She is unavailable at the moment, quite possibly because she has realized I reprogrammed her voice mail and is off planning my imminent—”

  A call came in, and Henry answered, cutting off the voice mail. “Emilia. Is Asher—”

  “In way, way over his head?” Emilia filled in. “Yes. He’s down at the police station.” Emilia swallowed audibly on the other end of the line, but when she spoke again, her voice was steady. “I accidentally left my phone in the courtyard yesterday. Someone texted Asher, pretending to be me. They said that I needed him, and because my brother is an idiot who specializes in idiocy that could get him expelled, he came running back.”

  Whoever had shot John Thomas had wanted Asher on campus. They’d wanted Asher to take the fall. And they’d known that Asher would literally jump off a cliff for his twin.