Chapter 5 I didn't go upstairs. I stood in the hallway just outside of Ivy's office, staring at the door. I could hear the murmur of voices behind it, but couldn't make out what they were saying. Ivy's job-her clients, the things she did on their behalf, the lines she was willing to cross-that was a portion of her life she kept from me, as best she could. Logically, I understood that Ivy's line of work required a guarantee of confidentiality and discretion. I also understood-logically-that she wanted to protect me. The last time I'd been involved in one of her cases, I'd been kidnapped. But no amount of logical understanding could mute the sharp ache in my chest that I felt staring at a closed door, knowing that Ivy was the one who'd locked me out. Some days, it felt like my whole life had been a series of doors I'd never had a choice about closing. Ivy had shut the door on being my mother when she'd given me to her parents to raise as their own. She'd locked that door when she'd agreed to lie to me and thrown the deadbolt for good measure when I was four years old and she'd handed me-tears streaming down her cheeks in the wake of our parents' funeral-to Gramps. She'd cracked the door open when I was thirteen and then slammed it in my face. Ivy had chosen to leave me. She'd chosen to shut me out of her life. She'd thrown up walls between us, because living the lie that she was my sister was too hard. Logical or not, fair or not, that was what I thought of every time Ivy locked herself in her office and locked me out. I couldn't push down the violent feeling roiling inside of me that said she'd lost the right to have secrets when she'd kept the biggest one from me. Grow up, Tess. I forced myself to turn away from the office door, but instead of going upstairs to the apartment Ivy and I shared, I turned and walked toward the conference room. Like Ivy's office, it was technically off-limits. I wasn't a person who paid much attention to technicalities. I tested the knob, then pushed the conference room door inward, stepping over the threshold. Weeks ago, Ivy and I had stood in this room, looking at a trio of photographs she'd tacked onto the walls. Three men-including a Secret Service agent and the White House physician-had conspired to kill Henry's grandfather, Supreme Court Chief Justice Theodore Marquette. It was in this conference room that Ivy had told me she thought there was a fourth person involved, a conspirator who was still out there and whose identity we did not know. For one night, Ivy had let me in. She'd stopped trying to lock away the parts of herself she thought weren't safe for me to know. She'd recognized that whether she liked it or not, the two of us were the same. I wasn't any more capable of sitting by and watching something bad happen than she was. Walking over to the conference table, I closed my eyes, trying to remember exactly where Ivy had been sitting when we'd had that late-night discussion. I tried to picture the list of suspects on the table beside her-a dozen or so names, among them William Keyes. No one-not Asher, not Henry, not Vivvie, whose father was the White House physician who'd helped kill Justice Marquette-knew that Ivy suspected there was a fourth player, one who'd engineered the attack on Justice Marquette and gotten away from the whole ordeal unscathed. I hadn't mentioned Ivy's theory to my friends. For their own protection, I'd kept them-and would continue to keep them-in the dark. "You're not supposed to be in here." I turned to see Adam standing in the doorway. My brain automatically searched for similarities-between Adam and me, between the kingmaker and his firstborn son. "I've never really excelled at doing what I'm supposed to," I said. Adam gave me a look. If he'd been protective before I'd learned that he was my uncle, he was worse now that I knew the truth. "Try harder," he ordered. Adam was the type who played by the rules. I'd gathered that my father-his younger brother-had not been. "Ivy has all her secrets locked away," I said, turning back to the bare walls. "What does it matter if I come in here if there's nothing left to see?" Adam must have heard something in my voice, because he softened his own. "Tess-" "I had dinner with your father last night." Nothing shut Adam up faster than mentioning William Keyes. "He wants me to get more involved at Hardwicke." Adam gave me a long, considering look. "Do you want to get more involved at Hardwicke?" "I want to know who Ivy's talking to in there." "Tess." This time, there was an edge in Adam's voice-a warning. "Ivy isn't the only one who wants you kept out of this." This as in her current case, or this as in the massive chunk of Ivy's life from which I'd been barred? "Tommy wasn't a person who knew when to quit." My uncle's blue eyes held mine. "He wasn't the type to sit back and think things through." "If he had been," I pointed out quietly, "I wouldn't be here." I meant the words to sound flippant. They came out sounding rough. "I loved my brother. And I see so much of him in you." Adam's voice was as rough as mine now. "I'll be damned before I let you get tangled up in anything dangerous ever again." I tamped down on the rush of emotion those words provoked. "Dangerous?" Silence. "Who's in there with Ivy?" I asked again. Adam kneaded his temple. "Like talking to a wall," he muttered. "I can hear you," I told him. "I'm standing right here." He crossed the room until he was toe-to-toe with me. He placed two fingers under my chin, angling my face up toward his. "Don't push me on this," he said quietly. "You won't like the result." I'd never met my biological father, but I couldn't help wondering-if he were alive, if he were here, would he be saying those same words to me, that same quiet warning in his voice? "Tell me you understand," Adam ordered. I understood that if my uncle was this serious about my steering clear, then whoever Ivy was meeting with, whatever she was on the verge of doing-it was big. "I'm waiting, Tess." I held out a moment longer before saying what he wanted to hear. "I understand." Adam removed his hand from my chin, trailing it lightly over the back of my head for a moment before stepping back. At his direction, I made my way out of the conference room. Just as I stepped into the hallway, the door to Ivy's office opened. Adam was behind me in an instant, his hands resting lightly on each of my shoulders. If he'd had time, he probably would have steered me back out of the hall, but within a heartbeat, Ivy's gaze landed on me. To an outside observer, her expression and posture would have seemed perfectly relaxed, but I could feel her struggling to hold on to that composure. She thought I was upstairs. Bodie appeared behind Ivy and mouthed four words at me: You had one job. "Adam already read me the riot act," I told Ivy. Before she could reply, I turned my attention to the man standing next to her. He was in his late twenties. His blond hair was just long enough to be a little messy. His skin was suntanned. There was something familiar about the set of his features. "It's fine," the man told Ivy. "I don't bite." The dark circles under his eyes spoke of sleepless nights, but his voice was wry. Ivy's not afraid of you, I thought, studying the way that she stiffened at his words. But she is afraid of something. "I'm Tess," I said, since no one seemed inclined to introduce me. After a beat, the man held out a hand. Adam's grip tightened slightly on my shoulders. "Walker," the man said. The name triggered something in my brain, and I realized why he looked familiar-and who he resembled. His mother. I took his hand. "Walker," I repeated. "As in Walker Nolan." The president's youngest son. A single mother returns to the city she left seven years ago after breaking up with her ex to seek treatment for her son’s leukemia. Upon learning of her return, the ex immediately searches for the lo...