The Fixer (16 page)

“I mourn for you,” Henry said dryly.

“So what
do
we know about Pierce?” Asher ignored Henry’s sarcastic tone and helped himself to the chair next to mine. He leaned over, plunking his elbows down on my desk.

“Nothing,” I said, reaching for one of the papers in Henry’s file.

Asher gave me a look. “Somehow, I find myself doubting that’s true.”

I felt Henry’s eyes on us then. I gave Asher a
look
.

“Vivvie Bharani has been absent for over a week.” Emilia didn’t bother with a hello. She slid into the seat next to Henry’s. “Last year, she was the only person in our grade other than me to have perfect attendance. Am I the only one who finds that strange?”

“Is that an expression of concern?” Asher asked his twin, arching an eyebrow at her.

“I can be concerned,” Emilia told him, sounding almost insulted. “I’m a very empathetic person.”

Asher and Henry exchanged a glance over her head. Clearly, empathy had
never
been Emilia’s strong suit.

“I heard Vivvie’s father got fired,” Emilia continued bluntly.

I darted a glance at Asher.

“And where might you have heard that?” he asked.

“From a freshman whose mom works at the
Washington Post
.”

The idea of people knowing that Vivvie’s father had lost his position at the White House made me queasy.

“I mean, technically, he wasn’t fired,” Emilia clarified. “He was reassigned. But precision of language has never been the gossip mill’s forte, and I guess anything’s a pretty big step down after the White House.”

Henry stood up abruptly. “Whatever position her father has or does not have, can we agree that has little to nothing to do with Vivvie?”

Emilia blanched as if he’d slapped her. “I thought you’d want to know.”

“Why would I?” Henry replied. His voice was calm, but I could see the tension in his neck. He had to have noticed the timing: Vivvie’s dad getting demoted shortly after operating on his grandfather.

Henry came around to my side of the table and slammed a piece of paper down in front of me. “My choice for nominee.” Without waiting for a reply, he turned and stalked toward the front of the room. I heard him ask Dr. Clark for permission to go to the bathroom.

Emilia shot Asher a bewildered look. “What was that?”

I moved to follow Henry. At my Montana high school, teachers guarded bathroom passes like they were the keys to the proverbial kingdom, but Hardwicke didn’t even
have
passes. Dr. Clark just let me go.

I caught up to Henry just as he reached the bathroom door.

“Can I help you?” he asked without turning around.

I didn’t reply immediately. Henry stood there, perfectly comfortable with the silence, until I broke it. “Thank you,” I said. “For standing up for Vivvie.”

Henry looked distinctly uncomfortable with my thanks. “It is possible,” he admitted, his voice taut, “that I know what it is like to have your family be the featured story on Hardwicke’s gossip circuit.”

If what we suspected was true, if it got out, Henry and Vivvie wouldn’t just be the subject of gossip at Hardwicke. Their families would be front-page news.

“It is also possible,” Henry continued, his back still to me, “that I suspect you might have had something to do with Vivvie’s father’s demotion.”

Henry was connecting the dots—too much, too fast.
How?
“Not everything is my fault,” I told him.

“Believe it or not, that wasn’t meant as criticism.” Henry turned to face me. “My mother breakfasts at the Roosevelt Hotel.” He waited for those words to register, but they meant nothing to me. “She thought she saw Vivvie there. This morning.”

It took me a moment to read between the lines. If Henry’s mother had seen Vivvie, she’d seen Vivvie’s bruises.

“I knew something was wrong. At the wake.” Henry’s jaw tightened. “I just didn’t know what.”

He’d seen Vivvie break down. Maybe he’d noticed her absence since.

“I knew something was wrong,” he said again, “and I did nothing. I was so focused on my own grief—”

“Pretty sure that at a wake for a loved one, you’re allowed to be focused on your own grief,” I told him.

I could feel him rejecting that logic. She was a classmate. She’d needed help. He’d missed it. Henry Marquette wasn’t a forgiving person—especially of himself.

“It is possible,” Henry said, his voice still sounding oddly formal, “that I might have misjudged you, Tess.”

