The Fixer

by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

  “He has good days,” I told Ivy.

  Her voice was gentle. “They’re going to get fewer and farther between. There are some treatment possibilities. A clinical trial, for one.”

  “I want to talk to the doctors.” I swallowed, pushing down the lump in my throat. “I want them to explain the different options. And I want to talk to Gramps.”

  I’d tried calling but hadn’t been able to get through yet.

  “I’ll get you the doctor’s direct number,” Ivy promised. “What else do you want?” She paused. “For you?”

  I didn’t reply.

  “I want you to give yourself a chance to be happy here, no matter how angry you are with me.” Ivy leaned forward. “What do you want?”

  She wasn’t going to stop asking until I answered. I gritted my teeth. “No more afternoon teas.”

  Ivy didn’t bat an eye. “Done. What else?”

  She wants a negotiation. Fine. I locked my eyes on hers. “I want a car.”

  Ivy blinked. Then she blinked again. “A car?”

  “I don’t care if it’s used,” I told her. “I don’t care if it’s borrowed or barely functional. I want transportation.”

  I didn’t like depending on other people. I needed to know that if push came to shove, I could take care of myself.

  “Driving in DC isn’t like driving in Montana,” Ivy told me.

  “I can learn.” My words sounded strangely loud. For a moment, I thought I’d raised my voice. Then I realized that I hadn’t—I was talking at the exact same volume; it was the rest of the restaurant that had changed.

  It was silent.

  I glanced to my right. The old women sitting at the table next to us were gone. And so were the women at the table beside them. The sorority sisters on the other side, the mother with the three little girls . . . They were all gone.

  The entire restaurant was empty, except for us.

  Ivy took in the silence, the empty chairs, and she sighed. Then she picked up her tea and took another drink, waiting.

  For what?

  The back door to the restaurant opened. A man wearing a suit stepped through. He had an earpiece in one ear and a gun strapped to his side.

  “Mark,” Ivy greeted him.

  He nodded to her but didn’t say anything. A second later, a woman stepped through the door. She was in her early sixties but could have passed for a decade younger. She had blond hair that had gone only slightly silver with age, perfectly coiffed around her heart-shaped face, and wore navy blue like she had invented the color.

  A second armed man followed her into the room.

  “Georgia,” Ivy said. “It’s nice to see you.”

  “Don’t lie, darling,” the woman replied. “It doesn’t suit you.” She crossed the room and pulled a chair over to our table. Then she turned warm hazel eyes on me. “You must be Tess.”

  CHAPTER 15

  When the First Lady of the United States sits down next to you and asks you if you would like a scone, you say yes.

  “Now you want a scone?” Ivy said, sounding somewhat disgruntled.

  “Tea?” Georgia Nolan ignored Ivy and focused on me.

  I smiled, no lips. “Tea would be lovely.”

  “Lovely?” Ivy repeated incredulously. “You don’t think anything is lovely.”

  “Hush,” the First Lady told her. I’d never seen anyone hush Ivy before. It was almost enough to make me forget the fact that there were two Secret Service agents watching our every move.

  “You cleared the room,” Ivy commented.

  “There have been some threats,” Georgia replied, passing me some jam for my scone. “Apparently, some radical groups blame me for my husband’s foreign policy decisions.”

  Ivy snorted. “Imagine that.” She paused. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “I’m here because Bodie told me that you would be,” Georgia replied.

  “Bodie’s fired,” Ivy said.

  Georgia waved a hand. “Bodie is always fired. And to answer your question, no, I’m not here about the threats. I’m here because I understand that a mutual friend paid you a visit.”

  Georgia Nolan was Southern—very Southern. I had a feeling she used the word friend loosely.

  “And,” the woman added, “I’m here to meet Tess.” She turned to me. “I asked Ivy to bring you by the White House. She politely declined.”

  “I wasn’t that polite,” Ivy muttered.

