Chapter 11 When we got to Ivy's house, there was a car parked across the street. Unlike Walker's, this vehicle fit the profile I'd come to associate with many of Ivy's clients-dark-colored, tinted windows, driver standing just outside. I scanned the front lawn, and my eyes came to rest on the car's owner. William Keyes. Henry caught my gaze and cocked his head to the side, a silent Everything okay? I had no idea who Keyes was waiting for-Ivy or me. Either way, I gave a brisk nod. "His bark's worse than his bite." Henry gave me a look. "I severely doubt that is true." "Either way," I said, "William Keyes won't do more than gnash his teeth at me." I was a Keyes. "Is this the point where you ask me to steal his car as a distraction?" Henry asked, arching an eyebrow at me. "Or did you have another felony in mind?" "Very funny," I told him, reaching for the door. "I could walk you in," Henry offered, his voice softer this time. I opened the car door. "Relax, Sir Galahad," I told him with an eyebrow arch of my own. "I can take care of myself." I slammed the door and went to face the music-whatever that music might be. "Theresa." Keyes stood with his back to the front door. My first name had also been his late wife's. Growing up, Ivy and Gramps had only called me by my given name when I was skating on thin ice. I didn't know what to read into the fact that William Keyes was using it now. "Where is she?" That was less of a question than a demand. The she in question could only be Ivy. "Nice to see you, too," I muttered. "Were the circumstances different, I would happily spar with you, my dear, but this is not a game, and I am not playing. Where is Ivy?" "I don't know," I said, glad, for once, that Ivy had kept me in the dark. "You have a cell phone." That was a statement, not a question. "Call her." Keyes gave the order like he was God, setting down an eleventh commandment. I folded my arms over my chest and leveled a narrow-eyed stare at him, all too similar to the look he was aiming at me. "Why?" "Because," he snapped back, "she'll pick up your call." I wanted to refuse out of principle, but Ivy would want to know that Keyes had come to our home. And I wanted to know what exactly he was so dead set on saying to her. I took out my phone and dialed. Ivy picked up on the third ring. "Are you okay?" "I'm fine," I told her. "But I'm not alone. A certain someone was waiting for me when I got home for school. Tall. Cranky. Overly fond of the Earl of Warwick." Keyes snatched the phone from my hand. "You will tell me what you are playing at here, Ivy." Those words confirmed for me that there was more going on here than I knew-and Ivy was in the thick of it all. She won't tell you anything, I thought in his direction. On the other end of the phone line, Ivy must have said something to similar effect. "I've heard things," William Keyes told her, the edge in his voice making the words sound less like a statement and more like a threat. What kind of things? I wondered. "There are questions about the way this is being handled, and I don't need to tell you what those questions could do to the party in the midterms." Keyes didn't wait for a response before he went straight for the jugular. "The youngest Nolan boy came to visit you last night. Why?" Listening to this conversation was like watching the old man play chess. Each move was calculated for maximum effect, part of a larger plan. Unfortunately for William Keyes, when he'd taught Ivy to play his game, he'd taught her a little too well. She wouldn't tell him anything she didn't want him to know. Keyes turned his back on me as he replied to whatever she'd said. I couldn't make out his words. Less than a minute later, he cursed and hung up the phone. When he turned back to me, his expression was perfectly controlled. He held the phone out to me. I closed my fingers around it and then made a move of my own. "Daniela Nicolae," I said. A split second of surprise crossed his face before he banished it in favor of a scowl. "You said there were questions about the way this was being handled," I continued. "I'm assuming the this in question is the bombing." The kingmaker's eyes raked over me, the way they did when we played chess, assessing the extent to which I'd taken his lessons to heart. "There is one thing on which that godforsaken mother of yours and I agree," he said finally. "And that is that whatever is or is not happening, it's no concern of yours." I expected that from Ivy and Adam. I hadn't expected it from him. Keyes assessed me dispassionately. "You dislike being kept out of the loop," he said. "That, you get from me." He strode past me. "Come along." I stayed glued to the spot. William Keyes turned back toward me. "I am many things, Theresa, but I am not a man who would leave his only grandchild alone in a house like this one at a time like this. Ivy is playing with fire. I'll not have you burned. If she cannot provide adequate security for you, I most assuredly will." This was why Ivy hadn't ever wanted Keyes to know about me. He was a man who gave orders and exerted absolute control over everyone in his domain. The moment he'd found out I had his son's blood, that domain included me. "If you would prefer," Keyes said, his voice silky, "I can arrange for Hayes to stay here with you until Ivy returns." He nodded toward his driver. Strategy. Resources. Influence. Family mattered to Keyes-but putting his man inside Ivy's house? Having eyes on her base of operations? That had value, too. I decided on the lesser of two evils. "Where are we going?" We went to the Mall. In any other city in the world, that might have involved shopping, but the National Mall wasn't the kind with shops. Keyes and I stood, side by side, next to the Reflecting Pool. Behind us, the Lincoln Memorial loomed over the tourists below. On the far side of the Reflecting Pool, the Washington Monument cut a striking figure against a graying sky. "The Marquette boy drove you home." Keyes seemed to direct that observation more to the water than to me. "His mother is an Abellard, is she not?" I decided that was a rhetorical question. "It is important," Keyes said contemplatively, "to make friends with the right kind of people." In his eyes, Henry was the right kind of people. "Did you meet Walker Nolan when he came to visit Ivy?" Keyes queried, and my gut told me this was what he'd wanted to ask all along. I was comfortable with silence, comfortable with letting questions go unanswered. Sometimes it was my best tool for making a person say more. "There are times," Keyes sighed, "when you remind me very much of my wife." I wasn't going to give him any information about Ivy's case, and he wasn't going to share what he knew with me. But I felt like I should give him something in exchange for what he'd just said about the grandmother I'd never met. "The minority whip's son is running for student council." That was as close to a peace offering as I could come. "I intend for him to lose." That got a small snort out of the old man. "Funny," he said, "isn't it, that sometimes the loser matters more than the person who wins?" He glanced up from the pool. His gaze settled on something and then he turned back to me. "Give us a moment, would you, Tess?" Us? I turned to look at a woman standing nearby, a scarf hiding her hair, sunglasses obscuring her face. Even with the camouflage, I recognized her immediately. Georgia Nolan. The First Lady. I tried to reconcile the fact that she was here with the reality that we were in the middle of a media blitz about the hospital bombing. This wasn't the time for the First Lady to be taking a stroll through the National Mall. She's here to see Keyes. Why? I turned and walked toward the Lincoln Memorial, coming to stand at the base of the steps, looking out at my paternal grandfather and the First Lady. Her Secret Service detail was standing a discreet distance away. She and Keyes stood several feet apart, neither looking at the other as they spoke. What could have possessed her to come here to talk to him? And if he'd planned to meet her, why bring me along? I didn't get answers to those questions. Three minutes after Georgia had arrived, she was gone. A single mother returns to the city she left seven years ago after breaking up with her ex to seek treatment for her son’s leukemia. Upon learning of her return, the ex immediately searches for the lo...