The Fixer

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  I was pretty sure it wasn’t the highlight of Henry’s day, either.

  “So we’re in agreement,” he said, his voice crisp. “I’ll take the top half of the list. You take the bottom.”

  Your grandfather’s death was planned. I said that silently, because I couldn’t say it out loud. There were at least two people involved. Maybe three. My mind went to the other number on the phone—the one that had already been disconnected.

  “I know you and Asher are up to something.” Henry’s words snapped me back to the moment. “Emilia, too, God help us all.”

  He said Emilia’s name the way one might reference a force of nature—a tsunami, perhaps, or a hurricane.

  “I don’t know what you’re doing.” Henry gave me a look. “I’m fairly certain that I don’t want to know.”

  He really, really didn’t.

  “If this is the part where you warn me away from your friends,” I told him, putting on my best poker face, “why don’t we just skip straight to you making veiled comments about my sister, and me telling you that I’m not her.”

  Henry stared at me, a detached observer taking mental notes on my features for later reference. I had no idea what was going on inside his head.

  “Actually,” he said finally, “this is the part where I tell you that you don’t want to be anything like your sister.” The bell rang as he gathered his books. “Take it from someone who knows.”

  Vivvie caught up to me outside of the classroom. “What did you say to Henry Marquette?” she asked, unable to keep the note of urgency from her tone. I pulled her into the girls’ restroom and checked the stalls. Empty.

  “I didn’t say anything. Not about your father, not about what we found.”

  It took Vivvie a moment to absorb that information. “Sorry. I just . . . you two were working together . . . and . . .”

  “Breathe, Vivvie.”

  She leaned back against the bathroom door. “Maybe you misunderstood,” she said quietly. “Whatever you heard the person on the phone say, maybe you misunderstood. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe none of this is what it looks like.”

  She sounded so hopeful, so desperately hopeful that my body ached with the force of that hope. I knew what it was like to want so badly to be able to believe something into being true.

  He’s not sick. He’s just confused. How often had I told myself that, back in Montana? I knew what it was like to teeter on the edge of the truth, to squeeze your eyes closed with everything you had and hope that when you opened them, things would look different.

  I also knew that they never did.

  “We have to tell someone,” I said softly. “You know we do, Vivvie.”

  “Who?” Vivvie shot back, her hair spilling down her chest. “Your sister? This time last week, you didn’t even know what she did for a living.” Vivvie’s lips trembled. “Clearly the two of you are close.”

  Ouch.

  Vivvie pressed her hand to her mouth, hard. “I’m sorry,” she stammered through her fingers. “I didn’t mean that. I’m the one who asked you for help. I asked you to do this. I’m not allowed to hate you for it.” Her arms encircled her waist, her head bowed. “I know I can’t ask you to keep this a secret.” Dark brown eyes met mine. “I know that, Tess.”

  But she was. Asking.

  “If we knew,” Vivvie said quietly, “if we were sure, if we could figure out who he was talking to . . . it would be different.”

  It was never going to be different. Her dad was always going to be her dad. Based on what she’d said the day before, he was the only parent she had.

  “Would you recognize the voice?” Vivvie asked me. “If you heard it again, would you recognize it?”

  I thought of the list Dr. Clark had handed out. Potential Supreme Court nominees.

  “I might.”

  CHAPTER 28

  That night, I went through the list on Dr. Clark’s handout. Attorney generals. Circuit court judges. Law professors.

  I’ll take the top half. You take the bottom.

  Somehow, I doubted this was what Henry Marquette had in mind. I was supposed to be finding basic biographical data on each of our dozens of potential nominees. Instead, I was searching for videos and audio clips. Halfway through the list, I still hadn’t heard the voice I was looking for.

  “Hey, kid.” Bodie knocked on my door and stuck his head into my room a moment later. “Pizza’s here. Her Royal Highness is locked in her office,” he added before I could ask. “When she gets her teeth into something, it’s impossible to pry her away.”