  I wasn’t sure what surprised me more—the fact that the First Lady was apparently one of Ivy’s clients, or the fact that Ivy didn’t treat her like a client.

  She treated her like family.

  “I was very sorry to hear about your grandfather, Tess.” Georgia Nolan reached over and squeezed my hand. “From what I hear, he is a good man.”

  I stared down at my tea. She’d used the present tense. He is, I thought, clinging to that one word. He is a good man. He is tough and smart and more like me than either one of us would ever admit.

  I could feel Ivy’s eyes on me. I swallowed back the rush of emotion I’d felt at the First Lady’s words. “Justice Marquette has—had—a grandson who goes to Hardwicke,” I said, still staring at the rim of my cup. Better to talk about anyone else’s grandfather than my own. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” My eyes flitted back up to the First Lady’s hazel ones. “Ivy fixes problems. A dead Supreme Court justice is a problem.”

  “No,” the president’s wife replied, her voice never losing its warmth. “Theo Marquette’s death is a tragedy.” She studied me for a moment, then continued, “And, quite frankly, it’s an opportunity, tragic though it may be.” She set her tea down. “And speaking of,” she said, turning her attention back to Ivy, “I’m guessing that’s why William paid you a visit?” Georgia gave a small, close-lipped smile. “He has thoughts on the nomination and wants your whisper in this administration’s ear.”

  William. It took me a second to process the name. As in William Keyes.

  “Georgia.” Ivy gave the older woman a quelling look and then darted a meaningful glance toward me. The First Lady held Ivy’s gaze for a moment, then inclined her head slightly.

  “Tess,” Georgia said, “could you give us a moment?”

  When the First Lady of the United States asks you to give her a moment, you give her a moment. I went to the bathroom. When I came back, she and Ivy had finished discussing whatever they were discussing.

  Georgia stood. She reached over and laid a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “I’ll let you know which way Peter is leaning on nominees,” she told her, giving Ivy’s shoulder a squeeze. “In the meantime, do keep your ear to the ground.” Then she smiled. “And when things settle down, you and Tess are coming over for dinner.”

  CHAPTER 16

  This was what my life had become: on Tuesday, the First Lady insisted I simply had to dine at the White House at some point in the near future; on Wednesday, I sat by myself at lunch. Vivvie was absent. I probably could have leveraged my fledgling reputation to obtain a seat at someone else’s table, but I was used to eating lunch alone.

  Solitude didn’t bother me nearly as much as the idea of cementing my status as a person to know at Hardwicke.

  So I ate outside. By myself. I did the same thing the next day, when Vivvie still didn’t show up for school. And the day after that. After three days of self-segregation—and a half-dozen declined requests for “fixing”—the message was finally starting to sink in with the rest of the student body. I wasn’t a miracle worker. I wasn’t looking to make friends.

  I just wanted to be left alone.

  On the third day of eating lunch by myself, I got company. And not the good kind.

  “If it isn’t my favorite little psychopath.” The boy whose phone I’d confiscated my first day at Hardwicke slid into the seat across from mine. A quick survey of my surroundings told me that his friends weren’t far off. In the past few days, more and more students had moved to eating lunch outside. There were three o
r four small groups and one larger one.

  A few students cast glances our way, but Emilia Rhodes was the only one whose gaze lingered.

  “I can’t help but notice you’re looking a little lonely these days.” The boy across from me smiled. It wasn’t a friendly smile. “Your fifteen minutes of high school fame over already?”

  He was like a predator, going for the antelope that had been cut off from the rest of the herd. I’d threatened him, embarrassed him. He’d steered clear until it became obvious that I wasn’t going to grab at a place near the top of the Hardwicke hierarchy.

  Now he’d apparently decided I was fair game.

  “If you need a friend . . .” He leered at me, his eyes raking over my body in a way designed to make me feel exposed. “I can be a very good friend.”

  “Keep telling yourself that,” I said. If he was looking for a reaction other than skepticism about his prowess as a “friend,” he wasn’t going to get one.

