Page 19 of The Ruling Class (The Fixer #1)

Justice Marquette’s house was on the Virginia side of DC. Bodie didn’t ask why we were going there. Ivy didn’t elaborate.

Once we arrived, it took my sister all of ten minutes to get rid of the press camped out on the street.

“How does she do that?” I asked Bodie, watching from a distance as she said something to send the last hanger-on running.

“Witchcraft,” Bodie deadpanned.

By the time the Marquettes arrived from the burial, the house was quiet, the food was warm, and a discreet security team had been established around the perimeter.

If the funeral service had been full of dignitaries and officials, the wake was a more personal affair: neighbors, family, friends. As soon as Ivy was distracted, I ducked out of the house. I didn’t belong here. This wasn’t my grief.

Outside, the air smelled like fresh-cut grass and forthcoming rain. The justice’s house was easily as large as Ivy’s, but he had more land. Staring out at it, I tried the number Ivy had given me for my grandfather. A nurse answered and put me on with Gramps.

It wasn’t a good day.

When I eventually said good-bye and hung up, it felt like leaving him all over again. I started walking, aching with a constant, uncompromising sense of loss. I didn’t realize how far away from the house I’d wandered until I noticed that I wasn’t alone.

“Where are we going?”

I turned to see the little girl who’d been glued to Mrs. Marquette’s side at the funeral. Her dark hair had been liberated from a headband. She was wearing a black dress.

“Aren’t you supposed to be back at the house?” I asked her.

Her chin jutted out. “This is my grandpa’s house. I get to go wherever I want.”

“Fair enough.” I stared at her for a moment, then kicked off my shoes. “You want to ditch yours?”

“We can do that?” She sounded skeptical.

“It’s your grandpa’s house. You can do whatever you want.”

Accepting my logic, she sat down in the dirt and peeled off the Mary Janes.

“You’re supposed to tell me you’re sorry about my grandpa,” she told me.

“Do you really want me to?” I asked her.

She pulled at the tips of her hair. She was older than I’d originally thought—maybe eight or nine. “No,” she said finally. “But you’re supposed to anyway.”

I said nothing. She plucked a blade of grass and stared at it so hard I thought her gaze might set it on fire.

“You got a pond around here?” I asked her.

“Nope. But there are dogs. Two of them,” she added, lest I mistakenly think she’d said dog , singular.

I nodded, which seemed to satisfy her.

She plucked another piece of grass before casting a sideways glance at me. “What would we do with a pond?”

I shrugged. “Skip rocks?”

Twenty minutes later, Thalia Marquette had mastered the art of skipping invisible rocks across a nonexistent pond.

“If it isn’t two lovely ladies, off by their lonesome.”

I turned, surprised to see Asher here—until I remembered that Emilia had attempted to hire me to keep him out of trouble until his best friend got back to school to take over the job.

His best friend, Henry. As in Henry Marquette.

“We’re skipping rocks,” Thalia informed Asher. “This is Asher,” she told me. “He’s okay.” She smiled.

Undeterred by the lack of either rocks or a body of water on which to skip them, Asher plopped down beside us on the ground. “I,” he said tartly, “am a master rock skipper.”

Ten minutes later, the cavalry arrived. The cavalry did not look particularly pleased to see us sprawled in the grass.

“You’re not very good at this, Asher.” Thalia was blissfully unaware of her brother’s arrival. Asher shot Henry a lazy grin as he skipped another imaginary stone.

“Five skips,” he declared archly.

I leaned back on my palms. “Two,” I countered. Thalia giggled.

“Surrounded by vipers on all sides,” Asher sighed. He turned to Henry. “Back a fellow up here, my good man.”

Asher’s “good man” looked as if he was considering having the lot of us committed.

“Henry, watch!” Thalia ordered, unaware of—or possibly used to—the dour expression on her brother’s face. She flicked her wrist.

“Excellent form,” Asher commented. “It’s too bad the stone got eaten by an alligator after the second bounce.”

Thalia slugged him. “It did not!”

“Sadly, it did.”

“Henry! Tell him it didn’t.”

There was a beat of silence. “I see no alligators,” Henry allowed.

“Et tu, Henry?” Asher held a hand to his chest. Henry didn’t bat an eye. He was clearly used to the dramatics.

“You’re not wearing shoes,” he told his sister. His gaze went to Asher’s bare feet and then, briefly, to mine. “Why aren’t you wearing shoes?”

“We took them off,” Thalia clarified helpfully. Asher’s lips twitched slightly.

“Why did you take them off?” Henry went with a more specific question this time.

“Does a person really need a reason to take off their shoes?” I asked.

Henry’s head swiveled toward me. Yes , his disapproving eyebrows seemed to say. Yes, a person does.

“Tess,” Asher said with a flourish, “meet Henry. Henry, meet Tess.”

“We’ve met.” Henry clipped the words. I thought met was a pretty generous description of our encounter outside the church.

“I appreciate your sister’s assistance,” Henry told me stiffly, “but I think it’s time for the two of you to go.

” Henry Marquette clearly didn’t want Ivy here—and just as clearly, he didn’t want me near his sister.

He inclined his head slightly, staring down at me.

“Don’t you agree?” The words were issued more like an order than a question.

I stood, brushing the grass off my legs. “You know, I think I do.”

I’d expected the crowd inside to have thinned, but if anything, it had gotten bigger. I found Ivy in the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” she asked me.

“Fine.”

“Bodie can drive you home,” Ivy offered. “I’ll stay through cleanup, but there’s no reason you have to.”

I nodded. Ivy might have needed me this morning, but now that she had a mission, she was fine. Within seconds, she had her cell in her hand, calling Bodie to pick me up. I made my way to the front door. When I opened it, I caught sight of a man on the front porch, clothed in formal military dress.

“Don’t. Embarrass. Me.” The man’s words weren’t meant for my ears. They were meant for the teenage girl standing next to him.

Vivvie.

She looked smaller, somehow, than she had the last time I’d seen her. Her eyes were bloodshot, her shoulders hunched, like her body was trying its best to collapse in on itself.

“Vivvie?” I said.

Her eyes—and the man’s—snapped up to mine. His face changed utterly, morphing into a solemn mix of sympathy and kindness.

Bedside manner , I thought, recognizing him from the news and remembering that he was a doctor—the White House physician. The man who’d treated Justice Marquette.

“Tess.” Vivvie struggled to smile. On anyone else, the expression might have looked natural, but Vivvie’s features weren’t made for small smiles. “Dad,” Vivvie continued, “this is Tess Kendrick. I told you about her. Tess, this is my father.”

Major Bharani gave me a quick once-over. “Of course,” he said smoothly. “It’s nice to meet you, Tess, though, of course, I wish the circumstances were better.”

Major Bharani told me good-bye and slipped inside. Vivvie started to follow him, but I stopped her.

“Are you okay?” I asked her quietly.

“That’s my line.” She managed another weak smile.

“Where were you this week?” I asked.

Vivvie looked down, then away. “I’ve been a little under the weather.”

Too sick to come to school, but not too sick to attend a wake? And not too sick for her father to order her not to embarrass him, like Vivvie was some kind of liability. Like she was something to be embarrassed about.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked Vivvie.

“I should go.” She couldn’t meet my eyes. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”

All I could think as she disappeared into the house was that Vivvie was a miserable liar.