He knew Vivvie’s dad was abusive. He thought I’d helped her. He thought I was the reason her father was no longer the president’s doctor.

That’s not even the half of it.
I couldn’t tell him. It made me angry that I wanted to. It chafed that I
cared
that he’d misjudged me—and, more than anything, I could feel guilt nipping at my heels, ready to devour me whole for keeping the truth from him, for forcing his best friend to keep it from him.

“It’s possible,” I told him sharply, pushing down the mess of emotions churning in my gut and pulling back from the boy who’d caused them, “that I don’t really care whether you misjudge me or not.”

CHAPTER 33

That night, Ivy left me to my own devices. It was like she thought that by avoiding me, she could somehow make me magically forget everything I already knew about Justice Marquette’s death.

Fat chance of that happening.

Hardwicke was a small school. There were fewer than a hundred kids in my entire grade. I couldn’t turn around without seeing Henry. Vivvie’s empty seat in English class the next morning was just another reminder.

I dredged my way from English to physics and from physics to Speaking of Words, trying not to think about the big questions.

Who did the second number on the disposable cell belong to?

Why hadn’t Ivy gone straight to the president with our suspicions?

“Tess.” The Speaking of Words teacher zeroed in on me within moments of the bell’s ringing. “Do you have something prepared for us?”

It was Friday. I’d been at Hardwicke for two weeks. It was probably too much to hope that the teachers would continue skipping over me indefinitely.

“Almost,” I lied through my teeth. Mr. Wesley—who was sixty if he was a day—didn’t call me on it. He just gave me a long, assessing look, then asked for a volunteer.

The assignment was an eight- to ten-minute “persuasive speech” on a controversial topic. Icelandic, never-turns-down-a-dare Di volunteered to go first, followed by a boy whose name I didn’t know, followed by Henry. The last speech of the day came from John Thomas Wilcox. He’d rigged a projector to throw pictures onto the whiteboard as he talked. His topic was stem cell research. I wasn’t paying much attention until he flashed a picture of my grandfather up on the board.

“Alzheimer’s disease is progressive, debilitating, and ultimately fatal.”

I stopped breathing and had to force myself to start again.

The picture was maybe five years old. I couldn’t tell where it was from, because John Thomas had cropped the photo close up on the face.
Hazel
eyes. Lips set in a firm line.
My grandfather’s skin was tan and weatherworn. No one but me would have seen the softness in his expression: the warmth in his eyes, the humor dancing around the edges of that nonsmile.

“Let me tell you about this man,” John Thomas said. As he continued, each word sliced into me, like a dull knife forcibly carving up flesh.

We’d been told to personalize our arguments, to appeal to emotions, as well as reason. From an outside perspective, that
was exactly what John Thomas was doing. He was using a real human example to make his audience care.

This
man was degenerating.
This
man was losing his memory.
This
man was going to continue losing cognitive capacity and parts of himself until he died.

John Thomas took us through it in excruciating detail. And the entire time, he was staring straight at me. “Imagine the pain of knowing that someone you loved was going to degenerate to the point where they would lose the ability to walk, to talk, to communicate in any meaningful way.” John Thomas’s expression was so solemn, so impassioned, but his eyes—his eyes gleamed. “Now imagine the months—or maybe even years—leading up to that. Imagine someone you loved forgetting you, not even recognizing you,
blaming
you . . .”

At first, I thought the room was shaking. Then I realized that I was. I couldn’t tear my eyes away from my grandfather’s picture. I’d known, objectively, that his condition was going to get worse. I’d
known
that—

My fingers dug into the sides of my desk.

“Stem cell research won’t provide a cure for Alzheimer’s,” John Thomas was saying. “But it might allow for treatments that stave off the inevitable brain cell death. And if it can buy precious days, months, even years with a loved one . . .” He changed the picture on the screen.

Gramps, with his arms around me.

“I’d say it’s worth it. Wouldn’t you?” John Thomas mimicked compassion perfectly as he nodded toward me—as if I’d known he was doing this, as if he’d done this
for
me instead of
to
me.