  “You think you’re really something, don’t you?” He was tall and athletic, with perfect teeth and perfect hair. I wasn’t sure what bothered him more—the idea of being rejected, or the fact that in a staring contest between the two of us, we both knew he’d be the one to look away first. “Your sister’s nothing but a political ambulance chaser,” he spat out. “The flavor of the month. To people like my father, she’s the hired help.”

  He wanted me wondering who his father was.

  Want away, Boy Wonder, I thought. I wasn’t up on the Who’s Who? of DC, and I didn’t care to be.

  “I could make things very difficult for you here.” He clearly meant that as a threat.

  I snorted. “And I could have a nice chat with your father about the fact that out of all the girls at this school that you could choose to terrorize, you chose the vice president’s daughter.”

  I had no idea who this guy’s father was. He might or might not have been the type of man who cared about the way his son treated girls. But judging from said son’s attitude about power—who had it, who didn’t—I was guessing Daddy Dearest might care quite a bit about the idea of his idiot son making enemies in high places.

  For a split second, the idiot in question blanched. I stabbed my fork into my salad and started bringing the bite to my mouth. Without warning, the boy’s hand snaked out, grabbing my wrist. From a distance, the expression on his face would have looked perfectly friendly, but up close, I saw the glint in his eye.

  “Fine day we’re having, isn’t it?” Asher Rhodes slipped into the seat next to mine, picked up my spoon, and stole a bite of my cupcake. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

  The boy with the glint in his eye dropped my wrist. He laughed. “Just kidding around with Tess here.”

  Asher snagged another bite of my cupcake. “Such a kidder, that Tess,” he said jovially. “A constant riot. Keeps me in stitches, she does.”

  The boy blinked several times. “You two are . . .”

  “Friends,” Asher declared. He tried for another bite of my cupcake. I blocked his hand with my fork, a little harder than necessary.

  I didn’t need rescuing.

  “We’re not friends,” I told Asher.

  “Our bond goes far beyond friendship,” Asher agreed pleasantly. “Epics will be written. Bards will sing.” He turned back to the boy across from us. “Any interest in playing the role of the bard?”

  Not surprisingly, the answer to that question was no. The boy made a hasty exit. He and his hangers-on retreated to a table near Emilia’s. She turned around and went back to holding court at her own table, head held high.

  “John Thomas Wilcox,” Asher told me quietly. “His father’s the minority whip.”

  I wasn’t sure what one was supposed to say in response to that, so I said nothing.

  “I see you’re the strong and silent type,” Asher said sagely. “I never shut up, so we’re going to get along smashingly.”

  “I was fine,” I told him. “You could have stayed with your friends.”

  Despite his “best friend” being absent, Asher seemed to have had no shortage of companionship the past few days. He ate lunch at a different table every day, like a king spreading the wealth among his people.

  “It wasn’t you I was worried about,” Asher returned easily. “There was murder in your eyes, and, let’s face it, John Thomas’s face is too pretty for the maiming I’m sure he so richly deserved.”

  Emilia had tried to hire me to keep her brother out of trouble for a few days. I wondered if she’d figured out yet that I was the last person anyone should think was qualified for that job.

  Trouble always had a way of finding me.

  CHAPTER 17

  Five minutes before the final bell cut us loose for the day, I got pulled into the headmaster’s office.

  “Tess,” he said. “Can I call you Tess?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  He folded his hands in front of him on the desk. “I’m afraid we’ve received some complaints.”

  I waited for him to elaborate. He waited for me to say something. I was better at waiting than he was.

  “Serious allegations have been made. Bullying. Blackmail. Theft.”

  Again, the headmaster paused, and again, I said nothing. The only person who had reason to accuse me of theft was John Thomas Wilcox. The idea of him reporting me to the administration for anything was pretty rich. He must have been betting on the fact that I wouldn’t report him in return.

  Unfortunately, that was a good bet. If Anna Hayden had wanted the administration involved in her situation, she would have gone to them herself.

