Karen has to be lying. Again.
64
Wes doesn’t bother getting out of bed early in the morning anymore. No alarm set, and he doesn’t budge when Ivy gets up. Not even if he is awake, which he has been, and he feels a little guilty about it. For the past five days, Wes hasn’t seen anyone but her. All day, every day, except when she’s at work.
It’s been a lot.
When he is alone, he tries to remind himself he is lucky to have her. No one from his family lives nearby, and his friends and colleagues are nowhere. She’s the only one by his side. And right now, it’s not a bad idea to keep her extra-close.
But he still waits to get up until after she’s gone. And he still thinks about the way she threw that pen across the room.
Today, he will finally get to see someone else. His lawyer. Bryce is coming to the house right after meeting with the assistant DA. Wes prepares for it like a real business meeting, making fresh coffee and putting out snacks, like they do at Siphon. He wears slacks, a dress shirt and tie, even shines his shoes. But he hesitates when it comes to shaving. The stubble looks better now, resembling something that was on purpose instead of the sparse two-or-three-day growth he had after the weekend. By the time the doorbell rings, he still hasn’t done it. Not so much a decision to grow a beard as a decision not to shave. Which is different than doing it because Ivy said beards are sexy.
Petty, he knows. But pettiness is about all he has left.
He straightens his tie and opens the front door. Bryce stands on his porch, looking like Santa Claus in an expensive suit.
“Good to see there aren’t any reporters out there,” he says, stepping inside. “You haven’t talked to any, have you?”
“Of course not.”
As they get settled in the living room, Wes thinks about the minutes ticking away, running up the next bill from Bryce. Almost worth it to see another human being.
“The meeting went about as well as can be expected,” Bryce says. “Jocelyn Hughes is an excellent prosecutor, though it doesn’t sound like they want a drawn-out trial for this. They’re going to push for a plea deal.”
“And that would mean?”
“Prison time. The only question is how much. They don’t want to give you probation for killing someone.”
Hearing his lawyer say that makes it feel more real. “Did she tell you what kind of evidence they have?”
“She told me a few things,” Bryce says. He pauses to take a legal pad out of his briefcase. “Right before the accident, you were seen at the Fine Line gentlemen’s club.”
Wes nodded. He expected that.
“There’s some evidence that you had a fight with Ivy in the parking lot of the club,” Bryce says.
“What evidence?”
“She didn’t give me details. From what I gathered, they’re going to allege that you and Ivy were arguing in the car, and that’s when the accident happened.”
Yes. Except they had switched places.
“As for the accident itself,” Bryce says, “they have pictures of all the cars that passed close by within that time frame.”
This is a surprise. After learning about Joey’s death, Wes had checked for cameras in the area. There weren’t any traffic cams that he could see, but who knows how many businesses had them.
“In addition,” Bryce says, “they brought in an expert on car crashes to analyze the damage and assess what kind of car could have caused it.”
“They can do that?”
“I haven’t seen the analysis. This is just what Jocelyn said.”
“Anything else?” Wes asks.
Bryce nods, flipping to another page in his notebook. “The 4Runner.”
“What about it?”
“Jocelyn claims they have evidence that can prove the car may not have been stolen.”
Wes works that sentence through his mind, turning it over a few times to make sure he understands what Bryce is saying. His first thought is someone from his old apartment building, someone claiming to see their damaged car after it supposedly disappeared. It seems incredibly unlikely that anyone would recall a thing like that from seven years ago.
Or maybe a camera caught Ivy driving the car when she was getting rid of it. Then again, who keeps footage for that long?
Wes covers his face with his hands, physically hiding from all that Bryce has told him. It sounds so much worse than he imagined.
“There’s more,” Bryce says.
Jesus Christ.
“Go ahead,” Wes says. His voice sounds muffled through his hands.
“Jocelyn said there’s a witness who heard you arguing with Ivy about the accident,” Bryce says.
Not possible. He and Ivy haven’t talked about that night in years, much less fought about it.
“You aren’t going to like this idea,” Bryce says, “but given the incident at the club just before it happened, there’s someone else who could’ve been behind the wheel.”
“Ivy.”
Wes knew this was coming. Of course Bryce wants to present an alternative, someone else who could have committed the crime. It’s the most obvious defense strategy—a couple of true-crime documentaries are enough to teach anyone that—but Wes didn’t expect it to come up this fast.
Also, it’s the truth.
“Let’s say, for example,” Wes says, “Ivy goes to the police and says she was the one driving the car. What happens?”
“Two possibilities. First, they don’t believe her, perhaps because they have some evidence to prove, or strongly suggest, that you were the driver.”
“And the second?”
“They do believe her. This case has gotten a lot of publicity, though. And if there’s one thing the police hate, it’s being embarrassed. You both would be charged for leaving the scene of the accident, and for covering it up. Most likely, she would be charged with vehicular homicide instead of you.”
Exactly what he thought. They would both end up in prison, but he would spend less time there.
65
Heath is in the far corner of the café, away from everyone else. Ivy waves and stops at the counter to grab a sandwich and a drink before joining him. It’s the first time she has left the office for lunch in weeks, but it had to be done. No more drinks after work for her. She goes straight back to Wes.
Heath is wearing casual clothes today—a rugby shirt and khaki shorts—and he hasn’t shaved. The stubble doesn’t look as good on him as it does on Wes. As she sits down, she almost asks if he’s growing a beard. She stops after seeing the look on his face.
He’s angry.
“Thanks for finally calling me back,” he says.
Ivy unwraps her lunch and twists the cap off her flavored water. Heath has been blowing up her phone with calls and texts since Wes was arrested. She hasn’t read half of them. “I’ve been a little busy,” she says.
“I imagine trying to save Wes takes up a lot of time.”
“He didn’t do this,” she says.
Heath takes a bite of his sandwich.
“Look,” Ivy says, “I know you hate Wes.”
“I never said I hated him.”
“This isn’t like we had a fight. This is something that could put him in prison for a long time. Maybe forever.” Her voice catches on that last word.