Page 46 of The Ruling Class

Bodie didn’t make it that far. “Of course you did,” he muttered. “Because whynotcall the number of someone you think might have bankrolled an assassination?”

“Bodie,” Adam ground out. “You’re not helping.”

Ivy must have reached ten, because she leaned forward, reducing the space between us by half. “You called. Someone answered.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.

“Someone answered,” I confirmed. I told her what that person had said, the same way I’d told it to Vivvie: verbatim.

“You still have the phone?” Adam asked. I nodded. “Get it,” he ordered. “Now.”

I did as I was told. The moment I placed it in his hand, his fingers closed lightly around mine. “You’re done,” he told me. “I have people I can take this to at the Pentagon. Your sister can loop in the White House. But you’re done.”

It was suddenly very easy to see the soldier in Adam. The one who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

“There’s one more thing,” I said. I glanced over at Vivvie. Her hair fell into her face, obscuring her fat lip and most of her swollen eye. Her fingers gently kneaded the bag of ice in her lap.

“The person on the other end of the phone line? The one who said that the doctor wouldn’t get his money untilhegot his nomination?” I looked from Adam to Bodie and finally to my sister. “I recognized his voice.”

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 problemsfor 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 thehowand thewhy. 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.