Ivy met me at the bottom of the steps. Her light brown hair was loosely coiffed at the nape of her neck. She wore a formfitting blazer as comfortably as most people wore sweatshirts. Even her jeans looked expensive. If she saw through my innocent act, she didn’t call me on it. “Good,” she said. “You’re up.”
I had an excellent poker face, refined by years of playing actual poker with gruff old men. “I’m up.”
Ivy smiled, gleaming white teeth covering for the fact that she didn’t look happy in the least. “Adam,” she called out, her voice so pleasant my teeth ached from the sugar in her tone. “Come meet Tess.”
I had two seconds to wonder what the man would look like before he rounded the corner. He was a couple of years older than Ivy. If I’d had to guess, I would have put his height at exactly six feet. No more. No less. His posture was perfect; every muscle in his face was tightly controlled. His eyes met mine, and that control wavered. Just for a second, this stranger looked at me the way Ivy had looked at our grandfather when he’d called her by Mom’s name.
The expression was gone from his face in an instant. “Tess,” he said, holding out his right hand, “I’m Adam Keyes. It’s nice to meet you.” His words sounded genuine. He looked like an honest enough guy. But given that Adam Keyes thought bringing me here was a mistake, I somehow doubted he was all that pleased to meet me.
I took his hand. “Yeah,” I said. “You, too.”
He waited, like he thought I might elaborate, but I didn’t say anything else.
“Ivy tells me you’ll be starting at Hardwicke tomorrow,” Adam said, trying to make conversation. “You’ll like it there. It’s a great school.” He raised an eyebrow at the expression on my face. “Not a big fan of school, I take it?”
“School’s fine.” Again, he waited, and again, I left it at that.
“But you’d rather be outside,” Adam elaborated on my behalf. I glanced over at Ivy, wondering what she had told him about me—wondering how she even knew that about me, when the two of us were practically strangers.
“My brother was like that,” Adam said, clearing his throat. “IQ off the charts, but his favorite subject was recess.”
“And how’d that work out for him?” I asked, trying to decide whether or not I’d just been insulted.
A small, fleeting smile passed over Adam’s face. “He joined the army the day he graduated from high school.”
Bodie announced his presence by slamming the front door. “Somebody call for pancakes?”
The smile hardened on Adam’s face. Apparently, he wasn’t as fond of my sister’s driver as she was. “I should go,” Adam said stiffly. “I need to stop by the office.”
“On a Sunday?” Ivy pressed.
“Like you’re one to talk,” Adam retorted. “You never stop working.”
“I do now,” Ivy said, folding her hands in front of her body. “Sunday is the day of rest. This is me, resting. I thought Tess and I might go shopping this afternoon, get some clothes for her first day at Hardwicke.”
Shopping? With Ivy?
Bodie let out a bark of laughter at the expression on my face. “Hate to tell you this, princess, but the kid looks like she’d rather rip out her own thumbnails and use them to gouge out her eye than go shopping with you.”
Ivy wasn’t deterred. “She’ll adjust.”
Adam’s phone rang. He excused himself, leaving me staring down my sister, and Bodie watching the two of us with no small amount of amusement.
“Have you heard from the doctors in Boston yet?” I asked Ivy.
“Not yet.” For a second, I thought that might be all she was going to say, but then she elaborated. “They’ll be doing a complete diagnostic assessment in the next few days.”
Days. I swallowed, unable to keep my mind from latching on to the word. Days. And weeks. And months. And none of it good. I forced my expression to stay neutral. I couldn’t let myself go down that road. I couldn’t think about Gramps. I couldn’t think about the future.
Adam walked back into the room. “Ivy.” His tone was low, serious.
Ivy turned to look at him. “Everything okay?”
Adam glanced at Bodie and me, as if to say, not around the children.
“Let me guess,” Bodie drawled, poking at Adam like someone taunting a bear with a stick. “The Pentagon?”
“That wasn’t the Pentagon,” Adam said curtly. “That was my father.”
His father—the one Adam had said Ivy was on good terms with three years ago. The one she presumably was not on good terms with now.
“And?” Ivy prompted, in a tone that told me that there was always an and with Adam’s father.
“And,” Adam said, his face devoid of emotion, “he was calling to tell me that Theo Marquette was just rushed to Bethesda General. Heart attack. They’re not sure if he’s going to make it.” He let that sink in for a second before continuing. “They’ve got a lid on it for now, but the press will know in a matter of hours.”