My ears rang. I barely heard Mr. Wesley dismissing the class. I bowed my head as I gathered my things, my jaw clenched so hard it hurt. I pushed my way out of the classroom. I made it to my locker, opened it, and leaned forward, shutting out the noise.
Degeneration. Inevitable. Fatal.
I couldn’t block out those words.

“My father told me about your grandfather.” Without warning, John Thomas was there beside me, his expression morose. He crowded me, bringing his face down to mine. “I hope you don’t mind that I did a little internet sleuthing for some photos. The visuals really make the presentation.” I tried to back away, but there was nowhere to go. He leaned into me, his lips so close to my ear that I could feel his breath on my face as he whispered, “
My condolences
.”

I could hear the smile in his voice.

Something inside me snapped. My hand balled itself into a fist, but just as I started to swing, there was, without warning, nothing to swing
at
. John Thomas wasn’t where he’d been standing a second before.

It took me a second to register the fact that he was on the floor, and another second after that to realize that the person who’d helped him onto the floor was Henry Marquette.

“My apologies,” Henry said. The expression on his face was oh so proper and oh so polite, considering he’d just knocked the other boy’s legs out from beneath him. “I didn’t see you standing there, John Thomas.” He reached down and offered John Thomas a hand. “Let me help you up.”

He held on to John Thomas’s hand a little longer than necessary—and, I was guessing from the expression on John Thomas’s face, a little
harder
than necessary.

Once he had his hand back, John Thomas gave Henry a look that was just as proper, just as polite. “You, too?” he said. “I knew Tess here was, shall we say,
servicing
Asher, but I had no idea she offered a two-for-one deal.”

For one horrifying moment, I thought Henry might actually punch him. “I’d defend your honor, Henry,” I cut in, “but he’s not worth it.”

Henry gave a curt nod. “His own father would be the first to tell you—he’s not worth much.”

John Thomas’s veneer of control evaporated the moment Henry said the word
father
. He lunged at Henry, slamming him back into the locker. This time I really did come to Henry’s defense.

Some people just
need
to be flying tackled.

“Would any of you care to explain your behavior to me?” Headmaster Raleigh glared at the three of us from the other side of his desk. I was sitting to his left, John Thomas to his right. Henry was in the middle.

“I believe someone must have spilled something in the hallway,” Henry said. “It was terribly slippery.”

He had quite possibly the best poker face of anyone I’d ever seen.

“You expect me to believe you fell?” the headmaster said.

“Well, first John Thomas fell,” Henry said diplomatically. “Then I helped him up. Then I fell. I think that must have thrown Tess off balance.” Henry offered the headmaster the same polite smile he’d given John Thomas. “She fell last.”

“Ms. Kendrick?” Headmaster Raleigh raised an eyebrow at me.

I adopted an expression that mirrored Henry’s. “I do believe Henry is right. I fell last.”

The headmaster was not amused. He turned his attention to John Thomas. “If you would prefer we talk alone . . . ,” he started to say.

“No.” John Thomas’s voice was stiff. “There must have been something on the floor. We slipped.”

John Thomas Wilcox might have been a psychotic jerk, but he was a psychotic jerk who didn’t want any blemishes on his permanent record.

The headmaster clearly did not believe us, but just as clearly, he didn’t seem to fancy the idea of dealing with any of our parents. So instead, he launched into a lecture on personal responsibility, which I tuned out approximately five seconds in.

My eyes drifted to the photograph on the wall behind him—the same one I’d noticed the last time I was here. Six men: three in the back row, two in the front, one off to the side. I recognized William Keyes. But this time, I also recognized the man standing beside Headmaster Raleigh.
Balding. Early fifties. Deep-set eyes.

Judge Pierce.

And in front of Pierce stood Vivvie’s father.

CHAPTER 34

I needed to get another look at that picture.
The president’s physician. An appeals court judge from Arizona.
The idea of them being in the same place at the same time, in that small of a group . . .

Your sister’s just trying to establish a timeline,
Vivvie had told me.
How my father got involved, when he got involved, how he and Pierce know each other,
if
they know each other.

I wanted to know when that picture had been taken, where it had been taken. I wanted to know who else was in it. And I wanted to know what Adam’s father had been doing there.