The Fixer (23 page)

Bodie had insisted that Ivy had cleared William Keyes of involvement in the justice’s murder, but—

Keyes wants Pierce to get the nomination. He organized the retreat where Pierce and Major Bharani met.

“Ivy will take care of it,” Adam told me for a second time. His eyes darkened as he pulled out onto the road. “And I’ll take care of my father.”

CHAPTER 45

Ivy arrived home that night. I’d just gotten out of the shower when she knocked on my door. Running a towel over my hair, then tossing it aside, I answered the knock.

From the look on Ivy’s face, I had a pretty good idea what she wanted to talk about.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You want to chat about my little adventure this afternoon?”

Ivy inclined her head slightly. “Can I come in?”

I stepped back from the doorway. “Knock yourself out.” I combed my fingers through my wet hair, working out kinks as I went.

“Here,” Ivy said, sitting down on my bed. “Let me.”

At first, I had no idea what she was talking about, and then she picked a brush up off my nightstand.

Ivy sits on the edge of my bed. I sit on the floor in front of her
. The memory hit me just as hard this time as it had the last.
Ivy murmuring softly to me. Ivy’s fingers deftly working their way through my hair.

“You used to braid my hair.” I hadn’t meant to say that out loud.

Emotion danced around the edges of Ivy’s features. “Mom preferred pigtails,” she said. “High on your head.” She shook her head slightly, a soft smile coming over her face. “Even when you were tiny, you’d never met a pair of pigtails you couldn’t demolish. A braid was a little sturdier.”

“You stayed with me,” I said, the words catching in my throat. “After the funeral, you stayed with me.”

“For a few weeks,” Ivy replied, her voice difficult to read. “Then Gramps came, and . . .”

And she’d given me away. I couldn’t blame twenty-one-year-old Ivy for that—and I wouldn’t have given up the years I’d had with Gramps, not for anything.

“I’ve been thinking,” I said. “About the clinical trial.”

My throat went dry, just saying the words. It was easier, in a twisted way, to think about murder and politics and what Vivvie and Henry were going through than to think about my own situation.

About Gramps.

“If the results are promising . . .” I trailed off, thinking of John Thomas Wilcox, rattling off the stages of my grandfather’s illness, the losses—one after another—we’d be facing down the road. “Maybe it’s a good idea.”

“Maybe it is,” Ivy returned. She studied me for a moment, then continued.

“I know this is hard for you. If you ever want to talk—”

“I don’t,” I said. The words came out more abruptly than I meant for them to, so I softened them slightly. “I’m not much of a talker.”

Ivy accepted that with a nod. The two of us fell into silence, then she gestured to the floor in front of her with the brush. “Sit.”

I sat. She began gently working the brush through my hair. For a minute, maybe two, she said nothing as she brushed. “I’m sorry about this afternoon. Bodie and Adam said you handled it well.”

“Is Bodie okay?”

“I took care of it.” That was all Ivy said. How she’d taken care of it, what precisely the situation had been—she clearly wasn’t in a detail-sharing mood.

“I heard Georgia ambushed you at school,” Ivy said. She kept brushing as she changed topics. “I’m sorry about that, too. It won’t happen again.”

Based on the tone in Ivy’s voice, I was guessing that she had already had or would soon be having a rather pointed conversation with the First Lady.

“She asked what you were doing in Arizona,” I told my sister. “She seemed to think that William Keyes might take exception to your digging into Pierce.”

Given what had happened
after
school, I expected that to provoke some sort of response in Ivy, but she just continued working the tangles out of my hair.

“You haven’t told the First Lady that Justice Marquette was murdered.” I laid that out on the table. “I’m betting that means you still haven’t told the president, either.”

“I have my reasons,” Ivy replied. The rhythm of her brushing never changed.

“Bodie said you don’t suspect the president.”

Ivy paused in her brushing, just for an instant. Then she caught herself and resumed. “The president has nothing to do with this,” she said. “That’s not why I’ve kept it quiet, Tess.”

“And William Keyes?” I asked.

“What about him?”

