The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(49)

The inside of the nomination process.

The inside of the White House.

“Ivy hasn’t told anyone,” I said, thinking out loud. “Not the president, not the First Lady . . .”

Henry clamped his jaw down, then forced it to relax. “You were right when you said that I needed to think about who I could possibly hand this information over to, Tess. If there’s even a chance that this goes as high as the West Wing, we can’t trust anyone. Not the police. Not the Justice Department. No one.”

“So where does that leave us?” I asked.

Henry’s chest rose and fell slightly with each breath. He was completely in control of himself in a way that he hadn’t been when he left the car. “I know where it leaves me. I’m going to figure out who had access to my grandfather before his so-called heart attack,” he told me. “And you’re going to go home.”





CHAPTER 38

By the time I got back to Ivy’s, it was dark. I let myself in the front door. The entire house was lit up like a Christmas tree, but there wasn’t another person in sight.

“Hello?” As much as I just wanted to make my way up the spiral staircase and climb into bed, I doubted putting this off until morning would make the coming confrontation any easier. I’d taken off and ignored Ivy’s calls for hours on end. She wasn’t going to be happy about that.

“Hello?” I called a second time. I walked back toward her office. The sound of my footsteps echoed through the otherwise silent house. Ivy’s office door was slightly ajar. I pushed gently on it. “Ivy?”

The door opened. The office was empty. I hovered at the threshold, like a vampire waiting for an invitation. I should turn around and go. But I didn’t. I stepped over the threshold and walked slowly toward Ivy’s desk.

It had been three days since I’d told Ivy everything I knew. She’d had three days to begin unraveling what was going on here. She’d been working, almost nonstop.

The only way this plan makes any sense—the only way it could even potentially be worth the risk—is if Pierce had reason to believe he’d get the nomination.

If Henry had come to that conclusion, Ivy must have seen it, too. What had she been doing for the past three days? What had she discovered?

What did she know?

There was a thick manila envelope sitting in the middle of her desk. I hesitated for a second or two, then reached for it. Ivy wanted to keep me out of this, but I was already in too deep. Henry. Vivvie. This wasn’t some exercise for World Issues. It wasn’t a game.

I opened the envelope.

The first thing I saw was the edge of a photo. The second thing I saw was myself. Pictures. My brain processed what I was seeing. Of me.

This wasn’t evidence. It had nothing to do with the case. My breath caught in my throat. I slid the photos out of the envelope. There were dozens of them: me at twelve, my hair falling out of a thick braid; at sixteen, behind the wheel of Gramps’s truck; elementary school plays; middle school dances.

I didn’t even remember most of these pictures being taken. Gramps must have sent them to her. Thinking about my grandfather taking these pictures was enough of a punch to the gut. But knowing that Ivy had kept them? That realization knocked the wind out of me.

“There.” In my memory, Ivy sits on the edge of my bed, and I sit on the floor in front of her. She fixes my hair into a braid. I lean back into her leg.

She’d stayed with me for a few days, after our parents’ funeral. I’d almost forgotten that.

My hand is woven through Ivy’s. Another memory came viciously on the heels of the first. Ivy kneels beside me. My free hand finds its way to her face. I pat her cheek. It’s wet. Why is Ivy crying? I burrow into her side. She picks me up, pressing my head to her chest, breathing in my smell.

And then she hands me away.

“Tess?” a male voice called my name. I stuffed the pictures back in the envelope and made my way into the hallway a second before Adam rounded the corner. He was moving quickly, long strides covering the space between us in seconds flat.

“Are you okay?”

I’d been prepared to let Ivy yell at me. I hadn’t expected to have Adam staring down at me, worry giving way to anger on his face.

What did he have to be angry about?

“I’m fine,” I said. “I just needed some space. Where’s Ivy?”

“You needed some space, so you went radio silent and took off.” There was an edge in his voice. He turned his back on me for a moment and ran a hand roughly through his short brown hair. “Of course you did.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.

“Call your sister,” Adam ordered, turning back around and pinning me with a glare. “Now.”

I called Ivy. She answered on the first ring. “Where are you? Are you okay? Do you need me to come get you?”

I didn’t think she’d stop asking questions long enough for me to respond. “I’m at your place,” I said.

“Okay.” Ivy let out a breath and then repeated herself. “Okay. I’m on my way. Is Adam there?”

I glanced up at Adam, who was tracking my every move, like I might take off again any second. “He’s here,” I told Ivy.

She must have heard a hint of wariness in my voice, because the next thing she said was, “He’s a worrier. Try not to hold it against him.”