  Downstairs in the kitchen, I helped myself to a slice. “You guys still working on digging up the skeletons in some potential nominee’s closet?” I asked.

  Bodie choked on his own piece of pizza and narrowed his eyes at me. “You have got to stop doing that.”

  “I heard the president tell Ivy to go digging,” I said, rolling my eyes. “It’s not exactly rocket science to figure out why he might be asking her to go looking for someone’s dirty little secrets now.” I took another bite of my pizza. “Besides,” I said, “our assignment in World Issues is to come up with the perfect nominee ourselves.”

  “Of course it is,” Bodie muttered. “Because heaven forbid Hardwicke just teach American history.” Bodie reached over and grabbed the pizza box.

  “Where are you going?” I called after him as he strode out the door.

  “You’re a Kendrick,” he called back. “You figure it out.”

  He was making sure Ivy ate—because that, along with driving and bodyguard duty and breaking the laws that Ivy wouldn’t, was Bodie’s job. I followed. Not because I wanted to see Ivy. Not because I hadn’t seen her all day.

  Because when I got stuck on something, when things were too much, I started walking.

  Bodie didn’t bother knocking on the door to Ivy’s office. He just slipped in, leaving the pizza positioned strategically and temptingly on the end of Ivy’s desk.

  My sister’s voice carried out into the hallway. “Thank you for taking the time to speak with me, Judge Pierce. As I’m sure you understand, this little video conference is completely off the books.”

  It occurred to me, then, that knowing who Ivy was investigating for the president might let me skip straight to the end on the World Issues assignment. It’s not cheating if I—

  “Of course, Ms. Kendrick.” The reply to Ivy’s words cut my thoughts off with the force of a blade. “You’ve been doing your homework on me. And that means you know I’m discreet.”

  My muscles tensed, one by one. That voice was deep. Velvety. Familiar.

  You’ll get your money when I get my nomination.

  Bodie looked up and saw me standing in the doorway. Leaving the pizza box where it was, he nudged me away from the door and shut it behind him.

  “Who’s Ivy talking to?” My words came out in a rushed whisper, my throat closing tight around them. “Is it about the nomination?”

  Say no.

  He didn’t.

  “She called that man ‘judge.’ ” I forced out the words. “Is he the one the president . . .”

  The one the president was considering nominating.

  “He is, isn’t he?” I said, dread mounting inside of me.

  “You saw nothing,” Bodie ordered. “You heard nothing. Ivy would kill us both.”

  Kill. Ivy would kill us both, I thought dully, my mind focusing on one and only one word in that sentence. They killed Justice Marquette. They killed him, and now the president is considering nominating that man for the Supreme Court.

  “I need to talk to Ivy.” I reached for the door. Bodie caught me.

  “Easy there, kitten.”

  “You don’t understand, Bodie. I need to talk to Ivy.”

  “Tess?” Bodie must have heard something in my voice. He rarely called me by my given name. It was always kitten or kiddo or kid. Before I could respond, the doorbell rang.

  Bodie arched an eyebrow at me. “You expecting visitors?”<
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  I shook my head. The bell rang again. Bodie went to answer it. I stayed, staring at the closed door to Ivy’s office. I have to tell her.

  “Tess?” Bodie called. “Company.” His voice was calm. Talking-a-jumper-down-from-a-ledge calm.

  I walked toward the foyer, my shoes clicking against the marble floor. The closer I got, the faster I walked. When I rounded the corner, Bodie was standing between me and the front door, blocking my view of the porch.

  “I should go.”

  I recognized Vivvie’s voice. She was here. At night. I pushed past Bodie just as Vivvie turned to leave.

  “Wait,” I said. Vivvie froze where she stood, but didn’t turn back to face me. I walked out onto the porch and looped around her, so that we were facing each other. Her head was bowed, her dark hair dangling in her face.

  “Vivvie?”

  She angled her head up to look at me. Her lip was bleeding. Her left eye was swollen shut.

  CHAPTER 29

  Vivvie was shaking. Gently, I raised a hand to her arm. She stepped back.

