CHAPTER 30

Once they’d squeezed every last drop of information out of us, Ivy, Adam, and Bodie retreated downstairs to Ivy’s office. By that time, it was almost midnight. There was never any question that Vivvie was spending the night—Ivy had set her up on the sofa. Vivvie crawled under the blanket and just lay there.

Sometime around two in the morning, I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep, knowing that downstairs, Ivy was . . . I didn’t even know what she was doing. Had Adam called his contact at the Pentagon? Was Ivy on the phone with the president right now?

“Tess?”

I sat up in bed. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but once they did, I could make out the outline of Vivvie’s body in the doorway.

“You okay?” I asked. What a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay.

“Can I . . .” Vivvie trailed off. She had a blanket draped over her shoulders.

“Can you what?”

Vivvie hovered in the doorway, like there was some kind of barrier physically keeping her out. “I just . . . I don’t want to be alone.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

I propped myself up on my elbows. “Do you want to sleep in here?” My bed was big enough for both of us. “It’s okay,” I said when she didn’t move. “There’s plenty of room.”

Vivvie shuffled to my bed. She climbed up on it, lying on top of the covers, still wrapped in her own blanket.

She wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be alone.

Vivvie’s eye was black the next morning. There was no way she could go to school, and there was no way I was leaving her alone with Ivy. My sister fixed problems for a living. I couldn’t help thinking that if I left Vivvie here, I might come back to find her gone. Boarding school, maybe. Someplace safe. Someplace out of the way.

I lent Vivvie a set of clothes. When she went to shower, I went in search of Ivy. Downstairs, my sister had a cup of coffee in her hand and a phone pressed to her ear. I seriously doubted she’d slept the night before. “You owe me,” she was telling the person on the other end of the phone line. “We won’t go into the how and the why. Suffice it to say, you will get me what I need.” A sharp smile cut across her features.

It wasn’t a friendly smile.

“I knew we’d see eye to eye,” she said. “Tell Caroline hello for me.” Without waiting for a response, Ivy hung up. She turned, saw me, and studied me for a moment, cataloging my expression, the dark circles under my eyes. “How did you sleep?”

“Better than you.”

Ivy put her phone in her back pocket and herded me into the kitchen, where she poured herself another cup of coffee, then poured me a glass of milk.

“I’d prefer the coffee,” I said.

She gave me a look. “And I would have preferred it if you’d come to me.”

So we’re doing this now. The night before, she hadn’t yelled at me. She hadn’t dragged me over the coals.

“I did come to you,” I said.

“Don’t give me that, Tess.” Ivy set her coffee down on the counter, a little harder than necessary. “The second Vivvie told you what she’d overheard, you should have come to me. What were you thinking?”

I was thinking that Vivvie had confided in me, not Ivy. I was thinking that if I told Ivy—if I told anyone—Vivvie might take it all back.

“I promised I’d help her figure out what was going on.” I stared at the rim of my glass. “I keep my promises.”

“And I don’t,” Ivy said softly. She turned away from me. I could see the tension in her shoulders, her back. “That’s what this about? You’re punishing me?”

For leaving me in Montana three years ago. For cutting me out. For never telling me why.

“This wasn’t about you,” I insisted.

“The hell it wasn’t.” She turned back around. “Do you have any idea what could have happened? To Vivvie? To you, calling that number?”

“You told me I could come to you,” I said lowly. “With anything.” I swallowed. “So I came to you. Maybe not the way you would have wanted me to, maybe not as soon as you wanted me to, but, Ivy, I came to you.”

Those words hung in the air between us.

“Have you talked to the president yet?” I asked.

“I’m not discussing this with you.” Ivy crossed to my side of the counter and stood directly in front of me, too close for comfort. “You have no part in this. Is that clear?”

Crystal.

Ivy wasn’t done yet. “You can’t tell anyone what you told me, Tess. Neither can Vivvie. Until we’ve got a handle on it, until we know exactly who’s involved, we can’t risk drawing attention to either one of you.”

“Who’s involved?” I repeated. “You think it wasn’t just Judge Pierce and Vivvie’s dad. You think there might be someone else.” I paused. “The other number on the phone . . .”

Vivvie’s father had made sure that Justice Marquette didn’t leave the hospital alive. Pierce had paid him—or was going to pay him—to do it. What did that leave?

“The heart attack,” I said, thinking out loud. “For the plan to work, they had to get Justice Marquette into surgery to begin with.”

“I’m not doing this with you, Tess.” Ivy caught my chin in her hand and forced my eyes to hers. “If there’s something to be found here, I promise you that I will find it. I will keep you safe. I will keep Vivvie safe. I will make this okay. But I need you to stay out of it.”

“Have you told the president?” I asked again.

“What part of ‘I’m not doing this with you’ was unclear?”

“You haven’t told him, have you?” What was I supposed to read into that? “Vivvie’s father is the president’s doctor,” I said sharply. “Don’t you think he has a right to know the man might have homicidal tendencies?”

“I spoke with the Secret Service.” Ivy clipped her words. “Major Bharani is no longer assigned to the White House.”

The set of her jaw told me that was all she was going to say. When Ivy shut the door on something, it stayed shut.

“What’s going to happen to Vivvie?” I asked. That, at least, she might tell me.