The Lie That Traps (Lies and Truths Book 1)

22. Gulliver

GULLIVER

With my cell pressed to my ear, I listen as Izzy’s number goes straight to voicemail for the twentieth time today. I’ve been calling and texting her constantly since she left my place on Saturday, but she’s ignoring me. I thought about going to her house, but I’d rather not risk having another argument with her in front of her toxic family.

But now it’s Monday again, and she’s still not turned her cell back on. To be honest, I’ve never even seen her with a phone, and I only know she has one because she gave Fitzy the number. The clothes he picked out for her are still at my house. He was going to have them delivered to her parents’ house, but I convinced him to have them sent back to mine in the hope that she’d contact him to ask about them, but she hasn’t.

When the Rhodeses’ town car pulls up outside the school, I push away from my car and stride toward it, watching as a driver I’ve never seen before climbs out of the driver’s seat and goes to open the rear door.

I immediately move to the other rear door and open it, expecting to see Izzy waiting for her sister to leave before she circles back like she’s done in the past, but the seat is empty. Closing the door, I look up and only find Penelope talking to her crowd of minions at the bottom of the steps.

“Where’s Izzy?” I ask, stomping over to Penelope and interrupting her conversation.

“I don’t know,” she says dismissively.

“What?”

Throwing me a poisonous glare, she turns her back on me and carries on her conversation, like I’m nothing but an annoying insect.

“Hey,” I snarl, reaching for her shoulder and spinning her around to look at me. “Where the fuck is Izzy? Her cell’s been turned off since Saturday.”

“Why would I know where she is? She’s your fiancée. Surely you should be keeping better track of her,” Penelope spits angrily before pulling out of my grip and striding away.

As I watch her go, nerves and unease fill my stomach. Penelope is a fucking bitch, but she’s not usually bitchy to me. I have a really bad feeling that something has happened, and guilt and fear are pushing me to find my fiancée and make sure she’s okay.

I scan the halls for Izzy until the bell for homeroom rings, then I ignore my own class and head to hers, hoping to find her hiding behind her waterfall of blonde hair, but her desk is empty. I’m not sure why I’m expecting to see her walking through the halls when I’ve spent three-and-a-half years at the same school as her and only seen her a couple of times. But the thing is, with Izzy, once you know who she is, it’s hard not to see her, not to search for her.

By the time lunch rolls around, I’m starting to get really fucking angry. She can’t just disappear; she’s my fucking fiancée now, and I want to see her, damn it. Stomping into the lunchroom, I make a beeline straight for Penelope, with Kip, Davis, and Thorn trailing behind me. I swear Kip is more upset than me about Izzy not being here, and if I wasn’t so angry at her for going AWOL and fucking radio silent, I’d have punched him for brooding over my fiancée.

“Penelope, we need a word,” I say through clenched teeth, my hands braced on the table beside her.

“I’m eating,” she says, not even bothering to turn her head and look at me while she stabs her fork into a tiny bowl of salad.

Leaning down, I get in her face. I’m so much angrier than the situation warrants, but I want to know where the fuck Izzy is, and Penelope is the only person who can tell me. “I don’t give a fuck what you’re doing. You’re going to come and talk to me for a fucking minute or I’m going to lose my fucking mind,” I growl.

Turning to glare at me, her face pales a little when she sees my expression. She silently pushes back her seat and gracefully rises until she’s standing next to me. Her face is so eerily similar, yet so different to Izzy’s.

Like the uppity Little Miss Goody Two Shoes she is, she leads the way out of the cafeteria, the sound of her heels clacking along the wooden floor lost amid the noise of the busy lunchroom. I follow behind her, with my friends matching pace at my side, until we’re halfway down the corridor and away from anyone who could overhear our conversation.

“Where is she hiding?” I snap the moment she stops and turns to look at me. “I know she’s like a fucking ghost at this school, but you must know where she’s hiding.”

Penelope’s lips purse into a straight line, and she places her hands on her hips. “Have you tried the library? There’s a private study room she uses. Although I honestly don’t know if she’s here at all.”

“Why wasn’t she in the car with you this morning? What the fuck is going on? I haven’t been able to get hold of her since she left my house on Saturday.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to speak to you,” Penelope says with a smirk playing at the corner of her lips.

