The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(27)

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.

“Nice car,” I told him, trying to distract myself from the fact that I was skipping school to follow up a hunch I couldn’t even articulate.

“Why, thank you,” Asher replied. “It’s Emilia’s. Mine met with an unfortunate accident involving a toaster and a squirrel.”

I didn’t really know where to start. “You stole your sister’s car?”

“Is it still stealing if she loaned it to me once and I made a copy of her keys?” The question was clearly meant to be rhetorical.

“Yes,” I told him. “Definitely still stealing.”

“And so begins a life of crime,” Asher said with a morose shake of his head.

“Your sister is going to kill you,” I told him. Skipping school. Stealing her car.

Asher waved away my words, unconcerned. “If Emilia was predisposed to fratricide, I wouldn’t have made it past kindergarten,” he said. “I am, however, somewhat concerned that she might kill you.”

When we arrived at Vivvie’s house half an hour later, I got out of the car, then hesitated. I hadn’t thought this far ahead. What was I doing here? I had no plan. I wasn’t even entirely certain why I’d come.

It’s probably nothing. Vivvie’s probably fine.

I didn’t believe that, and I didn’t know why. I made my way to the front porch. Asher followed. No one answered the first time I rang the bell. Or the second. But the third time, the door opened a crack.

“Tess?” Vivvie’s voice was hoarse. Like she’d been yelling, or crying—or, I told myself, trying to be rational, like she has strep throat and that is why she hasn’t been at school.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

Vivvie looked past me and registered Asher’s presence.

“I was worried about you,” I told her. She didn’t reply. “Tell me I shouldn’t be.”

Vivvie summoned her voice. “You shouldn’t be.”

Liar. The door was open wider now. She looked like she hadn’t slept since the last time I’d seen her.

“I’m going to stretch my legs a bit and let you two ladies talk.” Asher set off on a stroll around the neighborhood, leaving Vivvie and me alone.

“Can I come in?” I asked.

Vivvie shook her head, but she also stepped back, allowing me entry. I crossed the threshold into the foyer. For a few seconds, Vivvie looked at everything but me: the floor, the ceiling, the walls. Eventually, her gaze found its way to mine. The oversized sweatshirt she was wearing slipped off one shoulder. The skin underneath was darker near her collarbone. Bruised.

She tracked my gaze to the bruise and froze.

“Did your father do that?” I asked softly.

Vivvie jerked her sweatshirt back up. She shook her head—more than once. “He’s not like that.” She still had a hold on her sweatshirt, like she couldn’t coax her hand into letting go. “It was an accident.” Now she was nodding, as if she could will that into being true.

“Okay,” I said. But we both knew that it wasn’t okay. She wasn’t okay.

“My dad and I had a fight. After the wake.” Vivvie’s grip on her sweatshirt tightened. Her free arm wrapped itself around her torso in a fierce self-hug. “The kind of fight where you yell,” she clarified. “Not the kind where you . . .”

Not the kind where the bigger person hits the small one, I filled in, unable to keep from thinking about that bruise.

“We were just yelling,” Vivvie reiterated fiercely. “That’s how we fight. He yells. I cry. He gets flustered because I’m crying.”