The Fixer (31 page)

She chose to stay with Kostas.
I should have been grateful for that. She’d traded herself for me, she’d saved me, she
loved
me. But there was nothing I could do to keep from feeling like she’d thrown me away, all over again.

“Your grandfather asked her to go.” Adam’s voice broke into my thoughts. His words knocked the breath out of me. “He said she was being selfish. That being a parent wasn’t about what
she
wanted. That she had to think about what was best for
you
.” Adam cupped my face in his hand. “He sent her away, Tess, and she came back here, and something happened that convinced her he was right.”

What happened?
I didn’t ask the question out loud. It didn’t matter. Gramps might have sent Ivy away, but she’d gone. She was the one who hadn’t said good-bye. She was the one who’d stopped calling.

“There was never a day, not one,” Adam said softly, “that she didn’t think about you.”

She should have been there.
I closed my eyes, more to keep them from tearing up than because I was tired.
She should be here now.

“Come on,” Adam said. “You need to rest.” He steered me toward his bedroom, toward the bed. Adam waited until I’d actually sat down on the edge of the mattress before retreating.

Sleep never came.

Every second, every minute, every hour that passed was time I wouldn’t get back. Time
Ivy
wouldn’t get back.

In the dead of the night, I started pacing: the bedroom, the hallway right outside, the bathroom. As I came to the living room, I paused in the doorway.

Adam was awake. He was bent over his desk, looking at something.
A note? A photograph?
Whatever it was, he tucked it back into a drawer. He looked up but didn’t see me. From the expression on his face, I was willing to bet he didn’t see anything at all.

CHAPTER 59

The next morning, I had a visitor. Vivvie hovered in the doorway to Adam’s room. It felt like a lifetime ago that she’d stood outside the door to my room, wrapped in a blanket, wanting to come in, not wanting to ask.

I looked down at my hands, unable to meet her eyes. My wrists were still angry and red. The raw skin looked how I felt.

“I don’t want to be alone,” I whispered. The second those words left my mouth, Vivvie flew across the room. She hugged me like hugging was a contact sport.

“Are you okay? Last night you sounded . . . not okay. And before that, you were just
gone
. Asher told me you went to the state dinner last weekend. Henry said your sister was there, and that she took you away, but we couldn’t figure out
where
, and you weren’t answering your phone—”

“Vivvie.”

Belatedly, she realized that she still had me in a death grip and relaxed her hug, her arms falling to her sides.

“Ivy sent me away,” I said, saying Ivy’s name the way a cutter might press a blade to skin. It hurt. It was supposed to. “She did it to protect me,” I continued. That was what Ivy did. She didn’t ask me what I wanted. She didn’t give me a choice.

She left me, and she sent me away, and she gave up her own life for mine, and it wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that she could do this to me, and it wasn’t fair that I was the one who had to live with the results.

It wasn’t fair that I was here, and she wasn’t.

“Ivy told my aunt to get me a bodyguard,” Vivvie said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “For protection. He’s waiting in the hallway.”

It occurred to me then to wonder how much Vivvie knew. Telling her—about Ivy, about Kostas, about what had happened to me—seemed insurmountable.

“You don’t have to,” Vivvie said quietly. “If you’re not ready to talk about it yet, you don’t have to.”

“Yes,” I said. “I do.” I swallowed, then pressed on. “Your father didn’t kill himself.”

I wasn’t sure how long we were in my room, but by the time I finished, Vivvie knew everything except the truth about Ivy’s relation to me.

“You aren’t
listening
!” Adam’s voice cut through the walls. He was yelling.

For a split second, Vivvie and I sat there, frozen, and then our eyes met. I slipped off the bed and out of the room.

Ivy was missing. Whoever Adam was talking to, whoever
wasn’t listening
, I had a right to hear it.

“My answer is no.”

I stopped just outside the door to the living room. From this angle, I could see just a hint of the person who’d just spoken.

Adam’s father. The man who’d had Bodie hauled in for questioning, just to prove a point to Ivy.

