Page 61 of The Ruling Class

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.”

I eyed Adam, whose even features were set into an expression of uncompromising disapproval. “Roger that.”

Adam narrowed his eyes at me. “What did she say?” he asked suspiciously.

“Nothing,” I told him.

I could practically hear Ivy rolling her eyes on the other end of the line. “Put him on.”

I handed the phone to Adam. He took it. “As far as I can tell, she’s in one piece,” he said, then paused. “What makes you think I’m going to yell at her?” Another pause. “I don’tyell… fine. I’ll be on my best behavior until you get here. I won’t tell her that family doesn’t just take off, or that running away never solved anything.” Adam might have been talking to Ivy, but his sharp blue eyes were on me. “I certainly won’t tell her that if it were up to me, she wouldn’t be leaving this house again until she was thirty.”

For a guy who’d met me only a handful of times, Adam did a good impression of my grandfather.