The Fixer (The Fixer #1)(54)

I turned my head away from Henry. I could just barely make out our reflection in the glass pane that separated the computer lab from the hall: Asher constantly in motion, and Henry and I sitting still as statues, neither of us looking at the other.

Movement on the other side of the pane forced my attention away from the reflection.

Emilia. She opened the door to the lab a second later. I saw the moment she registered the fact that Henry, Asher, and I had gone silent at her entrance.

Her chin jutted out, her perfect posture going even more erect.

“Did you need something, Em?” Asher asked.

“Not from you.” Emilia’s tone when she addressed her brother was a mix of comfortable and blunt. Henry stood up, obviously expecting Emilia to address him, but she just gave him an icy look, then turned to me.

“I need to talk to you.” Emilia had a knack of issuing statements like orders. I was going to ask her if it could wait, but something in her eyes made me hesitate.

She took a step forward. “It’s about Vivvie.”

That was all it took for her to have my complete attention.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Emilia said softly. “She looks . . .” Emilia bit her bottom lip. I hadn’t pegged her for the lip-biting type. “She’s not okay.”

“Vivvie’s here?” I interrupted.

“Listening comprehension,” Emilia snapped back, looking more like her usual self. “Yes, she’s here. And something’s wrong.”

“Which bathroom?” I asked, a feeling of dread taking up residence in my stomach. Vivvie had buried her father this morning. Why would she have come to school? And how bad must she have been for Emilia to come get me?

“Downstairs,” Emilia replied. “East corridor.”

I started walking before she even finished talking. Henry and Asher followed. When I got to the bathroom, there was no one else inside. I’d expected to find Vivvie in one of the stalls, but she was just sitting on the floor.

“Vivvie.” I knelt down next to her.

“Sorry,” she said roughly. “I’m sorry. I’m fine.”

“What’s wrong?”

“You weren’t in the courtyard,” Vivvie said. “It’s stupid. I came to find you, and you weren’t in the courtyard, and—”

“Breathe.”

Vivvie breathed. Then she thrust something toward me. It took me a second to realize it was a newspaper, and another after that to realize that she wanted me to take it.

I took it. Slowly, I unfolded it. Then I understood instantly why Vivvie had come.

PIERCE FRONT-RUNNER FOR SUPREME COURT, the headline declared. My mind whirred. This wasn’t an op-ed piece, and it wasn’t some two-bit newspaper. This was the front page of the Washington Post.

There was a knock at the door.

“Everything okay in there?” Asher called. “I ask in the most unobtrusive possible way!”

I looked down at the paper in my hand.

“You can show him,” Vivvie told me, pushing herself to her feet. “He’s going to see it anyway. Everyone’s going to see it.”

I reached out and squeezed Vivvie’s shoulder, and then we made our way out into the hall. Asher was standing next to the door. Henry was behind him. Wordlessly, I held up the article.

PIERCE FRONT-RUNNER FOR SUPREME COURT. The headline was just as disturbing the second time, but not as disturbing as the subheading. Sources say the president is moving toward nomination at an unprecedented rate.

“What sources?” Henry asked the question before I could. I had no answers. All I could do was move a step closer to Vivvie and take her hand in mine.

Her father had died on Friday. She’d just buried him—and now the Washington Post was announcing that some anonymous source had gone on record saying that the president was preparing to nominate the man who’d hired her father to commit murder.

“They can’t do this.” Vivvie found her voice again, her hand squeezing mine until it hurt. “Tess, the president can’t nominate Pierce. He can’t.” She pulled her hand away from mine and stepped back. “What if they killed him, Tess? What if Pierce and whoever he’s working with killed my father, just like they killed . . .”

Vivvie’s eyes darted to Henry’s. Her words dried up, and the two of them were suddenly caught up in the kind of staring contest that nobody wins. Neither one could look away.

“Henry.” Vivvie swallowed. “I . . .”

“I know,” Henry said softly. “About my grandfather. About your father.”

Vivvie flinched. She waited for him to lash out.

“You could have kept quiet.” Henry was so focused on Vivvie that I felt like I was eavesdropping, like neither Asher nor I had any place in this moment. “You didn’t,” Henry continued, his voice just as soft. “You spoke up.”

Vivvie’s eyes filled with tears.

Henry reached out and laid a gentle hand on her arm. “I owe you for that.”

“I’m sorr—”

“Don’t.” Henry’s voice was implacable. “Don’t apologize. Not now, not ever, not to me.” He turned back to me. “We need to know if the article is true.”

Was the president really on the verge of nominating Pierce? And if he was—what did that mean?