My answer is no.
I wondered what the question was, and why those words made my stomach feel like it had been lined with lead.

“You know,” Adam said, each word issued with quiet force, “that I would never ask you for anything, if the situation weren’t—”

“Desperate?” his father supplied. “Believe me, Adam, I’m well aware of what you think of me. You have made it abundantly clear that you have no interest in taking your place in this family.”

“No interest in politics,” Adam corrected.

“You were born for this. If you retired from the military, we could have you on the road to the Senate in a matter of months. A decade from now, you could be a contender for the White House.”

“You really think this is the time for this discussion?” Adam asked tersely.

“You’re the one who invited me here,” William countered.

“Because I wanted your help.” Adam said those words like the act of speaking them was physically painful. “Ivy—”

“That girl crawled under your skin years ago.” As intense as Adam’s tone was, William’s was casual. “I’ve never understood the hold she has on you. If she’s gone, I won’t shed a tear.”

My fingers curled themselves into fists. Without meaning to, I took a step forward. Adam’s father saw me a second before Adam did.

“Tess,” Adam said, his voice tight. “Could you give us a minute?”

“That won’t be necessary,” Keyes said, matching Adam’s tone. “I was just leaving.”

I beat the older man to the front door. The fact that Adam had asked him for help meant that Adam thought he
could
help. If William Keyes wanted to walk away from this—from his own son—he could go through me to do it.

“Tess.” The tone in Adam’s voice told me that he wanted me out of this room, away from his father. It was a tone that, in other circumstances, I would have obeyed.

“It’s my understanding,” I said, trying to force Keyes to look at me again, “that my sister has some kind of insurance policy. If something happens to her, a lot of very powerful people will be very unhappy. Including you.”

A flash of something in my adversary’s eyes told me I’d guessed right on that last point.

“Your sister always has a contingency plan,” William Keyes said, his voice perfectly modulated. “But I’m the one who taught her that.” He brushed past me and out the door.

“Stay here,” Adam ordered as he followed.

After a pregnant pause, Vivvie stepped into the room. “That was . . .”

“Adam’s father,” I supplied. “He’s not Ivy’s biggest fan.”

He could help, but he won’t. He’ll let her die.
I didn’t want to imagine myself at Ivy’s funeral. I didn’t want to think about the fact that she was all I had left. I didn’t want to feel like someone had carved out my insides, like I was empty and hollow and crumbling apart.

No.
I couldn’t do this, couldn’t go down that rabbit hole.
Ivy’s going to be fine. I’ll hate her forever if something happens to her. She’s going to be fine.

I walked the length of the living room. Around the futon. Around the desk, and then I stopped, thinking of Adam sitting at the desk the night before. I tested the drawer, expecting it to be locked.

It wasn’t.

Inside, I found a neat line of pens, printer paper, and a photograph, tucked into the side. I gingerly pulled it out and turned it over.

Ivy and Adam
.

Her hair was in a messy ponytail. His was buzzed close to his head. They were young. Ivy couldn’t have been more than nineteen or twenty.

She had my smile
, I thought, forcing myself to stare masochistically at the curve of her lips. On the heels of that crippling thought came a second one.
Ivy knew Adam when she was young.

And then I remembered Ivy’s words the day she put me on the plane:
He was young, too, recently enlisted.
I reached out to the desk to steady myself, my fingers digging into the wood.

There was never a day
, Adam had said,
not a single one where she didn’t think of you.
He’d said those words like he
knew
—what it was like for Ivy, thinking of me every single day.

What if he wasn’t just talking about Ivy?

I could see Adam in my memory, standing behind Ivy, his hand on her shoulder as she told me the truth. I could see Adam, sitting in the passenger seat of his car as he taught me to drive.
I could see Adam, reading me the riot act, telling me that family doesn’t run off when things get hard.

I could see Adam the first time he’d ever seen me, looking at me like I was something precious. Like I was a ghost.

Vivvie came to stand behind me. “Your sister,” she said, looking at the photograph. “And Adam. They look so young.”