Taking a step closer to her, I lean down until my face is only inches from hers. “What did you say to her? What bullshit did your parents come up with? Your dad already offered me the twin swap, and I turned him down flat. So, before I go and kick down the front door at your fucking house, where the hell is Izabella?”

Even as the words are pouring from my mouth, I don’t fully understand where all my anger and fear are coming from. I’m worried about her. I feel guilty, and I don’t like it, especially since she’s been avoiding my calls and texts, but she isn’t my real fiancée, and if she wants to go to ground for a few days, it’s really none of my business. But I can’t help feeling like this is more than her taking some time and avoiding me.

“I don’t know where she is,” Penelope sighs, but there’s an edge to her voice, an underlying panic maybe, and there’s a worry, or is it fear, in her eyes that I don’t understand.

“What happened on Saturday when she got back? She was worried about going home. She knew your parents were going to be upset,” I tell her, watching closely as she swallows visibly, avoiding meeting my eyes.

“Look, you need to speak to her about this. I’m not interested in your relationship drama,” she says, rolling her eyes and tapping her foot.

“Penelope, please, we’re worried about her,” Kip says from behind me, his voice pleading.

“Seriously, you too?” she cries, her head snapping toward Kip. “Fine, I have no idea where she is. My parents weren’t pleased about the engagement. There was an argument, and Izabella packed a case and left. I assumed she’d gone back to your house, but obviously not.”

“What?” I shout, loud enough to garner the attention of the few people that are milling in the hallway. “Where would she go?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Penelope says, flipping her hair dramatically as she moves to walk past me.

Reaching out, I grab her arm. “Are you fucking serious? She’s your twin, and you have no idea where she is, and you don’t fucking care?”

Her eyes go glassy, flashing with an emotion that I’ve never seen on her before. When she speaks, her voice breaks, and her words don’t match the tone of her voice. “Good riddance. I’m glad she’s gone.”

“Do your parents know where she is?”

Her eyes look down at my hand on her arm, and she whispers. “I really hope not.”

When she pulls herself free, I let her go, not stopping her as she walks away.

“I’m starting to freak the fuck out a little bit over here,” Davis says, voicing the thing I think we’re all feeling.

“That sounded bad, right?” Kip asks. “She said she hoped her parents didn’t know where Izzy was. I heard that right, didn’t I?”

“That’s what I heard too,” Davis confirms.

“Where would she go? Penelope said she packed a bag after she argued with their parents. Maybe she’s just gone to a friend’s house to cool off or something,” Kip suggests.

“She doesn’t have any friends,” I say absentmindedly as I pull my cell from my pocket and immediately dial her number. The voicemail kicks in, and on impulse, I dial another number, listening to it ring for a moment until a voice answers.

“Hewitt.”

“Hi, this is Gulliver Winslow. I have a job for you.”

It takes exactly forty-five minutes for my private investigator to track Izzy’s one and only credit card and discover that she used it to pay for a hotel on Saturday night. Twenty minutes after that, the four of us are all in Thorn’s Mercedes as he drives us to the Regent Howard Hotel.

I wanted to come alone, but the guys convinced me it was better for all of us to come in case we had some difficulties getting up to her room. When we pull up to the entrance, Thorn throws his keys to the valet and we pile out, striding quickly across the foyer.

Normally, I’d be more than capable of charming a hotel employee into giving us Izzy’s room number, but right now I’m too raw to do anything but snarl and demand, so it’s Davis who heads to the desk.

A few moments later, he strides confidently back over to us, and as a group, we all turn and head toward the elevator. Some days, like today, it’s fucking awesome to be rich. No one questions your right to be somewhere when you turn up in a car worth as much as most of the employees’ homes and dressed in the uniform for one of the country’s most exclusive schools.

When we’ve all boarded the elevator, Davis presses the button for the twenty-fifth floor. “She’s in room 2576, it’s just a basic room, not even a suite,” Davis informs us.

When we reach her floor, I lead the way to her door and knock. My skin crawls with anxiety as I wait impatiently for her to answer.

When the door swings open, it reveals Izzy in a sports bra and baggy sweatpants, her hair pulled up on top of her head. But right now, she could be naked, and I wouldn’t be looking at anything other than her face, because the stunningly beautiful blonde has two black eyes, bruising all over her face, a cut along her swollen cheek, and a split lip.

“What the fuck?” I snarl, shoving my foot into the door just as she goes to slam it in my face.