“I should be,” Vivvie offered with an uneven smile that wavered as she spoke. “I didn’t like John Thomas. I didn’t see it happen, like you did. And it’s not like I actually knew the president, but . . .” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “My dad was President Nolan’s doctor. He saw him every day, and I just keep thinking . . .” Vivvie’s voice got softer the more she spoke. “I just keep thinking that if my dad were alive, if he’d never gotten involved with the conspiracy, never done what he did to Justice Marquette—my dad would be there, with the president, working to save his life.”
Vivvie looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. “And then,” she continued, “I think about how if my dad were here, I’d make dinner and put it in the refrigerator so he’d have something to eat when he got home. And I think about the fact that if my dad were here, he’d be worried about me. He’d be in doctor mode one minute and dad mode the next, and he’d call me when he could and tell me that it was normal to feel grief when someone you know is killed, even if you didn’t like the person. He’d tell me that it was okay to be scared that something like that could happen at my school, and he’d tell me not to worry.” Vivvie pressed her eyes closed, and I knew that she was counting on her eyelids to hold back tears. “He’d tell me that he would never let anything bad happen to me.”
My heart twisted as she whispered those words. Vivvie was the one who’d discovered her father’s involvement in Justice Marquette’s death. When he’d found out that she knew his secret, he’d hit her.
“You miss him,” I said softly.
“I shouldn’t.” Vivvie was vehement. “I know what he was. I know what he did. I shouldn’t miss him.”
I tried to catch her gaze but failed. “He was your dad.”
Vivvie wrapped her arms around me in a strangling-tight hug. We stayed like that until she pulled back.
“So,” Vivvie said, wiping a tear roughly off her face with the back of her hand. “We’ve established that you’re not okay and that I’m not okay. Would it be weird to suggest we could be not-okay while baking cookies?”
I pushed back against the memories and buried the secrets as far in my psyche as they would go. “Cookies it is.”
CHAPTER 30
I woke up in the middle of the night. On the other side of my queen-size bed, Vivvie was out like a light. Restless and unable to even think about going back to sleep, I slipped out of bed and made my way to the door. I kept thinking about John Thomas. About his blood on my hands. About his final words.
Tell, he’d wheezed. Didn’t. And then: Tell.
What had John Thomas been trying to say?
Was he asking me to tell someone that he didn’t do something? Or was he saying that he hadn’t told?
Told what? I paced as I thought. The light wasn’t on in the living room, so it took me a moment to realize that Ivy was sitting on the sofa.
“Tess.” Ivy’s voice was hoarse. “What are you doing up?”
“I could ask you the same thing,” I said. When she didn’t reply, it occurred to me that she might have gotten news.
Bad news.
“The president—” I started to say.
“No change in his condition.” Ivy’s voice was emotionless. “They’re not sure when he’ll wake up.”
Or if he’ll wake up. My brain supplied the words that Ivy wouldn’t say.
“Vice President Hayden was sworn in as acting president.” Ivy’s tone never changed. “Senza Nome has claimed responsibility for the attack.”
I crossed the room and sat down next to her. “You’re going to see the terrorist they arrested, aren’t you?” I asked quietly. “Daniela Nicolae. You’re going to find out what she knows about the attack.”
I knew Ivy. She couldn’t make the president wake up. But she could hunt down every single person involved in this assassination attempt. Whatever she had to do to get in a room with Nicolae, to interrogate her about Senza Nome—Ivy would do it.
“Tessie—” Ivy broke off, unable to say more than my name.
I wanted to tell her that it was okay. I wanted to tell her that I understood that there were some things she couldn’t tell me. I wanted it not to matter.
But it did.
It always would, with Ivy and me.
“Do you think Walker told Daniela something without realizing it?” I asked, throwing the question out into the void. “Do you think the president’s son is the reason Senza Nome was able to pull off this attack?”
There was another long silence, just like I knew there would be. Stop it, I told myself. Stop asking. Stop pushing. Just stop—
“I don’t think Walker knew enough about his father’s security detail or Secret Service protocol to give Senza Nome the information they would have needed to make this happen.” Ivy gave me one sentence—just one.
She gave me what she could.
“Walker didn’t have that information.” I repeated what Ivy had told me, then read between the lines. “But Senza Nome would have had to get it from somewhere.”
CHAPTER 31
The next day was midterm elections. Hardwicke canceled school. Vivvie went home. There was still no official update on the president’s condition. My mind awash in what Ivy had told me, I went in for questioning in John Thomas’s murder.
“How would you describe your relationship with John Thomas Wilcox?”