Coach Orlova called Marchenko first thing Friday morning, before Ivy had even left for school, and the tightness in her voice when she found Ivy in the hallway an hour later told her everything before a single word was said.
"Someone visited him," Coach Orlova said, pulling Ivy aside into the empty salle. "Yesterday evening. A man in a suit, polite, professional, introduced himself only as representing 'interested parties.' Offered him a significant sum of money — enough, Marchenko said, to cover the rest of his retirement comfortably — in exchange for a signed statement retracting everything he told you, describing his earlier confession as the confused ramblings of an old man with a grudge."
Ivy's stomach twisted. "Did he sign it?"
"No. He said the man became less polite when he refus
