Ivy’s face softened slightly. Her hand dropped to her side. “I’m working on it.”

“Working on what?” Vivvie appeared in the doorway. Her hair was wet, her face a mottle of bruises, but she held her head back, her shoulders out.

“Just the girl I wanted to see.” Ivy offered her a far friendlier look than the ones she’d been giving me. “If you’re up to it, I have a couple of questions for you.”

Vivvie’s eyes flickered briefly over to mine. “I’m up to it.”

“Tess?” Ivy arched an eyebrow in my direction. It took me a moment to realize that she was waiting for me to leave.

“But—”

“Theresa.” Ivy didn’t raise her voice, but the use of my full name spoke volumes.

“Go,” Vivvie told me.

“If you want me to stay . . . ,” I started to say.

“It’s fine,” Vivvie said quietly. “Just go.”

CHAPTER 31

Vivvie wouldn’t tell me much about what she and Ivy had talked about. “Your sister’s just trying to establish a timeline,” Vivvie said when I asked her. “How my father got involved, when he got involved, how he and Pierce know each other, if they know each other.”

“And?” I said.

“And,” Vivvie hedged, “I answered her questions.”

She wouldn’t say anything else. My sister wanted me out of this. Ivy Kendrick excelled at getting what she wanted.

That night, Vivvie slept in my room again. The next morning, I woke up alone. She’s probably just downstairs, I told myself. I threw on clothes. No Vivvie in the living room. No Vivvie in the kitchen, the foyer . . .

“She’s not here.”

I turned toward the sound of Bodie’s voice. “ ‘She’ as in Ivy, or ‘she’ as in Vivvie?”

Bodie took in the expression on my face. “Your sister’s out,” he said, hooking his thumbs in the pockets of his jeans. “Little Viv’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

Bodie held up his hands in a mea culpa. “Bad choice of words. She’s fine. She’s just not here.”

“Where is she?” I asked flatly.

“Viv’s in good hands, kiddo,” Bodie said. “Scout’s honor.”

In other words: this was need-to-know, and I didn’t.

“Where’s Ivy?” I asked. She’d found someplace to stash Vivvie and left Bodie to break the news to me.

“She and Captain Pentagon had an errand to run.” Bodie’s answer was cryptic. I tried to figure out what kind of “errand” Adam and Ivy might be running this early in the morning, but came up empty.

“Catch.” Bodie tossed his cell phone at me. I caught it. “Number’s already cued up. If you’re worried about Little V, call it.”

I took that to mean that Bodie would rather clue me in on Vivvie’s location than Ivy’s. I stored that fact away for future reference, then made the call.

Vivvie answered. “I’m fine,” she said, instead of hello. “Ivy didn’t want me to wake you.”

What Ivy wanted, Ivy got.

“Where are you?” I asked Vivvie. “What did Ivy do?”

“She found someplace for me to go.”

Vivvie had an aunt. Her father’s younger sister. Vivvie had never even met the woman until this morning. Now she was living with her.

Courtesy of Ivy.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Bodie made an attempt at levity as he pulled past the Hardwicke gates to drop me off. “For that matter, you might want to stay away from about ninety percent of the things I would do, too.”

Vivvie wasn’t coming back to school until Monday—time for her bruises to heal, and time for her to get to know the relative Ivy had summoned up out of nowhere, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat.

I didn’t have the option of staying home from school another day. My sister wanted me out of the way. She wanted me safe. And as it so happened, Hardwicke was more secure than most consulates.

Bodie pulled up to the curb. I was out of the car before he could impart any more words of wisdom. He rolled down his window. “Hey, kid?”

I turned back to look at him. His lips parted in a smile, but there was a serious glint in his dark eyes. “Mum’s the word.”

In other words: Don’t tell anyone about Vivvie’s dad. Or Judge Pierce. Or Justice Marquette.

Unfortunately, anyone hunted me down before my first class.

“What happened?” Asher asked, falling into step beside me. “Where were you yesterday? Where was Vivvie?” When I didn’t reply immediately, Asher tried another tack. “True or false: you’re going to tell me what happened.”

“False,” I said.

He gave me a morose look and lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “The correct answer was true.”

Asher sounded like he was joking, but my gut told me he wasn’t. This wasn’t some lark to him. It was personal, and if I tried to shut him out, he would do something about it.

Like tell Henry.

Mum’s the word.

“Short version?” I told Asher as we approached the classroom. “My sister knows. About Vivvie, about the phone, about everything.”

“And the long version?” Asher asked.

“Vivvie’s father found out about the phone.” That much I could tell him without compromising Ivy’s investigation—whatever that investigation entailed. “She showed up at my place two nights ago with a fat lip and the beginning of a black eye.”

“Is she—”

“She’s going to be fine,” I said. “Physically. But Vivvie and I are done. Out of it. Off the case.” I entered the classroom with Asher on my heels. I could feel him getting ready to pounce—another question I couldn’t answer, another look that told me he knew I was holding back. Then Asher’s eyes landed on Henry, sitting near the front of the room, his head bowed over a book.

Asher wouldn’t keep asking questions in earshot of his best friend.

I slid into the seat next to Henry, all too aware that Asher knew exactly what I was doing.

“True or false,” he whispered into the back of my head as he took the seat behind me. “We aren’t done talking about this.”