The Fixer Read online

  She couldn’t.

  Matching the rhythm of my steps to hers, I willed my presence to do the talking for me. You are not a bother. You are not alone.

  One block. Two. Eventually, Vivvie’s arms wrapped their way around her torso again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked her. I met her eyes. “I know that’s your line. I was just trying it out.”

  She managed a small smile. We fell quiet. In that silence, she must have reached a tipping point, because she was the one who spoke next.

  “Have you ever known something you desperately wished you didn’t know?” Vivvie’s voice was rough in her throat, like she almost couldn’t choke out the words. We kept walking, slow and steady, as I processed the question.

  She was asking me to tell her that she wasn’t alone.

  “Yes,” I said, my own voice coming out almost as rough as Vivvie’s, “I have.”

  I thought of my grandfather—of knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was something wrong with him, and knowing that if I told anyone, I would be betraying him in the worst possible way. The weight of that had been a constant: there when I woke up in the morning and there when I went to bed at night. There with every breath.

  I swallowed. “The worst part was knowing that it wouldn’t stay a secret forever.” I was generally better at listening than I was at talking, but I thought that maybe, if I let myself show weakness, she’d show me hers. “I knew that everything would come out eventually, but I thought if I just fought hard enough . . .”

  Vivvie stopped walking. “What if that wasn’t the problem?” she asked, a desperate note in her voice. I could feel her hurtling toward the point of no return, the words pouring out of her mouth. “What if the problem was that the thing you knew would stay secret? Forever. No one would ever know. Not unless you told them.”

  Vivvie knows something. That much was clear. And whatever it is—it’s killing her.

  “Tell me,” I said. “You need to tell someone, so tell me.”

  Vivvie went very still. I could see her thinking, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t.

  I didn’t let her say it. “You can tell me, Vivvie. Haven’t you heard? I’m Tess Kendrick. Worker of miracles. Resident Hardwicke fixer.”

  I wasn’t any of those things. I didn’t want to be any of those things. But this was Vivvie, who’d offered to cheer me up by recapping her favorite romance novel (and/or horror movie), and she was crumbling in front of me.

  “I can’t.” Vivvie sucked in a breath of air.

  “It’s about your father, isn’t it?”

  Vivvie couldn’t bring herself to tell me her secret. That didn’t mean I couldn’t guess.

  “You know something about your father,” I said, making it a statement instead of a question. “Something about your father and Theo Marquette.” Vivvie had broken down at the wake. She hadn’t been back to school since the day we saw the announcement about Justice Marquette’s death on the news.

  As far as guesses went, it was an educated one.

  “Maybe you think it was your dad’s fault,” I continued. Now I was just stabbing in the dark. “He was the justice’s doctor. His surgeon. And Justice Marquette died from complications with surgery.”

  I was reaching the limit of what I knew. And still, Vivvie said nothing.

  Think, I told myself. “Maybe you think your dad did something wrong.” No reaction from Vivvie. “Maybe he operated tired, or inebriated, or maybe you just think he made a mistake.”

  Vivvie broke then. “He didn’t make a mistake,” she said fiercely. “My dad doesn’t make mistakes. He—” She cut herself off, then started back up again, terrified but determined. “He didn’t just let Henry’s grandfather die, Tess.” Vivvie bowed her head. “I’m pretty sure he killed him.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Vivvie thinks her father murdered the chief justice of the Supreme Court. There was no amount of processing that could make something like that sink in.

  “I know it sounds crazy,” Vivvie told me haltingly. “Believe me, I know. And it’s not like I have the world’s most stellar track record for teenage sanity—freshman year, dark time, there may have been some Prozac involved. But this . . .” She bit her bottom lip. “I would give anything for this to all be in my head.”

  I could barely keep up with the words as they tumbled out of her mouth.

  “I asked him about it,” Vivvie continued. She thought her father was a murderer, and she’d asked him about it? “He grabbed me. And he shook me, and he told me that if I really believed what I was saying, then maybe I needed professional help.”