That girl crawled under your skin years ago.
Adam’s father’s voice echoed through my head.
I’ve never understood the hold she has on you.

“She’s not my sister.” I was staring at the photograph—at a college-aged Ivy and a younger Adam—so I didn’t get to see the expression that crossed Vivvie’s face in response to my words. “She’s my mother. I didn’t know.” My eyes blurred with tears. I blinked them away and kept staring at the photo. “She was a teenager when she had me. She said my father was military.”

Adam was military.

You’re not the only one who loves her
, he’d told me the night before.
But I know where your sister would want me, and that’s here. With you.

I hadn’t questioned why Ivy would want Adam with me.
Adam
, not Bodie, even though Bodie was the one I saw every day.

I hadn’t questioned the way that Adam, Ivy, and Bodie all seemed so intent on keeping me away from Adam’s father.

I thought it was because he was powerful and dangerous if crossed.
But what if that wasn’t it?
My father is very family-oriented.
Adam had said those words in a way that wasn’t complimentary.

“Tess?”

It took me a moment to realize that Adam was the one who’d said my name, not Vivvie. He walked over to me and saw the photograph in my hand.

“You and Ivy have known each other a long time,” I said, my throat tightening around the words. “Are you . . . Are you and
I
 . . .”
Say it, Tess. Just say it.
“Are you my—”

“Vivvie, your aunt is downstairs.” Adam interrupted my question. “And my father’s visit has put your bodyguard on edge.”

With one last glance in my direction, Vivvie was out the door, leaving Adam and me alone. I stared at him, searching for similarities in our features, the way I’d looked at my own reflection, searching for Ivy.

Adam’s hair was brown. His eyes were blue, but there was something familiar about the shape.

“Adam.” I forced his name out. “Ivy said my father was young. She said he was in the military. You two have known each other for a very long time.” My mouth felt like cotton. My tongue felt too thick for my mouth. “When I first got here, I heard you say that Ivy shouldn’t have brought me to DC because she wasn’t on good terms with your father. You didn’t want me to meet him.” I paused, then corrected myself. “You never wanted him to meet me.”

No response. Adam wasn’t telling me I was wrong.

“Ivy’s missing,” I said, choking on the words, “and you’re
here
. With me.” I ripped off the bandage, rushing out the words. “Are you my father?”

“Tess.” Adam’s voice was thick with emotion.

That wasn’t a no.

“Ivy’s the one who should be having this conversation with you,” Adam said. “We’ll tell you everything, I promise, just—”

Just let us get her back
, I finished.

“And what if we don’t get her back?” I asked. “What if we never get her back?”

What if, what if, what if—

Before Adam could answer, there was a knock. Moving briskly, Adam steered me to the side of the room. His hand went to his side as he went to answer the door, and I realized that he was wearing a gun.

Another knock.
Adam looked through the peephole. Then he opened the door.

“Captain Keyes,” President Nolan greeted him. “We need to talk.”

CHAPTER 60

The president had two Secret Service agents with him. After my experience with Kostas, the president’s security detail would never fade into the background for me again.

“Mr. President.” Adam led the group into the living room. I eased out from my spot behind the wall.

“Have a seat, Captain,” the president said, taking a seat himself.

Adam sat, every muscle in his body taut. I stayed standing. The president removed something from his jacket lapel and handed it to Adam.

“You might want to ask the girl to leave the room,” he said, the words residing somewhere between an order and a suggestion.

It probably said something about Adam’s mental state that he chose to interpret it as a suggestion. He didn’t tell me I could stay, but he didn’t tell me to leave, either.

It probably said something about my mental state that I chose to interpret that as an invitation to come closer.

The folder the president had handed Adam didn’t have much in it: a single photograph. Ivy was holding a newspaper—today’s newspaper. There was a single strip of duct tape over her mouth.

And strapped to her chest was a bomb.

“When?” Adam said. That was all he got out, one word.

“It arrived via e-mail this morning,” the president replied. “We have our top analysts working on it. We’ll find her.”

“And if you don’t?” I asked, taking a step forward.