  “My dad knows,” she whispered, her voice cutting through the night air. “About the phone. He knows I took it. He must have had second thoughts about the way he disposed of it, because he went to get it back.”

  And it was gone. Bile rose in the back of my throat.

  “I’ve never seen him like that, Tess.” Vivvie shook her head. She couldn’t stop shaking it, her body saying no, no, no, again and again. “He was . . .”

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. My heart beating viciously inside my chest, I did it for her. “Angry.”

  “Scared,” she said softly. “He was so scared. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, but he didn’t believe me. He kept saying that I had to give him the phone.”

  Vivvie didn’t have the phone. I did. She couldn’t give it to him, and I was looking at the result.

  I knew. I knew he might hurt her. I knew—

  “I’m so sorry, Vivvie.” I choked out the words. I was sorry I had let this happen to her, sorry I hadn’t told Ivy the second I realized the major had laid hands on his daughter to begin with.

  “He gave me ibuprofen for the swelling.” Vivvie’s voice shook.

  He hit her, then gave her something for the swelling. Fury churned in my gut.

  “Tess?” Ivy’s voice had a tendency to carry. She came to stand on the front porch, and I realized I’d followed Vivvie out into the street.

  “We have to tell her, Vivvie.”

  Vivvie shook her head again.

  “I know who your father was talking to. I know who hired him.”

  Vivvie’s head stopped shaking, but her body still trembled. “Tess—”

  “The president asked Ivy to look into a potential nominee.” I searched my memory for the details. “Judge Pierce. Ivy was on a video conference with him.” My throat was dry, each word hard-won. “I recognized his voice.” That statement—and all its implications—hung in the air. Vivvie said nothing. I couldn’t stop talking. “If we don’t do something, that man might be the person the president nominates to replace Justice Marquette.”

  I could hear Vivvie’s breath go ragged. On the porch, Ivy was still staring out at the two of us. Vivvie pressed her lips into a line. Her breath evened out. And she said one word.

  “Okay.”

  • • •

  Vivvie and I sat on the sofa. Ivy was sitting across the coffee table from us. As soon as we’d started talking, she’d called Adam. He stood behind her now.

  “Here.” Bodie handed Vivvie a fresh bag of ice. Vivvie took it but didn’t press it to her face.

  “You’re sure about what you heard?” Ivy asked Vivvie. There was no judgment in her voice. This wasn’t a leading question. She wasn’t trying to make Vivvie second-guess herself.

  Still, I stiffened. “She wouldn’t be here if she wasn’t.”

  “I’m talking to Vivvie, Tess.” Ivy barely spared me a glance. The moment she’d realized that Vivvie wasn’t just now coming to me with this, that I’d known and said nothing, a visible change had come over my sister’s body. It was like she’d been submerged in a tub of freezing water and steeled herself against the cold.

  Sugar and spice and everything nice, right up to the point where she wasn’t.

  “I’m sure.” Vivvie turned the bag of ice over in her hands. “I know it sounds crazy. It doesn’t make any sense that he would do something like this, but . . .” Vivvie swallowed back whatever words or tears wanted to come. When she spoke again, her voice was detached. “He’s not himself right now.”

  The father Vivvie knew wouldn’t have killed someone. But the father Vivvie knew wouldn’t have hit her. Hurt her.

  “Vivvie’s father isn’t our only problem.” I drew everyone’s attention from Vivvie to me. “She mentioned the cell phone she heard him talking on. What she didn’t say was that after she fished it out of the trash, she gave it to me.”

  Ivy’s gaze slowly shifted from Vivvie to me. I felt the weight of her stare.

  “She gave you the phone, and you didn’t bring it to me?” Ivy asked sharply. Behind her, the frown on Adam’s face deepened. Beside me, Vivvie shivered.

  Let them focus on me, cross-examine me. “She gave me the phone. I had a friend retrieve the call log.”

  “You what?” The iciness in Ivy’s tone gave way to heat.