  He’d threatened her. Told her she was crazy. But what he hadn’t done was taken her to see a doctor. He’d let her stay home from school. Alone.

  Those weren’t the actions of a concerned father.

  “I heard him, Tess. Whenever he has to give a speech, he practices. In front of the mirror. Every word, every pause, every emotion.”

  I thought of the press release. Major Bharani hadn’t been reading a script. He’d looked straight at the camera. He’d been authoritative, calm.

  “I heard him practicing.” Vivvie forced herself to breathe, forced her voice to stay low. “The shower was running. I wasn’t supposed to be there. I’d left for school, but I circled back to ask him something—I don’t even remember what. I was getting ready to call out, and that was when I heard him.” She held my gaze, her brown eyes steady. “Practicing.”

  Practicing what? I was afraid that if I said those words out loud—if I said anything—she might stop talking.

  “ ‘It is with great sadness,’ ” Vivvie whispered, “ ‘that I inform you that Chief Justice Theodore Marquette died on the table a little over an hour ago.’ ”

  I recognized the beginning of the statement Dr. Bharani had issued at the press conference.

  “He practiced his statement,” I said, not quite seeing where she was going.

  “Tess, he practiced it that morning.” Vivvie’s voice caught in her throat. “Justice Marquette died that afternoon.”

  I processed what Vivvie was saying. Her father had prepared a speech announcing the justice’s death from unforeseen complications with surgery before the surgery had ever taken place.

  “That’s not all.” Vivvie started walking again. I strode to catch up with her. Midday, the neighborhood was nearly empty. On the opposite sidewalk, there was a woman walking a dog. Vivvie kept her voice low enough that I had to struggle to hear her.

  “I stayed home sick the next day. I’d convinced myself that I’d misheard, or misunderstood, but then I heard my dad talking on the phone, which was weird, because his phone was on the kitchen counter. He wasn’t on the landline, either.”

  Vivvie was babbling now, and I had to fight to find the meaning in her words.

  “I think it might have been a disposable. Why would my dad have a disposable cell phone?”

  My mouth felt dry. “Who was he talking to?”

  “I couldn’t make out most of what he was saying.” Vivvie’s voice was very small. “All I heard . . .” She swallowed. “He was reading a number.”

  “Like a phone number?”

  Vivvie shook her head. “Like an account number.”

  The president’s doctor knew that Justice Marquette was going to die. He had a speech prepared. And the day after the justice’s death, that doctor was on a disposable cell phone giving an account number to whoever was on the other end.

  “We have to tell someone,” I told Vivvie. “The police, my sister, I don’t even know, but—”

  “We can’t, Tess.” Vivvie reached out to grab my arm. “I can’t. I know it looks bad.” That was an understatement. “But, Tess, he’s my dad.”

  Vivvie had to have known, when she’d told me this, that I couldn’t just turn around and pretend that nothing had happened.

  “You said you were a miracle worker,” Vivvie whispered, weaving her fingers together and holding them clasped in front of her body. “I wa
nt a miracle.”

  I couldn’t go back and change what she’d heard. I couldn’t wave a magic wand and alter the facts. “What do you want me to do, Vivvie?”

  She was quiet for several seconds. “I want proof,” she said finally. “Not just suspicions, not just something I overheard. I want to be wrong. But if I’m not . . .”

  She didn’t want it to be her word against his. She didn’t want to be the one to tear her family apart at the seams.

  “Proof?” I repeated. “What kind of proof?”

  Vivvie toyed with the bottom of her shirt. “If I can get you the phone,” she said, “can you figure out who he was talking to?”

  That was so far outside my skillset I didn’t even know where I would start. “I can try.”

  Vivvie blew out a long breath, then nodded. “Okay,” she whispered. Then she turned and started walking back toward her house.

  “Vivvie,” I called after her. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay at home? With your father?”

