A Twisted Love Story(38)

Good. The last thing she wants is for this to play out in front of her coworkers. It’s also bad, because he isn’t here.

Brooke holds up her drink, a dirty martini, and offers a toast. “We have to celebrate that the guy who ghosted you is gone,” she says. “Because he’s a dick.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Ivy says, and she did. A lot.

Girls’ night moves from Luna to Buckshot to Palmer’s. All of them are Ivy’s suggestions, and she looks for Wes at every one of them. Three hours later, she’s buzzed. Maybe a little more than that, but still sober enough to see that Wes hasn’t been at any of the bars tonight.

“Feel better?” Lucia says. She is wearing blue today, though not sky blue. Still, close enough.

“I feel nothing,” Ivy says.

“Good,” Brooke says. “Mission accomplished.”

Ubers are called, one for each of them, and they stand outside together waiting. Lucia pulls out her phone. Ivy does the same. Still nothing from Wes.

She really doesn’t feel anything during the ride home in the Uber. Not about the lack of contact or about her night out. Her driver is chatty, and at any other time, she might’ve enjoyed talking to him.

The lack of emotion continues until she gets home, collapses on her bed, and realizes she is alone. Drunk and lonely is a lethal combination.

She picks up her phone. Puts it down. Picks it up again and reads through all the texts she and Wes exchanged during the week they were together.

Puts it down.

Picks it up.

Flings it across the room.

It lands on the carpet, near her dresser. Ivy rolls off the bed and crawls over to get the phone. She is such an idiot. Never should’ve gone to the police, never should’ve told Karen about Wes.

Maybe she should apologize.

The idea takes hold in her mind, planting roots and growing branches, until she writes the script, imagining not only what she would say but what he would say. The whole conversation plays out, and it ends with her not being alone anymore.

Yes. This is what she needs to do. And at 11:47 on a Thursday night, she has to do it right now, while she’s still sitting on the floor. No hesitation.

One ring. Two rings. Three.

“Hello?”

Ivy pulls the phone away from her face, double-checking who she called.

Definitely Wes.

Definitely not his voice. It’s a woman.





33




Ivy passed out thinking of that woman’s voice on the phone, and she wakes up with it still in her head. If she hadn’t been drunk, she probably would’ve hung up as soon as the woman said hello. But she had been just drunk enough.

“Who is this?” Ivy had said.

“Excuse me?”

“Who. Is. This.”

Rustling in the background, like the woman was moving. The call ended.

Ivy dialed right back. Straight to voicemail. She called again. Voicemail again.

Ever since, she has been hearing that woman’s voice in her head, trying to figure out if she recognizes it. Maybe. Maybe not. Hard to tell, since the woman said so few words.

Yes, it’s been four days since Ivy had any contact from Wes. Yes, they are—presumably—no longer together.

It’s over, again, with silence instead of an explosion.

Of all the ways to break up—of all the ways they’ve broken up—this is by far the worst. No chance to vent, to scream, to throw anything, to hang up on each other. No way to get the anger, the frustration, the heartbreak out. And she was never good at keeping things all bottled up.

It’s unhealthy to do that. Causes high blood pressure and heart disease and all the bad things. Nobody wants that. She wouldn’t even wish it on Wes, not on their most horrible day. There is a difference between being mean and being cruel. And until he cut her off, she believed there was a difference between being a dick and being hateful.

Now a woman was answering his phone. Late at night. Less than a week later.

This breakup might be the worst thing he’s ever done to her.



* * *



—

Karen is up early, though not to ride the bus to Sacramento. She makes a big cup of coffee and heads straight to her home office.

So much to do. Her lists are absolutely overflowing.

The Wes and Ivy file is by far the thickest one on her desk. Today, she attacks it with a new urgency. Ivy was the one who reached out to her when she reported her stalker, naming Wes as the prime suspect. She had practically begged for Karen’s help.

Not everyone would realize this, but Karen, who has investigated hundreds of cases—many of which involved abuse—knows more than the average person. She has the expertise and the experience to recognize when someone is in a relationship they can’t get out of. Even when the abuse is psychological and the bruises are on the inside.

Ivy has been in one of these relationships for years.

She has been screaming for help, starting all the way back to when she vandalized his car. Wes had pushed her that far, and then he swooped in to save her. Changed his statement, blamed the damage on someone else. Became her hero. No doubt he has done this so often Ivy feels like she can’t live without him.

Except she is still screaming for help.

She reminds Karen of Melissa, a young woman who had been in a similar situation. Melissa’s boyfriend had accused her of abusing him, but that was just part of his game. Abusers always have a game. Karen is one of the few who knows all the rules.