Karen opens the bag and the truffle box. Each one had a bite taken out of it. “They were already like this?”
“They were.”
Throughout the exchange, Karen studied Ivy. She spoke in a halting voice with frequent pauses. Not unusual for people speaking to the police. She also broke eye contact a lot. Again, nothing out of the ordinary.
“The thing is,” Ivy said, “my ex-boyfriend used to give me these truffles.”
That’s when the tears came. Erupted, actually.
Karen handed her a tissue and waited a moment before continuing. She pointed to the truffles. “He gave you the same brand?”
“Yes. Same kind of box. Same everything.”
Karen took down his name and birth date, explaining to Ivy how this typically works: Stalkers usually stop after a visit from the police. He may be angry, he may even be a little over the edge of sanity, but the idea of being arrested could set him straight.
Ivy asked no questions. She nodded repeatedly, thanking Karen more than once. By the time she left, Karen’s internal alarm had reached maximum volume.
Ivy hadn’t told her everything—that much was obvious—but Karen could fill in the blanks. She had seen enough abusive relationships in her life to have an idea of what Ivy was going through.
Karen continues searching through the 911 calls. The list contains the time each call came in, along with the address and a brief description of the emergency. Or what the caller claimed was an emergency, because sometimes they weren’t. It’s tedious work, because she has to look up each address online to see where the incident occurred. She doesn’t find anything near or at the apartment building where Wes and Ivy lived.
But then she happens across a call that came in at 12:18 in the morning. The address was listed as 3127 Third Street. Google says that address is a family-style restaurant called Moe’s. Also known as the former location of the Fine Line gentlemen’s club.
Strange place for a domestic disturbance.
Karen sits back in her chair and stares at the photo of Ivy on the corkboard. At all the pictures. Then she turns to the right and looks at the other picture in the room. It hangs on the wall, the only photo in a frame.
Her husband.
Her late husband.
30
Ivy wasn’t mad. Not one bit.
Wes had a horrible time yesterday, given that he had to attend the funeral of his boss. No doubt Wes and the team went out drinking after work, and he probably stumbled into an Uber and passed out as soon as he got home. She was perfectly fine with the fact that he never called, even though he said he would.
Pas grave.
French for No big deal. She doesn’t know the phrase in Chinese.
They didn’t have plans last night, anyway.
And today is a new day. She arrives at work with a positive attitude and not an ounce of anger. Actual work takes up at least two hours, making the morning fly by. At about eleven o’clock, her phone lights up.
Not Wes.
It’s Heath. Still in Oregon, but finally responding to her messages trying to get hold of him.
Sorry for the delay, just picked up your messages. I’ll be back in town next week.
Thank God. For the first time in two months, good news from Heath.
When she was ten years old, Heath and his family moved into her neighborhood. His parents didn’t grow marijuana, but his father was an ex-cop who had changed sides, so to speak, because he and his wife started a security company for the farmers. They had moved to California from Kentucky and had funny accents, making Ivy giggle when she first heard Heath talk. He pulled her ponytail; she pinched his arm. They’ve been best friends ever since.
Heath’s southern accent is long gone now, and he is no longer the gangly kid she used to know. Instead of going away to college, he went to a nearby school and studied both architecture and environmental science, eventually moving closer to Ivy to search for work.
His message gives Ivy hope that today is going to be a good one, even though Wes still hasn’t contacted her.
They’re supposed to go out tonight for drinks after work, a plan they made days ago, so she has no problem contacting him first. Ivy waits until after lunch, because that’s a reasonable time to check in about the evening plans. Above all else, she wants to appear reasonable. Not pissed off. Because she isn’t.
After ten years, Ivy has learned a few things about texting Wes. If she wants a response, the best way is to act like they’re already in the middle of a conversation. Maybe because Wes doesn’t remember if they are or aren’t, so he thinks he missed something and usually responds.
Palmer’s sounds good to me. 6:30?
She sends the text, puts the phone facedown on her desk, and starts her next Chinese lesson. A few minutes later, she flips the phone so it’s faceup.
Late in the afternoon, the three dots appear. He’s typing.
A second later, the dots disappear.
By the time she heads home to change before going back out to meet him, Wes still hasn’t responded. He hasn’t contacted her at all.
* * *
—
6:28 P.M.
Wes is not dead.
He is not in the hospital, not lying on the side of the road somewhere. Ivy knows this because after work she drove by Siphon and saw his car in the parking lot. Forty-five minutes ago, he was still at work.
Now she sits in her own car in the parking lot of Palmer’s. Wes hasn’t arrived and his car isn’t in the lot, but she is willing to sit here and hedge her bets. Just in case.
6:29.
Ivy has been patient. Understanding. Willing to cut him slack because of Tanner and the funeral and how upset Wes has been about the whole situation. Fine. That’s why she is here, waiting to see if he does show instead of blowing up his phone with angry texts asking why he’s ignoring her.
6:30.
She’s the one who should be mad that he didn’t tell her about Karen’s visit the other day. He never mentioned it. Still hasn’t. He knows that was wrong.
Maybe he just doesn’t want to hear it. Wouldn’t be the first time he went out of his way to avoid hearing something he didn’t want to. The same way he refused to believe she took a job at a strip club. When she told him, he waved her off and turned back to the TV. The Warriors were playing that night.
So perhaps he’s just being a baby.
6:33.
Or maybe she has been wrong this whole time.
She had thought, had hoped, that they were trying to make this work. For real. Honest and open, and all the things that healthy, functional couples are supposed to be. She believed they were on the same page.
At least 99 percent of her did. She’d refused to acknowledge the other 1 percent, but now it’s like a buzzing fly she can’t kill.
Perhaps this has all been part of his game. Maybe he’s the one who is mad. If she hadn’t called the police, Karen never would’ve visited his office. Never would’ve asked about the stolen car.
The decision to go to the police had been impulsive. She can admit that. The night before, she had been out late, and it wasn’t a particularly good one. She woke up tired, slightly hungover, and the first thing she had done was check her phone. Wes had posted on IG, which in itself was a rarity. When he did post, it was always of scenery or nature, photos he took while hiking. An occasional photo of himself. But he never posted pics of other people—not friends or family or even Ivy. But on that day, he did.