  “He won’t hurt me.” Vivvie had to believe that. She wanted me to believe it, too. “He doesn’t know that I know about the phone. After the wake, all I told him was that I’d heard him practicing his speech.”

  And look how that ended.

  “You don’t have to do this. You can come with me. We’ll . . .”

  “No, Tess.” Vivvie forced a smile. The painstaking upturning of her lips hit me like a knife to the gut. “I just told you that I think someone paid my father to kill a Supreme Court justice. I asked you not to tell anyone about it until we have proof. So, yeah, I kind of do have to do this.” She started walking back toward her house again. This time I let her go and stood there on the sidewalk, feeling like I’d fallen into some kind of parallel universe.

  “Funny story.”

  I turned to see Asher Rhodes rounding the corner.

  “Vivvie’s voice carries,” he said. “And I have freakishly good hearing.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Asher and I stared at each other for several seconds. He heard. I racked my mind, trying to remember what, exactly, Vivvie had said in the last thirty seconds of our conversation.

  I just told you that I think someone paid my father to kill a Supreme Court justice . . .

  “Henry’s my best friend.” Asher’s tone was conversational, but quieter than normal. “In the first grade, he was the one who strongly advised me against roller-skating off my roof.” There was a beat of silence. “He was also the one who taught me to write left-handed when I broke my right arm. When we were nine, I inadvertently-possibly-on-purpose insulted a sixth grader. The kid would have pounded me into the ground, but Henry stepped forward and challenged him to a duel. Because he was into knights and honor and standing up for best friends who were too stupid to watch out for themselves.” Asher shook his head, his voice still quiet, intense. “I can still remember when Thalia was born. Henry spent the night at my house, and I woke up in the morning and found an itemized to-do list, focused on his duties as a big brother.”

  The image of a tiny Henry Marquette making a big-brother to-do list was all too easy to picture.

  “He’s been my best friend for almost as long as I can remember, Tess. When his dad died . . .” Asher shook his head and didn’t finish that thought. “Henry and his grandfather were close. Theo was the closest thing to a father Henry had left.”

  My stomach twisted sharply. It was too easy to put myself in Henry Marquette’s shoes, to imagine how I would feel if I woke up tomorrow and Gramps was gone. It was a short jump to imagining what it would be like to know that my grandfather’s death hadn’t been an accident.

  I would have been out for blood.

  “You can’t tell Henry what you just heard,” I told Asher.

  Asher gave me a look. “I knew you were a little crazy, Tess. It’s there, in the eyes.” He gestured in the general vicinity of my face. “But I, too, have been in possession of the Crazy Eyes on occasion. I get it. If you want to go head-to-head with John Thomas Wilcox, or take up permanent residence in the guys’ bathroom, or skip out in the middle of the school day, I will happily go along for the ride.”

  But you won’t keep this from your best friend, I filled in.

  “How do you think Henry will respond to this news?” I asked. Asher’s expression darkened. “My guess would be not well,” I continued. “And right now, even if he knew, there wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. He could try going to the police. But if Vivvie gets spooked, if she recants . . .”

  All we had was Vivvie’s word.

  “We’re talking about the president’s physician, Asher.” I wasn’t sure what kind of background checks working at the White House involved, but if the Powers That Be were willing to put the president’s life in Vivvie’s father’s hands, he obviously wasn’t considered a security risk. Or a threat.

  “Darn you and your infernal logic.” Asher ran both hands through his hair, mussing it to ridiculous heights. “Fine,” he capitulated. “But I want in. Whatever you’re planning to do about this, whatever Vivvie’s doing, I want in.”

  It went against every instinct I had to agree. But based on the mutinous set of Asher’s jaw, I didn’t see that I had much of a choice.

  “Fine,” I said sharply. I scuffed my shoe into the ground. “Any chance you know someone who can get information off a disposable phone?”

  Asher drove me back to Ivy’s. I texted Bodie to let him know that he didn’t need to pick me up from school. A moment later, I got a text back: Call from school. Skipping classes? HRH not pleased.