  “I called the numbers.”

  Ivy ground her teeth together. I could feel her, silently counting to ten.

  Bodie didn’t make it that far. “Of course you did,” he muttered. “Because why not call the number of someone you think might have bankrolled an assassination?”

  “Bodie,” Adam ground out. “You’re not helping.”

  Ivy must have reached ten, because she leaned forward, reducing the space between us by half. “You called. Someone answered.” She didn’t phrase it as a question.

  “Someone answered,” I confirmed. I told her what that person had said, the same way I’d told it to Vivvie: verbatim.

  “You still have the phone?” Adam asked. I nodded. “Get it,” he ordered. “Now.”

  I did as I was told. The moment I placed it in his hand, his fingers closed lightly around mine. “You’re done,” he told me. “I have people I can take this to at the Pentagon. Your sister can loop in the White House. But you’re done.”

  It was suddenly very easy to see the soldier in Adam. The one who was used to giving orders and having them obeyed.

  “There’s one more thing,” I said. I glanced over at Vivvie. Her hair fell into her face, obscuring her fat lip and most of her swollen eye. Her fingers gently kneaded the bag of ice in her lap.

  “The person on the other end of the phone line? The one who said that the doctor wouldn’t get his money until he got his nomination?” I looked from Adam to Bodie and finally to my sister. “I recognized his voice.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Once they’d squeezed every last drop of information out of us, Ivy, Adam, and Bodie retreated downstairs to Ivy’s office. By that time, it was almost midnight. There was never any question that Vivvie was spending the night—Ivy had set her up on the sofa. Vivvie crawled under the blanket and just lay there.

  Sometime around two in the morning, I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep, knowing that downstairs, Ivy was . . . I didn’t even know what she was doing. Had Adam called his contact at the Pentagon? Was Ivy on the phone with the president right now?

  “Tess?”

  I sat up in bed. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark, but once they did, I could make out the outline of Vivvie’s body in the doorway.

  “You okay?” I asked. What a stupid question. Of course she wasn’t okay.

  “Can I . . .” Vivvie trailed off. She had a blanket draped over her shoulders.

  “Can you what?”

  Vivvie hovered in the doorway, like there was some kind of barrier physically keeping her out. “I just . . . I don’t want to be alone.”
Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  I propped myself up on my elbows. “Do you want to sleep in here?” My bed was big enough for both of us. “It’s okay,” I said when she didn’t move. “There’s plenty of room.”

  Vivvie shuffled to my bed. She climbed up on it, lying on top of the covers, still wrapped in her own blanket.

  She wasn’t the only one who didn’t want to be alone.

  Vivvie’s eye was black the next morning. There was no way she could go to school, and there was no way I was leaving her alone with Ivy. My sister fixed problems for a living. I couldn’t help thinking that if I left Vivvie here, I might come back to find her gone. Boarding school, maybe. Someplace safe. Someplace out of the way.

  I lent Vivvie a set of clothes. When she went to shower, I went in search of Ivy. Downstairs, my sister had a cup of coffee in her hand and a phone pressed to her ear. I seriously doubted she’d slept the night before. “You owe me,” she was telling the person on the other end of the phone line. “We won’t go into the how and the why. Suffice it to say, you will get me what I need.” A sharp smile cut across her features.

  It wasn’t a friendly smile.

  “I knew we’d see eye to eye,” she said. “Tell Caroline hello for me.” Without waiting for a response, Ivy hung up. She turned, saw me, and studied me for a moment, cataloging my expression, the dark circles under my eyes. “How did you sleep?”

  “Better than you.”

  Ivy put her phone in her back pocket and herded me into the kitchen, where she poured herself another cup of coffee, then poured me a glass of milk.

  “I’d prefer the coffee,” I said.

  She gave me a look. “And I would have preferred it if you’d come to me.”

  So we’re doing this now. The night before, she hadn’t yelled at me. She hadn’t dragged me over the coals.

  “I did come to you,” I said.