“He had Bodie dragged in for questioning on who knows what kind of crime, just to prove he could! Adam said that was just a warning shot—”

“You don’t need to worry about William Keyes,” Ivy told me. “I can handle it.”

“He wants Pierce nominated.” I let those words hang in the air. “He wants him to get the nomination badly enough that he’s willing to have Bodie arrested to scare you into compliance.”

“Bodie wasn’t arrested.” Ivy’s voice was maddeningly calm. “He was just taken in for questioning. And I’m not scared.”

The only way this plan makes any sense—the only way it could even potentially be worth the risk—is if Pierce had reason to believe he’d get the nomination.
Henry’s words came back to dog me for the hundredth time.

“He’s good at getting what he wants, isn’t he?” I asked Ivy. “Adam’s father?”

“I’m better.”

That wasn’t what I’d been asking. “How many people, other than the president, have enough power to sway a Supreme Court nomination?”

That question took Ivy by surprise. She was quiet long enough that I wasn’t sure she was going to reply. “Men like William Keyes,” she said finally, “they’re called kingmakers. They have money. They have power. For any variety of reasons, they’re not
viable political candidates themselves, but when it comes to elections, they can sway things one way or another.”

The president is rarely the most powerful person in Washington . . .

I tried to turn around to look at Ivy, but she turned me back around.

“Bodie said that clearing the president and Adam’s father was the first thing you did.” I tried a different tactic.

Ivy set the brush down and ran a hand over my hair. Without a word, she started braiding.

“Ivy?”

“Bodie talks too much.”

If she hadn’t had a hold on my hair, I would have turned around to face her again. “I have a right to know.
Vivvie
has a right to know.”

Ivy reached the bottom of the braid. She held on for a moment, then fixed it in place. “You’re going to have to trust me just a little bit longer on this, Tess.”

Trust.
That one word was enough to put a mile of distance between us. I stiffened, and Ivy stood. I didn’t realize until she’d taken a step away that I’d been leaning lightly against her.

“You don’t know what it’s like,” I told Ivy, standing up myself and walking over to the mirror. With my hair tied back, I could see the similarity in our features. Part of me wanted to tear out the braid. “You don’t know what it’s like,” I said again, “to be told over and over to just sit back, while other people make decisions that affect you. Vivvie is
my
friend. She came to
me
. And whatever you’re doing, it’s not helping her! Keeping her in the dark, keeping me in the dark—it’s not helping, Ivy.” I lowered my voice. “It just makes us helpless.”

Ivy came to stand behind me. I turned to face her so that I didn’t have to look at our reflections side by side in the mirror.

“I know what it’s like to feel helpless,” Ivy told me quietly. “I know what it’s like to have other people making
your
decisions. I do, Tess.” There was emotion in her voice—but I couldn’t pinpoint it any more specifically than that. She was feeling
something
. About me? About this case?

“I never want you to feel like that, Tessie. I don’t. But you truly don’t need to know what I’m doing. This job?” Ivy never raised her voice, but each word was delivered more intensely than the last. “I get to make a difference. I get to help people, but that comes at a cost.”

My father killed himself.
I could see Henry’s face, as clear as if he were standing here in front of me.
She covered it up.

“I don’t want that for you,” Ivy said. “Can you understand that? I have to keep you separate, Tess. I won’t let you be part of the cost.”

“The First Lady is making social calls,” I retorted. “Vivvie is dying inside. I’m not
separate
, Ivy.” I didn’t give her a chance to respond. “I know there’s a third person involved—someone other than Vivvie’s father and Judge Pierce. If Pierce supplied the money and Vivvie’s dad made sure the justice didn’t leave the hospital alive, then what was the third person’s job?” I cut Ivy off before she’d gotten a word out. “I’m guessing that person either slipped the justice something to get him to the hospital, or they were in charge of making sure Pierce got the nomination. Either way, the two individuals you ‘cleared’ first seem like pretty good suspects.”

“There were cameras on the president,” Ivy said curtly. “Practically the whole evening.” That Ivy was volunteering information at all should have been comforting. But it wasn’t.

“Practically,” I repeated.

Ivy was starting to look like she was losing her patience. “Tess,” she bit out.

