The president is rarely the most powerful person in Washington. Standing across from Georgia Nolan, I suddenly found myself wondering where she stood in that hierarchy.
“I know your sister flew out to Arizona this weekend. I understand she’s due back today. What I don’t know is what, precisely, she is doing there.” Georgia’s Southern drawl softened every word she said, but there was no mistaking the thread of steel underneath. “In the past week, it’s become perfectly clear that William Keyes is pushing for Pierce’s nomination. Hard. William’s calling in a lot of chips on this one. I have known the man for a very long time, Tess. He excels at getting what he wants. And when he doesn’t get it, well, let us say that the man holds a grudge.” She clicked her nails lightly along the surface of the desk. “If Ivy is in Arizona looking for information to discredit Pierce, it would be in everyone’s best interest if I were prepared to deal with the fallout. Believe me when I say that I can deal with William Keyes if and only if I am forewarned.”
She wanted to know what was going on, why Ivy was in Arizona, what Ivy was looking for. I felt the pull to tell her what I knew, but resisted.
“Your husband asked Ivy to dig for skeletons in Pierce’s closet,” I said instead. “I’d guess that’s why she’s in Arizona.”
“Would you?” Georgia mused.
“Ivy’s very thorough.”
“Thorough,” Georgia repeated. “And that’s why she had Major Bharani removed from duty at the White House when she discovered the altercation with his daughter. Because she’s thorough.”
Georgia didn’t sound skeptical, but I knew suddenly, studying her warm hazel eyes, that she was. The First Lady knew Ivy well enough to know that there was something else going on here.
The question was: Did she know what that something else was?
The president was there when Vivvie’s dad and Judge Pierce met, I thought. The president was at the gala. And the First Lady had said that there wasn’t much that went on in Washington that she didn’t know.
“Your sister isn’t the type to ask for help, Tess.” Georgia pushed off the desk and began slowly pacing the room, her hands clasped in front of her body, like a bride carrying a bouquet. “Our Ivy is, I’m afraid, better at solving other people’s problems than allowing them to assist with her own.”
That had the ring of truth to it. Ivy had swooped into my life and taken charge in an instant, but she’d always shut me out of her own.
“I would like, very much,” Georgia continued, “to know if your sister requires my help now.”
If whatever Ivy discovered in Arizona led her somehow to the third party involved in the chief justice’s murder—if that third party was either of the men I suspected—Ivy would need all the help she could get.
But one of those men was Georgia Nolan’s husband.
“Is it true, what they said in the Post?” I asked. Georgia had been pumping me for information. Turnaround was fair play. “Is your husband really getting ready to nominate Pierce?”
Georgia waved away the question with one hand. “Peter would hardly move on anything until he hears back from Ivy. You mustn’t believe everything you read, Tess.”
“So the reporter’s sources were wrong?” I asked. That wasn’t what she’d said—not exactly—and I knew it.
“I’d be willing to bet his source, singular, is nothing more than an intern looking to forge some connections, and quite frankly, Tess, it isn’t worth my time to track it down. The reporter is unlikely to reveal his source, and even if he could be persuaded to do so, he would want something in return.” Georgia returned to stand directly in front of me. “In politics, Tess dear, you’re rarely given something for nothing.”
I wondered if she knew those words sounded like a warning.
I wondered if she meant them that way.
“Well,” Georgia said, seeming to realize that she wasn’t going to get anything else out of me. “Thank you for speaking with me, Tess. It has been illuminating. And I do hope you know that when I inquired about your well-being, I meant it. Ivy is not much older than my own sons, and I’ve grown to care about her very much. You matter to her, and that matters to me.”
Even with everything else going on, it hurt to hear that I mattered to Ivy. Turning away from Georgia before she could see the effect her words had on me, I took a few steps toward the far wall. My eyes landed on the picture behind the headmaster’s desk, and in the split second that followed, I knew that I wouldn’t get an opportunity like this again.
“How does your husband know the headmaster?” I asked, gesturing toward the photo like I’d seen it for the first time. I could feel my heart beating in my chest, hear it in my ears.
Georgia glanced at the photo from a distance, not paying it much mind. “Our youngest went to Hardwicke,” she said. “We try to donate something to the auction each year. Last spring, there was some water damage to the school. They were in need of big-ticket items, so we arranged for a weekend retreat at Camp David. The Presidential Retreat,” she clarified. “It’s occasionally open to the public, you know.”
A weekend at Camp David.
“Was the president’s attendance part of the prize?” I asked.
“Heavens, no,” Georgia said. “But William won the auction and invited Peter along. My husband, I’m afraid, has never been able to back down from one of Will’s challenges.”
I forced myself to pretend like there was nothing to read into those words. Like there was no reason, in particular, that I had asked.
But as Georgia and I parted ways and I left the administrative building, I couldn’t stop thinking that if William Keyes had won the auction, if he’d been the one to issue the invitations, then he was the one who’d brought the men in that picture together.
Including Judge Pierce and Vivvie’s father.
CHAPTER 43
“You’re quiet.” Bodie issued that statement with no small amount of suspicion.
“I’m always quiet.”
As Bodie pulled the car past the gates and out onto the street, he glanced at me just long enough to smirk. “And I’m always perceptive. This quiet is a different quiet.”
My mind was awash in the day’s events. Georgia’s visit. Vivvie and the article on Pierce. The two names from Henry’s list. Adam’s father being the one who had arranged the get-together in that photograph.