The Fixer
Page 22

For Gramps. I weathered the impact of that blow.
“There’s a chance we could get home care, hire nurses either here or in Montana.” Ivy presented the option calmly and neutrally. “Or there’s a clinical trial. He’d stay in Boston, but they have an assisted living facility, so it wouldn’t be inpatient exactly.”
She was waiting for me to say something. I’d asked to be involved, but now that the information was in my inbox, my mouth was dry. It wasn’t a good day today. I willed my eyes to stop stinging.
“Thanks,” I said, staring holes in my keyboard.
“Take a look. Then we’ll talk.”
I managed to force my eyes up as far as my computer screen. The image of Vivvie’s father stared back at me.
“Do you know the White House doctor?” I asked Ivy, as much to change the subject as because I couldn’t rid my mind of the look in Vivvie’s eyes.
“Major Bharani?” Ivy replied. “I know he’s got the patience of a saint. According to Georgia, the president makes a horrible patient.” She leaned against the doorjamb. “Why do you ask?”
Why was I asking?
“His daughter was assigned to show me around at Hardwicke.” That wasn’t an answer, not really.
“Vivvie, right?” Ivy said. If I was surprised she knew Vivvie’s name, I shouldn’t have been. Ivy offered me a small smile. “Washington is a small world. And Hardwicke is Washington.”
I was beginning to get that sense. Vivvie’s father was the White House physician. Henry Marquette’s grandfather had sat on the Supreme Court. I’d just been to a funeral where the eulogy was given by the president of the United States.
“How did you know him?” I asked Ivy. “Theo Marquette?”
There was an almost imperceptible shift in Ivy. She stood a little straighter, the set of her features completely neutral. “I worked a job for him. We stayed in touch.”
Ivy was the master of answering questions without really telling me a thing.
“Justice Marquette had a problem,” I said, studying her expression, looking for some clue as to what that job had been. “You fixed it.”
Ivy met my gaze, poker face firmly in place. “Something like that.”
CHAPTER 21
Vivvie still wasn’t at school on Monday. Henry Marquette, however, was. At lunch, he sat at Emilia’s table. His posture was straighter than the others’, his default expression more intense. Every once in a while, his gaze flickered over to mine.
He stared straight through me, every time.
“What are we doing?” Asher helped himself to a seat at my table.
“We aren’t doing anything,” I told him bluntly.
“My mistake. I thought we were brooding in Henry’s general direction. Like so.” He adopted a stormy countenance, then gestured to me. “Yours is better.”
“Go away, Asher.”
“You say ‘go away’, I hear ‘be my bosom buddy.’ ” He gave an elaborate shrug. “Seriously, though: friendship bracelets—yea or nay?”
I wasn’t sure what game he was playing. I’d been at Hardwicke for a week, and even that was enough time to ascertain that Asher Rhodes was well liked. Popular, even.
“What do you want with me?”
Asher didn’t bat an eye at the question. “Maybe I’m tragically bored and horribly lonely and looking for love in all the wrong places.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Or maybe,” he said, leaning forward and placing his elbows on the table, “I’m tired of everyone liking me all the time and it’s liberating to be around someone with no expectations. Or maybe you just looked like you could use a friend.” He didn’t give me a chance to respond. “Diet Coke?” Asher had two cans. He politely offered me one.
“No.”
“Mentos?” He held out a roll.
“Don’t Diet Coke and Mentos—”
“—explode?” Asher supplied. He opened one of the sodas. “I have a passing fondness for explosions.”
That was concerning on so many levels.
“I’m starting to see why your sister thinks you need a keeper.”
Asher rolled one of the Mentos contemplatively around the edge of the Diet Coke can. I reached over and flicked the candy at him. It pelted him in the forehead.
“I’m going to take that as a yes on the friendship bracelets,” he informed me.
Emilia had said that when Asher got bored, things got broken. Laws, standards of decency, occasionally bones. He was probably sitting here, at my table, for the same reason he’d gone up on the chapel roof.
I was interesting.
“Have you spoken to Vivvie at all?” Asher attempted to sound casual, but there was a stray note of seriousness in his tone.
“No.” I studied him for a few seconds. “Should I have?”
Asher’s eyes drifted to the table where Henry was sitting. “She kind of had a breakdown. At Theo’s wake.”
Vivvie. My gut had told me then that something was wrong—but wrong enough for her to break down? My stomach twisted sharply. What are the chances that her father found that breakdown embarrassing? I knew very little about Vivvie’s dad. He was a war hero. A doctor. But I couldn’t keep from thinking about the way his face had morphed when he went from talking to Vivvie to talking to me.
I stood and picked up my tray. She hasn’t been at school for four days. Back in Montana, my guidance counselor had been concerned when I’d missed five. Total.
“You look like someone who’s about to do something highly inadvisable.” Asher caught up to me as I dumped my trash. “And God knows, if there’s something inadvisable going on, I want in.”
“Go away.”
“You say ‘go away’, I hear ‘wreak havoc by my side.’ ”
I didn’t reply. In all likelihood, Vivvie was fine. She probably had some kind of flu.
In all likelihood, the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach meant nothing.
“Tess?” Asher raised an eyebrow at me. “Anything I can do?”
I glanced at the building. Fifth period was starting soon. After a moment, I turned back to Asher. “Do you have a car?”
We found Vivvie’s address in the Hardwicke directory. Asher drove.