“And Keyes?” I plowed on before she could say more. “How did you clear him?”

There was a long pause. “I collect information,” Ivy said finally. “Details that might prove useful down the road. Given that William does the same, it is always in my best interest to have something on him. And right now, what I have on him tells me that Theodore Marquette is the
last
person he would have wanted to see removed from the Supreme Court.”

Like that wasn’t cryptic.

“Keyes is working to get Pierce nominated,” I insisted. “The president is the one who actually does the nominating. They were both there the night before Justice Marquette’s heart attack. They were both in that picture I gave you—”

“Let
me
worry about this,” Ivy interrupted.

“The picture was taken at Camp David,” I continued. Maybe, if I kept pelting her with information, I could get something—anything—out of her in return. “A retreat. I think that’s where Vivvie’s dad and Pierce met. We know there’s a third party involved. And the president and Keyes were the only ones there who were also at the gala that night.”

“No,” Ivy said sharply. “They weren’t.”

I frowned, an argument on the tip of my tongue.

“I know where that picture was taken, Tess. I knew before you did. This is
my job
. It’s what I do. I trade in secrets and information. I solve problems. You brought this one to me, and so help me God, you are going to let me fix it.”

“What do you mean the president and Adam’s father weren’t the only people in both places?” I asked.

Ivy threw her hands up in frustration. “Did you ever wonder who took the picture? Who might be standing right outside the frame? You have a
fraction
of the story, Tess. Don’t confuse that with the truth.”

Who took the picture?
Ivy was right. I hadn’t wondered that.

“You said that you already knew the picture was taken at Camp David.” The words almost got stuck in my throat. “How?”

Ivy stared at me for a few seconds, then answered. “Because I was there.”

When I’d given her the photograph, she hadn’t said anything about recognizing it. She hadn’t allowed so much as a flash of recognition to cross her face.

Fixers are experts at covering things up.
Henry’s words wouldn’t leave me alone.
Your sister’s practically an artist.

“I’m going to help Vivvie, Tessie. I’m going to find the truth here. You just have to let me.” She tucked a stray piece of hair back into my braid.

The second she called me Tessie, my throat started to sting. “You can’t let the president nominate Pierce.”

“I won’t.”

“The article in the
Post
said—”

“I won’t,” Ivy repeated, her voice louder this time, more final. She turned to take her leave but glanced back at me. “For what it’s worth,” she said, “you can tell Vivvie that I wouldn’t pay much attention to that article.”

Bodie had said that there were two reasons for leaking a story like that—to help Pierce’s case or to hurt him.

“Are you going to track down the source?” I asked Ivy.

I’m not having this conversation with you.
I could practically see her bite back those words. Instead, she lifted her chin slightly. “Trust me, Tessie, it’s not worth checking out.”

CHAPTER 46

By the end of the week, a slew of opinion articles had come out in Pierce’s favor. In World Issues, we had to watch people debate his merits on TV.

And with each day, I became more convinced that whoever had leaked that article had done it to help Pierce’s chances, not hurt them.

It’s not worth checking out.
Ivy’s words rang in my ears as I watched Henry Marquette take a seat across the courtyard at lunch. He hadn’t spoken to me once since he’d told me about his father. Asher cast a glance at me but took a seat next to Henry.

“Has Ivy found anything?” Vivvie asked me. It was just the two of us at our table—the way it had been before all this had started.

“I don’t know.” I wished I had something to tell her, but Ivy had spent the past few days locked in her office, going over files
she’d brought back from Arizona. I had no idea what kind of files they were. All I knew was that she’d brought boxes of them back—and I’d barely seen her since that night in my room.

“I need to do something.” Vivvie’s voice was quiet, but it vibrated with an intensity of emotion that told me that
need
wasn’t an exaggeration. “I need for
us
to do something.”

“What?” I asked.

“Something,” Vivvie insisted. “Talk to your sister again, or set up a meeting with the First Lady, or . . . or . . .
something
.”

It had been four days since her father’s funeral. A week since he’d killed himself. Eleven days since she’d told me what she’d overheard.