That was it. His whole plan. Get out, get his money, figure out how to set himself up with a new life.
And then contact Ivy.
Of all the things he has to worry about, she is one of the biggest. Not because he really thinks Ivy will turn against him. He’s had doubts, especially over the past few days. But when push comes to shove and everything gets real—which it is, very much so—Ivy has his back.
What she doesn’t have is patience.
The decision to run came down to one thing: when. He had no doubt Ivy was going to confess at some point. Today, tomorrow, at his trial. It was inevitable. As much as she tries, Ivy can only control herself for so long.
Now that he’s on the run, her confession would be useless. No one would believe it.
70
The escalation of Wes’s plan came yesterday morning, when Bryce called with some additional news.
“My assistant knows a clerk in the DA’s office,” he said. “I have more information about that witness, though it sounds like rumors, so take it with a grain of salt.”
What Bryce had told him led to Wes sitting in this house.
He shouldn’t be. Wes should be out on the hiking trail, avoiding detection until it’s time to meet up with his rideshare, but he couldn’t let this go. This isn’t some random stranger. This is personal.
Darkness falls, which makes him tense up again. He watches the street and the driveway, not moving at all. Can’t risk a trip to the bathroom now. He stays in the same place until he sees the headlights.
Wes gets up and goes into the family room, where he takes off his shoes and flattens himself against the wall. Behind him is the entryway. He listens to the front door open and close. The clink of keys as they hit the side table. No voices, which is the luckiest break he’s had yet. He had been worried about guests.
Footsteps on the hardwood floor get louder as they move down the hall, toward him, and then they get softer.
The bedroom.
Perfect. No way out of that room without breaking the window.
He tiptoes down the hall, avoiding that one spot where the floor creaks. He had plenty of time today to discover anything that could give him away. Wes peeks around the corner, into the bedroom. The bathroom door is closed.
Wes moves over to the nightstand and picks up the cell phone. No landline in the house—he already checked.
He waits, standing in front of the doorway. A baseball bat leans against the doorframe next to him. He found it under the bed, hours ago, when he searched the whole place for weapons, and took it so it couldn’t be used against him.
When Wes initially heard about the witness, his first instinct told him it was Heath. The obvious choice. Heath had never liked him, and he would definitely lie to put Wes in prison and away from Ivy. For years, it’s pissed him off that Ivy can’t see how toxic Heath is.
But the call from Bryce changed everything. The rumor, according to his assistant, was that they’d been overheard arguing about the accident, with Ivy blaming Wes for everything. And it all happened at Siphon, Inc.
Not Heath.
When she opens the bathroom door and sees him, she freezes. Not for long, though. And there’s no surprise on that beautiful face.
They stare at each, neither one moving, until he speaks.
“Abigail.”
* * *
—
Karen sits in yet another meeting with all of her superiors, along with the public information officer, Sierra. She’s about thirty, a perpetually camera-ready woman that the reporters and viewers love. But she’s tired of this.
“The police are still being blamed,” Sierra says. “No matter how many times I say we have nothing to do with setting bail, or how easy it is to cut off that monitor, they’re still blaming us.”
Captain William Doyle isn’t happy with the coverage, either. “I’ve spoken to the DA about issuing a statement.”
No one says anything, because no one believes the DA will ever issue a statement, much less make a comment. Why take the heat if you don’t have to?
Doyle turns to Karen. Her sergeant wasn’t the only one upset about the interview she gave to one of the local stations. Doyle had been, as well. Cart before the horse, he had said. Karen hadn’t felt bad about making her sergeant angry, but she did feel bad about letting Doyle down.
“Are we any closer to finding Wes?” he asks.
No. Not at all. “We have leads coming in from the tip line, and we’re still chasing them down. But the reward has brought in a lot of false leads, as well.”
The money was a surprise to all of them. A local women’s activist group is offering a $10,000 reward for anyone who provides information that leads to finding Wes Harmon. No one is happy about it. Money brings out the true-crimers, the opportunists, and the psychos. Rewards tend to clog up the tip line with nonsense.
“Where are we with the girlfriend?” Doyle asks.
Karen chooses her words carefully. “I’m working on her. If Wes contacts anyone, it will be her.”
“Didn’t they plan to get married last weekend?”
“They did. The DA is working on getting her phone records. Hopefully, it will—”
“He isn’t going to call her,” Doyle says. “He can’t be that stupid.”
Probably not, but they have to go through the motions. Without stupid criminals, their arrest rate would be a lot lower.
“If he calls her, it’ll probably be at work,” Karen says. “There’s no way for us to get access to those records quickly. But if I had to guess, he’ll find another way. Maybe show up in person.”
“Or maybe they have prepaid phones,” Doyle says.
“We know he does. No confirmation about Ivy.”
Doyle flips through the pages in front of them. Wes’s case file. Karen has been through it hundreds of times. “What about his friends?” he asks.
“Most were colleagues. No one at Siphon is allowed to speak to us. The company directs everyone to their in-house counsel. He claims Wes hasn’t contacted anyone there.”
“Of course he does.”
“What about other women?” the sergeant says. Back in his prime, he was a good-looking man. Now, not so much. But at one point, he probably had a lot of women. “Was Wes seeing anyone on the side?”
Karen isn’t ready to give a direct answer to that, in case it doesn’t pan out. But maybe. “I have one lead on that to track down,” she says. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
71
Abigail steps out of the bathroom. She wears yoga pants, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and her gym bag sits on the bed. It’s the only thing between her and Wes. The irony doesn’t escape him. Any other time, it might be funny.
“I tried calling you yesterday,” he says. “A few times.”
She reaches up and casually adjusts her ponytail. “That’s weird. I didn’t get any calls from you.”
“They weren’t from my number.”
She waves her hand through the air, her long nails slicing through it. “Then how would I have known?”
“You knew.”
She takes another step forward, and her eyes flick toward the door he’s blocking. Her head turns a fraction of an inch as she looks toward the window.
“Not an option,” he says. “You can’t break it fast enough.”