The more she thinks about that, the bigger the idea grows. Someone must have done this to him. He didn’t really cut off the monitor and go on the run without telling her. That makes more sense to her. And, in a strange way, it hurts a little less.
Until she realizes it isn’t true. A few of his things are missing. His backpack—the one he uses when they go hiking—is no longer on the hook in the closet. The prepaid phone she bought for him isn’t on the nightstand, and neither is the charger.
The bathroom throws her off, because his toothbrush and deodorant are still there. But once she looks closer, she realizes his travel kit is gone. She doesn’t mention any of this to the police.
“Ivy.”
Not Karen. Ivy turns to see a large man with white hair and a bushy beard. He introduces himself as Wes’s lawyer, Bryce Kendrick.
“I’m sorry we had to meet under these circumstances,” he says.
She pushes back the feeling of being overwhelmed. What she wants to do is scream. Instead, she nods her head.
“If you happen to know anything, please let us know,” he says. “The best thing for Wes is to come home now, before this goes any further.”
Ivy throws her hands up. Everybody expects she knows what the hell Wes is doing, but she doesn’t.
Karen stands right behind Bryce—always hovering, always there. “Our first priority is his safety,” she says. “If you know anything that can help, please tell us.”
Ivy wants to slap her. She wants to hit those lies right out of her mouth, before she has a chance to spit out another. As strong as that urge is, the knowledge that it would be a very, very bad choice is stronger.
“There’s nothing,” Ivy says. “I don’t know anything.”
She starts to walk past them and out of the house. They aren’t going to help. Not the police, not Bryce, not her own lawyer. And certainly not Karen. Wherever Wes is, or whatever he is up to, he had better contact her. She’s all he has.
“Ivy,” Karen says.
She sighs. What now.
“We need to get into your place,” Karen says. “To check inside.”
68
Karen watches Ivy leave, resisting the urge to reach out and give her a hug. The poor thing must feel completely overwhelmed. With fear, mostly. Fear of where Wes has gone. Fear that he’ll never show up again. Fear that he will show up again.
When Karen let her walk around Wes’s house, she was almost breaking protocol. Technically, it’s not a crime scene, because Wes ran. He wasn’t abducted; that’s clear even to a rookie. But typically, the police wouldn’t ask a significant other to walk through the way Karen did.
She had hoped Ivy would finally talk to her, tell her the truth about Wes. But Ivy’s not ready. Even after all he’s done, she is still hooked on him. Probably protecting him, too.
In truth, Karen would’ve done the same thing. For a long time.
With nothing left to do at Wes’s house, Karen heads out to her car. She pulls up the Check This app and tries to start a new to-do list, beginning with the most important thing: Get a warrant for Ivy’s phone, if possible. And her email.
As soon as she gets back to the station, Karen calls Jocelyn about both. Halfway through leaving a message, a call comes in from the cop who followed Ivy to her apartment.
“No sign of him,” he says. “Not inside or out.”
“She let you search her place?”
“Yes. Every single room. I even checked the closets. No indication the door or the locks have been tampered with or that anyone has been inside.”
“The toilet seat,” Karen says. “Did you check that?”
“It’s down.”
How disappointing. But even if Wes hasn’t contacted Ivy yet, he will.
“One more thing,” the cop says. “He has a new phone. A burner.”
“How do you—”
“Found the packaging in the trash outside his place.”
Karen sighs, wondering what else could go wrong today. Yes, it’s possible to get a tap on a prepaid, but first they would need the phone number.
* * *
—
Once the cop leaves her place and she’s alone, Ivy sits down. Her phone is blowing up again, with calls and texts from friends—including Heath—who have obviously heard about Wes. It must be on the news by now.
Her mind has been spinning since discovering Wes had gone AWOL.
She knows Wes. That’s the best place to start: with the knowledge she has. Ivy knows his faults, knows his weaknesses, knows exactly how to get under his skin when she wants to. For Wes to do this, he must have had a plan. A reason. Something he wants to accomplish beyond just escaping. He wouldn’t run just to run, at least not now, before the trial is even set to begin. There must be something he wants to do, because Wes always has a plan.
Unless he’s angry. That’s the one caveat. If he is mad, all bets are off and any plan can be ignored.
Which makes it even harder to know why he did this. He never said a word, didn’t leave her a sign of any kind. Infuriating.
And a little bit disturbing. Because it makes Ivy wonder if he didn’t say anything because he doesn’t plan to contact her at all.
Go?ule.
Enough.
That kind of thinking will only make it worse.
She has to focus on the case they have against him. The evidence. There must be more to it, something he didn’t mention. Wes’s lawyer isn’t going to tell her anything. He probably couldn’t even if he wanted to. Same with the ADA. The only other person she can think of is Karen.
Always back to Karen.
* * *
—
Karen isn’t the first mutual enemy Ivy and Wes have had. There was a neighbor who was like a drill sergeant when it came to the garbage cans. Also an apartment manager who liked to check up on his tenants a bit too often. And the girl at the grocery store who hated them for no reason.
Then there was the lunch guy. He was the worst.
Ivy had been working at Amalgamated Services for about a month. This was a couple years after graduation. She was a step or two beyond entry-level but still pretty low on the corporate chain, and she didn’t make enough money to buy lunch every day. She brought it from home and put it in the break room refrigerator.
Wes and Ivy were living together—for the second time—and one day, she came home from the grocery store with a bunch of packaged food. Energy bars, trail mix, and some candy. The only thing fresh was the fruit.
“What is happening here?” Wes asked.
“Someone’s been stealing my lunch at work. I bought food I can keep at my desk.”
“Stealing your lunch? Like, everything? Even the containers?”
“Sometimes,” she said. “Or they throw them in the trash.”
“What have you been eating?”
“Whatever I can get from the vending machine.”
She had reported it to HR, who put up a notice about not taking food that didn’t belong to you. But the theft of Ivy’s lunch continued, so she switched to the packaged food.
After a few days, she was grumpy. And hungry.
“I don’t know what else to do,” she said. “I can’t sit in the break room all day to watch.”
But Wes could.
They prearranged a day she would bring her lunch and put it in the break room. Leftovers from the night before, like she used to bring and heat up in the microwave. Ivy wrote her name on the side, as she always did, and left it in the refrigerator.