Page 57 of The Ruling Class

Keyes looked at them, then back at me. “He put a bullet in his own head.”

CHAPTER 36

I was still standing there, my fingers digging into the metal door, when Keyes got into his car and drove off. Then Ivy was next to me, her hand on my shoulder.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” she said.

Vivvie’s dad was dead. He was dead.He put a bullet in his own head.

“Vivvie’s dad killed himself.” There was no filter between my brain and my mouth—only that sentence, repeated in stereo. “We did this.”

Ivy reached out and placed her own hand on the door near mine. I didn’t realize until she steadied it that both the door and my hand had been shaking.

“This is not our fault,” she told me, her voice steady. “It’s not yours. It’s not mine.”

Wasn’t it?

“He must have known,” I said, my throat clenching. “That we were on to him. That things were going to get bad.” I couldn’tstop picturing Vivvie.Smiling Vivvie,beaming at me over bagels the first day.

I couldn’t stop picturing her father, picking up that gun.

“We’ll talk about this later,” Ivy said quietly.

“Vivvie,” I said, barely hearing her. “I need to call Vivvie. She’s the one who told us about her father. She’s going to think this is her fault.”

A few feet away, Georgia Nolan turned her head slightly to one side, her eyebrows arching upward as she processed our exchange. “I get the very real sense that I am missing something here.” Georgia stepped toward us. “Did you have something to do with Major Bharani’s reassignment, Ivy?”

It hit me then why Ivy wanted to talk about thislater. Georgia didn’t know—about Vivvie’s dad, about Judge Pierce. About any of it. Ivy hadn’t told her.

You can’t tell anyone what you told me, Tess.Ivy’s warning echoed in my mind.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.

I thought of Georgia saying that Justice Marquette’s death was anopportunity, tragic though it may be.

“There was a situation with Bharani’s daughter.” Beside me, Ivy was answering Georgia’s question. “I intervened.”

She’s not telling Georgia about Justice Marquette. She’s not telling her about Pierce.

“Ivy?” My voice shook with everything I wasn’t saying:Why aren’t you telling Georgia everything? Why didn’t you tell the president the second we told you?

“This was a mistake.” Ivy ran a hand roughly through her hair as she took in the look on my face. “Your life here was supposedto be normal, Tess.” And then, more to herself than to me: “Adam was right. I never should have brought you here.”

I didn’t realize until she said those words that I’d been waiting to hear her say them since the moment I saw the bedroom she’d saved for me. Nausea rose in the back of my throat.

Vivvie’s father was dead, and my sister was keeping secrets from the president and the First Lady, and Ivy thought bringing me here was a mistake.

Just like that, I was thirteen years old again.She asked me to live with her, and then she left.I tried so hard not to let myself remember. I tried so hard not to hurt—to push against any weakness, tofightit, to go numb.

I can’t be here. I can’t do this.

I couldn’t let Ivy see me cry.

I bolted—down the driveway, past Georgia’s Secret Service escort. I heard Ivy calling after me, but I just kept running. My feet slapped the pavement. I needed out. I neededaway.Ivy still had the First Lady to deal with. She couldn’t follow me.

I ran faster. Wind-in-my-hair, nothing-can-touch-me, muscles-burningfaster.

I had no idea where I was going. I ran until I couldn’t run anymore, and then I bent over at the waist, heaving in and out, my breath scalding my lungs. My cell phone rang from inside my pocket.

I realized on some level that the phone hadbeenringing. I pulled it out, but didn’t answer. Eventually, it stopped ringing. I waited for it to ring again. Instead, it informed me that Ivy had left me a message.