The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(23)

“Theodore Marquette was a husband who’d buried his wife.” The president’s voice rolled over me. Even giving a eulogy, its tone said trust me, listen to me, follow me. “A father who’d buried his son. He was a fighter who never gave in to grief, to opposition, to the days and the nights and the months and the years when life was hard. He played a mean game of pool. I know from experience that the only way the man could sing ‘Happy Birthday’ was at the top of his lungs.”

There was a scattering of chuckles.

“Theo was a proud grandfather, a devoted civil servant.” The president paused and lowered his head. “He left this world a better place than he’d found it.”

There were other speakers, hymns, prayers.

I remember it was summer. My dress was blue.

The pallbearers came forward: five men, a woman, a boy. I recognized the woman and realized that she and the men were Justice Marquette’s colleagues, justices who’d sat beside him on the bench. It didn’t matter whether they’d found themselves siding with or against him in court; there was grief etched into their faces as they walked in perfect step to carry the casket down the aisle.

The last pallbearer was my age. He was biracial, with strong features made stronger by the terse set of his jaw. The justice’s grandson. It had to be. I watched him, his stare locked straight ahead as he and six Supreme Court justices carried his grandfather’s casket out into the sun.

“Come on, Tess,” Ivy said softly as the funeral goers began to push out of the chapel. We made our way to the end of the pew. As Ivy stepped into the aisle, someone took her arm.

Adam’s father.

I froze, but as the crowd pushed gently forward, I snapped out of it and stepped into the aisle behind them.

“William,” Ivy greeted him coolly. She didn’t attempt to pull away from his hold. As they walked side by side, I found myself wondering who was leading whom.

“Lovely service,” William Keyes commented. “Though I found the eulogy to be somewhat so-so.”

I looked around to see if anyone else had heard him, but it appeared the words had only reached Ivy’s ears—and mine. Near the front of the chapel, Georgia Nolan stood next to her husband. She caught sight of me looking at her and smiled slightly. Her eyes stopped smiling when she saw the man on Ivy’s arm.

“Have you given any thought to our little chat?” William asked Ivy as we inched toward the exit.

“You and I don’t chat.” Ivy’s voice was matter-of-fact. William held the door open for her. Once Ivy stepped through, he turned back. To me.

“After you,” he said. I recognized the chess move for what it was—a way to get under my sister’s skin. “And who is this young lady?” he asked Ivy.

I would have put money on it that he already knew the answer.

“My sister.” Ivy answered his question, her voice pleasant, her eyes glittering with warning. “Tess.”

William Keyes smiled and laid a hand on my shoulder. “It’s nice to meet you, Tess.”

I barely managed to check the urge to roll my eyes. “Right back at you.”

William was not deterred by my intentional lack of social graces. “I understand you’re a student at Hardwicke?”

I stared him directly in the eye. “Guess word around here travels fast.”

“William.” A man about the same age as William Keyes initiated a handshake with him, causing Adam’s father to remove his hand from my shoulder. “Good to see you.”

“Royce,” William returned heartily. “How’s Hannah?”

I took that as my cue to make an exit. Ivy did the same. She didn’t say a word about William Keyes, but I could tell the encounter had shaken her. That made me wonder: just how dangerous was Adam’s father?

As we made our way down the steps, my sister slipped into a line that had formed in front of the justice’s surviving family.

“Pam,” Ivy greeted a tall, thin African American woman, taking the woman’s hand in hers.

“Thank you for coming.”

I wondered how many times Mrs. Marquette had said those words today. I wondered if they’d started to sound like gibberish to her yet.

Ivy gave the woman’s hand a firm squeeze before letting it go. “What do you need?” she asked.

“We’re holding up.” That, too, sounded like a rote reply, recited over and over again in hopes that it might somehow become the truth.

Ivy caught the other woman’s gaze and repeated herself, her voice soft. “What do you need?”

A little girl burrowed into the woman’s side. The woman’s hand wrapped reflexively around the girl, her hand stroking the little one’s hair. “There’s a wake,” she told Ivy. “At Theo’s house, after the burial.”

Ivy gave a slight nod. “I can head straight there.”

“You don’t have to do that,” the woman said quickly. “The burial . . .”

“I can head straight there,” Ivy reiterated. “Whatever you need, Pam, consider it done.” The woman looked like she might object. “If Theo were here, he’d have told me to skip the funeral and go straight to the house.”

Mrs. Marquette smiled wryly. Apparently, she couldn’t argue with that.

“Mother?” The justice’s grandson appeared at his mom’s side. “Everything okay here?” Henry Marquette spared half a glance for me and seemed to decide I was worth neither his interest nor his concern, before he turned piercing mint-green eyes on Ivy.