A Twisted Love Story(90)

“Ivy, what—”

“Are you here alone?” she says.

“Yes, I am.”

She pushes past him, into the house, down to his great room. The one with white furniture, and windows in place of walls. At least they all face the backyard.

Words explode out of her mouth, a jumbled version of what happened. What she has done. But she’s not too rattled to edit out some of it, like the reason why she was going to talk to Karen.

“I just wanted to know what was happening. If they had any leads in finding—”

“Slow down,” Heath says.

“I can’t slow down. They’re going to be looking for me.” She paces around the room. Lots of space for that. “I hit a cop. A detective.”

“But who were you trying to get away from?”

“This guy was harassing me, and I was trying to get away from him.” She doesn’t go into the whole Milo thing. Doesn’t matter now. “I have to go. They’re going to arrest me, and—”

“Stop. Just stop.” Heath takes her by the shoulders and leads her to the couch. She sits, and he’s right beside her, holding her hand.

Deep breaths. After a couple of them, she nods at Heath. “I’m okay.”

“So you hit Karen?” he says. “The one that arrested Wes?”

“Yes.”

“And you left. Did anyone see you?”

“The neighbors were starting to come out, and I’m sure they saw my car. I don’t know what happened to the guy I was running from. He was about a block away when I took off.”

“But as far as you know,” Heath says, “this guy who was harassing you is the only one who knows you were driving that car.”

Heath’s emphasis on the word driving gets her attention. “That’s true.”

“I think we have to consider the possibility that you didn’t do this.”

“But I—”

“No. You didn’t.”

He looks at her until she gets it. Heath is trying to give her an alternate story, one that doesn’t include her.

“Who was driving?” she says.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He smiles a little. “Wes.”

“Wes? Why couldn’t it be some random person who stole my car?”

“A random person who just happened to hit the detective that arrested him?”

Good point. The police won’t believe anyone other than her or Wes was driving.

Ivy feels a bit dizzy, like her life is rotating in circles and this might be the biggest. Her second hit-and-run. Both were accidents, and the odds on this happening twice seem impossible, yet here she is.

Wes was arrested for the first one. Now, Heath is suggesting she blame the second on him, as well.

He’s giving her a way out.





74




Bianca rushes to the kitchen, refills her glass with iced tea, nukes a slice of cake so it’s gooey and soft, and runs back to the couch. She makes it just as the commercial break ends.

This running-around thing is new to her, but she’s getting better at it. She usually watches streaming shows and can pause them at will, but she can’t pause live breaking news. Nor does she want to. Bianca doesn’t want to miss a single second of the manhunt for Wes Harmon.

It all started when Wes was arrested for Joey Fisher’s death. Though Bianca knew there was a chance it could happen, it was still shocking. Now she can’t get enough of the story.

But when Wes disappeared, she thought her head might implode.

Within a few hours, the local stations started covering it almost nonstop, and they still are. On one channel, a reporter is standing near Wes’s house. Another has a helicopter in the air and is surveying his whole neighborhood.

Bianca rolls her eyes. Wes isn’t stupid enough to stay in his own neighborhood.

But he may still be in town. If he tried to use a bus, train, or airplane, he would be caught on multiple cameras. On the other hand, he might have had help. No one on the news has mentioned Ivy, or any kind of girlfriend, but the police know about her. Karen certainly does. Ivy or one of his friends could have driven him out of town, to a bus or train station farther away. Or maybe just to hide somewhere.

So many possibilities. Bianca’s head is spinning with them, along with the caffeine and sugar she’s been inhaling since yesterday.

She scans through the latest posts on Reddit. Manhunts are like an all-points bulletin for the true-crimers, and they don’t disappoint. Someone is collecting a list of cameras in Fair Valley. Traffic cams mostly, since security cams aren’t available to the general public, along with the public cameras from a nearby nature preserve. Just in case Wes happens to appear on one of them.

She flips back and forth between Reddit and watching the local news, constantly switching channels to keep up on all the stations. Each one has come up with their own name, starting with “Hunt for a Killer.” Another calls it “Search for Wes,” and a third has named it “Fair Valley Manhunt.”

Still nothing interesting from the helicopter cam. No activity at Wes’s house. A second helicopter flies over downtown Fair Valley. She takes a bite of her cake and goes back to Reddit. The site has actually been really helpful. Without it, she might not have found the date that picture of the 4Runner was taken.