  So Ivy wasn’t happy with me. Right now, that was the least of my problems. Belatedly, I translated Bodie’s code for Ivy. HRH: Her Royal Highness. I snorted.

  Asher glanced over at me from the driver’s seat. “Care to share with the class?”

  “Ivy’s driver,” I replied, like that was explanation enough. For Asher, it turned out that it was.

  “And by driver, I’m assuming you mean bodyguard.”

  “That’s a thing?” I asked.

  Asher turned onto Ivy’s street. “At Hardwicke,” he replied, “that’s definitely a thing.”

  Of course it was. I’d been in DC a week, and I’d already met the First Lady, crossed horns with the minority whip’s son, and gone to the funeral for a Supreme Court justice. Ivy had said it herself: Hardwicke was Washington. For every student like Asher, whose parents were dentists, there was someone like Henry or Vivvie.

  Or me. As Asher pulled into Ivy’s driveway, I was reminded of the fact that I wasn’t as removed from the power players in this town as I felt. There was a limo parked in the drive.

  Asher eyed it. “Just another afternoon at Ivy Kendrick’s house?”

  The car had shaded windows, with glass that I deeply suspected was bulletproof. One of Ivy’s clients, I thought. With any luck, maybe she would be busy enough that she wouldn’t have time to cross-examine me about why I’d skipped school—or where I’d spent the afternoon. I unbuckled my seat belt and opened the car door.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I told Asher. What I was really thinking was, Don’t tell anyone what happened. What Vivvie overheard. What you heard.

  Asher inclined his head slightly and gave me a smoldering look. “Until tomorrow.”

  I slammed the car door before Asher could say anything else. I’d nearly made it to Ivy’s front door before I realized the entrance was blocked. A man in a dark-colored suit stepped forward, gesturing for me to stop. It took me less than a second to get a read on him: suit, sunglasses, gun holstered at his side. Secret Service.

  “My sister lives here,” I told him. “Light brown hair, about yea tall? Is probably in there talking to the First Lady right now?”

  The agent raked his eyes over me.

  “Seriously,” I said. “I live here.”

  The agent glanced from me to the street. He watched Asher pull away from the curb and tracked his progress until the car disappeared. I was about to reiterate the fac
t that I resided in this house when the front door opened. Bodie. He walked out and whispered something into the Secret Service agent’s ear, letting the door close behind him as he did.

  “Tess,” Bodie said, turning his attention to me. “Meet Damien Kostas. Kostas, this is Ivy’s sister, Tess.”

  The Secret Service agent made no move to allow me into the house. I was about to suggest that he ask the First Lady if she thought I was a threat when Ivy’s front door opened again. Another agent stepped outside.

  Behind the agent was the president of the United States.

  Not the First Lady, I thought, my brain scrambling to catch up as President Nolan glanced over at Bodie and the Secret Service agents before his gaze settled on me.

  Ivy stepped up beside him, her eyes locking onto me. “You’re home,” she said.

  “By some definitions,” I replied, trying not to stare at the president.

  The leader of the free world offered me a smile. “Tess,” he said. “Short for Theresa, isn’t it?”

  I managed to nod but couldn’t summon up a verbal reply.

  “It’s nice to meet you, Theresa.” President Nolan was in his late sixties. He had an easy smile and—unlike his wife—not even a hint of an accent. “I’ve heard a lot about you—a bit from Ivy, but mostly from Georgia. She said something about a dinner?” The president gave me another trademark smile. “My wife has an uncanny knack for getting her way,” he said. He eyed Ivy. “Something she and your sister have in common.”

  “Mr. President,” one of the Secret Service agents prompted, glancing down at his watch.

  The president nodded. “No rest for the weary,” he told me before turning back to Ivy. “You’ll do some digging?”

  Ivy worded her response carefully. “I doubt I’ll come up with anything your people missed.”