Page 100 of The Ruling Class
Then he left me alone.
As the shower steamed up behind me, I stood in front of the mirror. I was still wearing the cotton shift. My face was dirty. There was the beginning of a bruise on one side.I woke up in a room with concrete floors and no windows. Even now that there was no one left to tell, I couldn’t stop going over the facts.There was some kind of electrical wiring on the wall.I couldn’t stop hoping, somehow, that I’d remember something, some detail, no matter how tiny, that might tell me where Ivy was.
That might help us get her back.
Kostas is going to use Ivy to try to blackmail the president into pardoning someone.The surface of the mirror began to steam up, obscuring my face. I swiped my hand across it and stared at my reflection, like it might have the answers I was looking for.
Ivy’s eyes are brown, I thought. Mine had flecks of green, like moss amid the mud. Our faces had a similar shape to them. I had her lips, somebody else’s nose.
It doesn’t matter, I told myself. Dragging my eyes from my reflection, I undressed and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water beat against me.Get it together, Tess.
I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart. Not now. Ivy had told the rogue Secret Service agent that she had a program that started releasing her clients’ secrets if she went missing for forty-eight hours. I wasn’t sure if she’d been telling the truth or not, but either way, if the president didn’t agree to pardonsomebodybefore that time period had elapsed, this situation was going to escalate.
I wanted to believe Kostas wouldn’t kill Ivy.
I wanted to believe that, but I didn’t.
I got out of the shower and slipped on the clothes Adam had left me. They dwarfed my body. I tied the sweatpants and doubled the waistband over, then made my way back out into the world.
Adam and Bodie were still in the living room. I saw a healthy amount of caution in two sets of eyes as they turned to look at me.
“What’s the plan?” I asked. “How are we going to get Ivy back?”
“We’ve got people looking for her,” Adam said. “FBI, Homeland—”
“And some less law-abiding types,” Bodie added. “I’ll head back out once …”
He trailed off.
Once you have me settled, I finished. “I’m fine. I can take care of myself. Go, do whatever you need to do. Find Ivy. He’ll kill her if he doesn’t get what he wants.”
I realized then that they hadn’t pressed me for details—about Kostas, about what he wanted. “You weren’t surprised when I said Kostas wanted the president to pardon someone,”I said slowly. “Or when I told you that Kostas was the one who took me.”
“Ivy suspected from pretty early on that we were looking for someone in the Secret Service or intelligence.” Adam was sitting on the couch, his hands in his lap, his gaze fixed on his hands. “We just didn’t know who.”
“How—” I started to say.
“Ivy went to the Secret Service,” Bodie cut in. “First thing after you and Vivvie told us everything, Ivy went to the Secret Service and asked them to bar Vivvie’s father from the White House.”
I remembered Ivy saying something to that effect.
Ivy talks to the Secret Service about Vivvie’s father. Vivvie’s father is immediately taken out of the picture.I saw the connection with hindsight. Ivy must have seen it from the beginning.
“She suspected it was a Secret Service agent, and she didn’t tell the president?” I asked.
“She didn’t tell the presidentbecauseshe suspected it was a Secret Service agent,” Adam replied. “The president is a difficult man to get alone, and even if she managed to pass the message along in private, she was fairly certain that the person we were looking forknewthat we were digging. If Ivy met with the president and his behavior changedat all…” Adam shook his head. “That wasn’t a risk Ivy was willing to take.”
“What about the pardon? You weren’t surprised when I said Kostas was the one who took me, and you weren’t surprised when I said he asked for a pardon.”
Adam and Bodie were silent.
“A pardon for who? For what?” As the questions left my mouth, I became more and more certain that they knew the answers.
“He tookme,” I said slowly. “Ivy ismy—she’s my family, and he has her.” I felt like my body might start shaking, but my voice was steady, fierce.Like Ivy’s.“You don’t get to keep me out of this,” I said.
After a moment, Adam stood and left the room. When he came back, he had a thick file in his hand. “Ivy flew down to Arizona to look for a connection between Judge Pierce and someone in the Secret Service—or the intelligence community. She came back with detailed information about Pierce’s docket. Cases he’d heard. Cases he was scheduled to hear. Appeals.”
“She found a connection?” I knew, even as I asked the question, that the answer wasyes. She was Ivy Kendrick. Of course she found the connection.