  “Now, you’re new here,” the headmaster continued. “And I believe in giving students the benefit of the doubt, but it would help us put this unfortunate business behind us if you would allow us to search your locker.”

  “For what?” The cell phone? Did John Thomas really think I was stupid enough to keep it on the premises?

  The fact that I’d finally broken my silence seemed to energize Headmaster Raleigh. “I’m not at liberty to share the details of the allegations. In an effort to discourage bullying, Hardwicke has an open-door policy. We encourage students to report any trouble they’re having and guarantee confidentiality during investigations.”

  In theory, that might have been a good practice. In reality, it was a system ripe for abuse.

  “I despise bullying,” I told the headmaster. “And bullies. You might say that’s something my sister and I have in common.”

  Invoking Ivy had exactly the effect I had thought it would. Headmaster Raleigh’s jaw clenched slightly. If his last interaction with Ivy was any indication, he had a healthy amount of fear of my sister’s reach. Either she already had dirt on him, or he was afraid she’d dig some up.

  The headmaster offered me a peppermint, then forced a smile. “If you would just allow me to conduct a simple search—”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think I will.”

  Behind the headmaster’s desk, there was a photo. As a vein in his forehead began to throb, I counted the number of people in it: three in the back row, two in the front, one off to the side. Headmaster Raleigh was standing between a balding man in his fifties and a slightly older man with a shock of white hair. I recognized the older man instantly.

  William Keyes.

  “I don’t need your permission to search your locker.” The headmaster’s tone drew my attention back in his direction. This, I inferred from the rise in volume, was supposed to be the voice of authority.

  If you didn’t need my permission, I thought, then why did you ask for it?

  “I thought Hardwicke respected the privacy of all of its students,” I said. That was what he’d told Ivy. The wealthy and politically elite sent their children here because it was secure and discreet. I had a feeling that random locker searches wouldn’t sit well with the Board of Trustees—and unless Raleigh had something more solid than a vague, anonymous complaint, it would be easy enough to make any sea
rch he conducted of my locker look random.

  “Maybe you should call Ivy.” I dropped my sister’s name a second time. “I’m sure we can sort this whole locker-search thing out.”

  The headmaster fidgeted with his tie like it was choking him. “I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Raleigh and I both turned toward the doorway. Adam stood there, looking every inch his father’s son. His gaze was steady, his presence commanding. “Adam Keyes,” he introduced himself, crossing the room to shake the headmaster’s hand. “I’m here to pick up Tess.”

  “Keyes, did you say?” If anything, the headmaster looked slightly paler than he had a moment before. “And what is your relation to Tess?”

  Adam’s lips twisted their way into a smile that looked more like a threat. “Family friend,” he replied. “If you have any concerns about her behavior, I’d be glad to pass them along.”

  “No,” the headmaster said hurriedly. “No concerns. I am sure this is just a misunderstanding.”

  “I’m sure that it is.” Coming from Adam, that sounded like an order. “You ready to go, Tess?”

  I stood. “Headmaster,” I said, meeting his eyes. “Always a pleasure.”

  “Do I want to know what he would have found if he’d searched your locker?” Adam asked once we hit the parking lot. His brows pulled together in what was either disapproval or amusement—I couldn’t tell which.

  “As far as I know, nothing.” I’d taken the battery out of John Thomas’s phone to prevent anyone from tracking it. I certainly wasn’t stupid enough to keep pilfered goods in my locker.

  “So you objected on principle?” The edges of his lip twitched slightly. Amusement.

  “On the principle the person who made the anonymous complaint might also have planted something in my locker,” I corrected. Adam gave me a long, assessing look, and I shrugged. “I’ve been making friends.”

  “You don’t say.” Adam didn’t sound surprised. He unlocked what I assumed to be his car. I headed for the passenger side, and he stopped me, holding out the keys. “Ivy said you wanted to learn to drive in DC.”