My mouth felt dry. “Who was he talking to?”
“I couldn’t make out most of what he was saying.” Vivvie’s voice was very small. “All I heard . . .” She swallowed. “He was reading a number.”
“Like a phone number?”
Vivvie shook her head. “Like an account number.”
The president’s doctor knew that Justice Marquette was going to die. He had a speech prepared. And the day after the justice’s death, that doctor was on a disposable cell phone giving an account number to whoever was on the other end.
“We have to tell someone,” I told Vivvie. “The police, my sister, I don’t even know, but—”
“We can’t, Tess.” Vivvie reached out to grab my arm. “I can’t. I know it looks bad.” That was an understatement. “But, Tess, he’s my dad.”
Vivvie had to have known, when she’d told me this, that I couldn’t just turn around and pretend that nothing had happened.
“You said you were a miracle worker,” Vivvie whispered, weaving her fingers together and holding them clasped in front of her body. “I want a miracle.”
I couldn’t go back and change what she’d heard. I couldn’t wave a magic wand and alter the facts. “What do you want me to do, Vivvie?”
She was quiet for several seconds. “I want proof,” she said finally. “Not just suspicions, not just something I overheard. I want to be wrong. But if I’m not . . .”
She didn’t want it to be her word against his. She didn’t want to be the one to tear her family apart at the seams.
“Proof?” I repeated. “What kind of proof?”
Vivvie toyed with the bottom of her shirt. “If I can get you the phone,” she said, “can you figure out who he was talking to?”
That was so far outside my skillset I didn’t even know where I would start. “I can try.”
Vivvie blew out a long breath, then nodded. “Okay,” she whispered. Then she turned and started walking back toward her house.
“Vivvie,” I called after her. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay at home? With your father?”
“He won’t hurt me.” Vivvie had to believe that. She wanted me to believe it, too. “He doesn’t know that I know about the phone. After the wake, all I told him was that I’d heard him practicing his speech.”
And look how that ended.
“You don’t have to do this. You can come with me. We’ll . . .”
“No, Tess.” Vivvie forced a smile. The painstaking upturning of her lips hit me like a knife to the gut. “I just told you that I think someone paid my father to kill a Supreme Court justice. I asked you not to tell anyone about it until we have proof. So, yeah, I kind of do have to do this.” She started walking back toward her house again. This time I let her go and stood there on the sidewalk, feeling like I’d fallen into some kind of parallel universe.
“Funny story.”
I turned to see Asher Rhodes rounding the corner.
“Vivvie’s voice carries,” he said. “And I have freakishly good hearing.”
CHAPTER 23
Asher and I stared at each other for several seconds. He heard. I racked my mind, trying to remember what, exactly, Vivvie had said in the last thirty seconds of our conversation.
I just told you that I think someone paid my father to kill a Supreme Court justice . . .
“Henry’s my best friend.” Asher’s tone was conversational, but quieter than normal. “In the first grade, he was the one who strongly advised me against roller-skating off my roof.” There was a beat of silence. “He was also the one who taught me to write left-handed when I broke my right arm. When we were nine, I inadvertently-possibly-on-purpose insulted a sixth grader. The kid would have pounded me into the ground, but Henry stepped forward and challenged him to a duel. Because he was into knights and honor and standing up for best friends who were too stupid to watch out for themselves.” Asher shook his head, his voice still quiet, intense. “I can still remember when Thalia was born. Henry spent the night at my house, and I woke up in the morning and found an itemized to-do list, focused on his duties as a big brother.”
The image of a tiny Henry Marquette making a big-brother to-do list was all too easy to picture.
“He’s been my best friend for almost as long as I can remember, Tess. When his dad died . . .” Asher shook his head and didn’t finish that thought. “Henry and his grandfather were close. Theo was the closest thing to a father Henry had left.”
My stomach twisted sharply. It was too easy to put myself in Henry Marquette’s shoes, to imagine how I would feel if I woke up tomorrow and Gramps was gone. It was a short jump to imagining what it would be like to know that my grandfather’s death hadn’t been an accident.
I would have been out for blood.
“You can’t tell Henry what you just heard,” I told Asher.
Asher gave me a look. “I knew you were a little crazy, Tess. It’s there, in the eyes.” He gestured in the general vicinity of my face. “But I, too, have been in possession of the Crazy Eyes on occasion. I get it. If you want to go head-to-head with John Thomas Wilcox, or take up permanent residence in the guys’ bathroom, or skip out in the middle of the school day, I will happily go along for the ride.”
But you won’t keep this from your best friend, I filled in.
“How do you think Henry will respond to this news?” I asked. Asher’s expression darkened. “My guess would be not well,” I continued. “And right now, even if he knew, there wouldn’t be anything he could do about it. He could try going to the police. But if Vivvie gets spooked, if she recants . . .”
All we had was Vivvie’s word.
“We’re talking about the president’s physician, Asher.” I wasn’t sure what kind of background checks working at the White House involved, but if the Powers That Be were willing to put the president’s life in Vivvie’s father’s hands, he obviously wasn’t considered a security risk. Or a threat.
“Darn you and your infernal logic.” Asher ran both hands through his hair, mussing it to ridiculous heights. “Fine,” he capitulated. “But I want in. Whatever you’re planning to do about this, whatever Vivvie’s doing, I want in.”