ladies gave him a long cool look and didn’t return his greeting. Not a good sign, he thought, heading up the walk. He jogged the stairs, motivated by adrenaline and worry and temper—never a good combo for him. By the time he got to her floor, he was telling himself that Ivy was an innocent pawn because she’d never be involved in anything like this, no matter that Brandon was family.
Ivy opened the door to his knock, her face revealing nothing. “I need to talk to you.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She paused as if surprised he’d ask her that question. Which was a shocking commentary on her low expectations of the people in her life, and he had to take a deep breath and force himself from pushing his way inside and snatching her up against him and holding on tight.
Ivy stood in her doorway, not knowing exactly what to say to Kel. Was she fine? No. Was she going to be fine? The jury was still out. But she couldn’t say either of those things, so she nodded. “Yes, I’m . . . fine.” Ish. “Is Arlo?”
“He will be.” Kel’s eyes tracked to behind her, where on her small coffee table sat her first aid kit, the contents scattered, along with the wrappings of gauze in a pile off to the side.
She knew very well it wasn’t hard to add two plus two to get four and she braced herself when he finally met her gaze again.
“Brandon was here,” he said tightly.
“Yes. That’s what I needed to talk to you about.”
“Did you know he broke into the condo building and attacked Arlo?” Kel asked.
She gasped, feeling like she’d just been hit by a train, which for the record would have hurt less. “No!”
He let out a slow exhale, like he was trying to be very careful what he said. “Are you sure, Ivy? Because the bat seems like a family signature. Are you sure you didn’t know what he was going to do?”
She stared at him in utter shock. “Are you kidding me? Of course I didn’t know!” She shook her head, stunned but also angry. And not a little hurt to boot. Never a good combination for her. “How could you ask me such a thing?”
“Because you’re siblings.” Again he looked past her to the first aid kit. “And because he was most definitely here.”
She felt sick. “Are you going to come in?”
“Are you going to implicate yourself in a felony?”
She closed her eyes for a beat, and he swore beneath his breath before nudging her aside so he could come in.
Turning from him, she locked the door and slid the chain into place.
“Isn’t that a little like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped?” he asked.
She turned to face him. Not all that long ago, he’d been buried deep inside her, making her feel things she’d never felt before. Ever.
Now he stood a mere foot from her and yet he might as well have been on the moon for the space and distance between them. “There are things you don’t know,” she said.
“Then you should have told me.”
“I tried. But my phone’s . . . missing. When I realized it, I went downstairs to use Martina’s phone, but I couldn’t remember your number. Or Caleb’s.”
“Okay.” He crossed his arms and studied her, impenetrable. “What exactly were you trying to tell me?”
“That Brandon came back,” she said. “After you got called away. He’d been shot. He told me that he needed money to pay some people off, but he didn’t have it. So he’d done something stupid.”
“Like break into a building for all the new, expensive equipment to fence,” Kel said. “When he pushed Arlo, Arlo fell and hit his head, requiring surgery for a brain swell.”
She looked away. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was going to do any of that.”
“But the only way he knew about that building and what was in it was if you’d told him.”
“The first time he showed up, that night you were here, after when we were talking, I told him about my condo and the great building it was in. He joked about me stepping up in the world.” She met his gaze. “I had no idea he’d use that info the way he did.”
“He needs to turn himself in, Ivy.”
She had to laugh. “And you think I can get him to do that?”
“You two are a whole lot closer than I thought,” he said. “So yeah,