The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(6)

Who did that? And more importantly—who could?

I should have known what my sister did for a living. I should have known Ivy. But I didn’t. Making my way out of the bedroom, I found the loft empty, a visceral reminder that it had always been my sister’s choice not to know me. She was the one who’d left. She was the one who’d stopped answering my calls.

Whoever she was, whatever she did—she’d chosen this life over me.

The muted sound of voices rose up from downstairs. At the top of the spiral staircase, I paused. The female voice was unmistakably Ivy’s. The person she was talking to was male.

“You don’t think that this was, just possibly, a little bit impulsive?” The mystery man’s tone of voice made it quite clear that he thought little bit was an understatement.

“Impulsive, Adam?” Ivy shot back. “You’re the one who taught me to trust my instincts.”

“This wasn’t instinct,” the man—Adam—countered. “This was guilt, Ivy.”

“I’m not debating this with you.”

“Evidence would suggest you are.”

“Adam”—I could practically hear Ivy clenching her teeth—“if you want me to look into your little friend at the DOJ, you’ll stop talking. Now.”

For several seconds, there was silence, followed by a grunt of frustration.

“What do you want me to do, Adam?” my sister asked finally, her voice soft enough now that I had to strain to hear. “Things were bad in Montana. I’m not sending her back, and I am not shipping her off to some boarding school. And don’t give me that look—you were the one who told me to bring her here three years ago!”

Realizing that they were arguing about me turned my body to stone. And what did Ivy mean that Adam was the one who had suggested she invite me to live with her the first time around? Who was this guy? Why had she listened to him?

Why had she changed her mind?

Some memories were like scars. This one had never healed right. Just hearing Ivy talk about it ripped off the scab.

“Three years ago, bringing Tess here might have been the right call.” Adam’s voice was terse. “But things change, Ivy. Three years ago, you were on speaking terms with my father.”

I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, and the stair beneath me creaked. The voices below went suddenly quiet. They’d heard me. I had a split second to decide on a course of action. I went with “pretend you weren’t just eavesdropping and walk down the stairs.”

“Ivy?” I called out. “You down there?”

Ivy met me at the bottom of the steps. Her light brown hair was loosely coiffed at the nape of her neck. She wore a formfitting blazer as comfortably as most people wore sweatshirts. Even her jeans looked expensive. If she saw through my innocent act, she didn’t call me on it. “Good,” she said. “You’re up.”

I had an excellent poker face, refined by years of playing actual poker with gruff old men. “I’m up.”

Ivy smiled, gleaming white teeth covering for the fact that she didn’t look happy in the least. “Adam,” she called out, her voice so pleasant my teeth ached from the sugar in her tone. “Come meet Tess.”

I had two seconds to wonder what the man would look like before he rounded the corner. He was a couple of years older than Ivy. If I’d had to guess, I would have put his height at exactly six feet. No more. No less. His posture was perfect; every muscle in his face was tightly controlled. His eyes met mine, and that control wavered. Just for a second, this stranger looked at me the way Ivy had looked at our grandfather when he’d called her by Mom’s name.

The expression was gone from his face in an instant. “Tess,” he said, holding out his right hand, “I’m Adam Keyes. It’s nice to meet you.” His words sounded genuine. He looked like an honest enough guy. But given that Adam Keyes thought bringing me here was a mistake, I somehow doubted he was all that pleased to meet me.

I took his hand. “Yeah,” I said. “You, too.”

He waited, like he thought I might elaborate, but I didn’t say anything else.

“Ivy tells me you’ll be starting at Hardwicke tomorrow,” Adam said, trying to make conversation. “You’ll like it there. It’s a great school.” He raised an eyebrow at the expression on my face. “Not a big fan of school, I take it?”

“School’s fine.” Again, he waited, and again, I left it at that.

“But you’d rather be outside,” Adam elaborated on my behalf. I glanced over at Ivy, wondering what she had told him about me—wondering how she even knew that about me, when the two of us were practically strangers.

“My brother was like that,” Adam said, clearing his throat. “IQ off the charts, but his favorite subject was recess.”

“And how’d that work out for him?” I asked, trying to decide whether or not I’d just been insulted.

A small, fleeting smile passed over Adam’s face. “He joined the army the day he graduated from high school.”

Bodie announced his presence by slamming the front door. “Somebody call for pancakes?”

The smile hardened on Adam’s face. Apparently, he wasn’t as fond of my sister’s driver as she was. “I should go,” Adam said stiffly. “I need to stop by the office.”