Chapter 2 #2
"I met Billy, though he preferred I call him Big Bear online, and I was telling him how sad I was about my mom dying, and he told me he lost his mom just a year ago and how he felt the same way. He said he was sixteen also, and his picture was really cute."
"Hell, Ivy, we all lost Mom, you, Marcus, and our dad."
"You're always busy working. All of you. It's like you've gotten on with your life and forgotten all about her. And about me."
"Everyone grieves in different ways," Kendra said.
"Did you lose your mom, too?" Ivy asked, snotty like.
Grayson was about to say something about her attitude, but Kendra said, "I did. I lost both of my parents. But I also had a twin sister who, at the age of sixteen, was killed by her kidnapper."
That shut Ivy up.
“And?” Rowland prompted Ivy to continue with her story.
"Big Bear asked me to meet him. He sent me the money to buy a bus ticket." Then she looked over at Kendra. "You shot my brother."
"I thought he was trying to kidnap you."
Ivy's facial expression changed as if she realized her own twin sister's kidnapping had been the reason.
But then she got snarky again. "Where were you when I was being kidnapped?
" Then she turned her attention to Rowland again.
“At first, Billy was supposed to pick me up at the bus station.
Then his father called and said his son's car had broken down, that he would come pick me up instead, and take me to his son's place, and that he would be late getting there.
He wanted me to walk to the location where my brother caught sight of me. "
"And you believed him," Grayson said. "He didn't want anyone to witness you being picked up at the bus station. Security cameras are located all over the place there."
"Yeah, I figured that out later," Ivy said. "We stopped at a grocery store because I hadn't eaten for so long. But he wouldn't come in, and he parked a long way from the entrance. I thought it was odd because there were so many parking spots up close to the store."
"And none of that seemed peculiar to you?" Grayson asked.
"He let me go into the store alone. I figured since he wasn't afraid I would run away that he was on the up and up."
"And he told you to get rid of your phone?" Grayson asked.
"He said someone could be tracking me because I was a runaway, and to leave my phone in the back of the pickup truck. You weren't following my phone, were you?"
Grayson raised a brow. "After you had run off two other times, you had better believe it."
Ivy sighed. "I'm glad you had been."
"So what finally clued you in that he wasn't a good guy?" Rowland asked.
"He stopped for gas, and I looked for his car registration, thinking I should at least know his name.
The registration listed Clem Rivera. He left his phone in the truck and went inside to pay for his gas.
He got a call on his phone, and whoever the caller was said, "Hey, Big Bear, did you get the girl yet? '
Grayson knew she was going to get herself into trouble this time.
Ivy ran her hand through her hair. "I was terrified. I didn’t even know if Billy existed at that point.
But before I could jump out of the truck, Big Bear, according to the phone caller, was at the truck’s door, got in, and drove off.
We were going slow at first, and I knew this was my only chance to get away safely.
I pulled open the door and jumped out, figuring there were enough people around that he wouldn't go after me. "
"The driver and his passenger, who had picked her up, took down his license plate number, but the vehicle had been stolen," Rowland said. "He wasn't a bear, right?"
"No. Human," Ivy said.
Rowland said, “Clem Rivera reported that his truck had been stolen half an hour earlier at the restaurant where he worked.”
"Great."
"We issued a BOLO, Be on the Lookout, for it. Other deputies went to chase the kidnapper down, but he abandoned the truck at the movie theater. He'll be on foot unless he steals another vehicle. Can you describe the man?" Rowland said.
"Black-haired, big nose, flat forehead, dark brown eyes, tanned, white, about six-three. He was heavyset, not as muscled as my brothers, and he smelled of a few too many beers. He looked like he was about forty."
"I'll have a sketch artist come by, and you can give her a description."
"Oh, and he had an accent that sounded like he was originally from Boston."
"I'm on it." Rowland hurried out of the room.
It wasn't too much longer after that that a woman came into the room and pulled a chair up to the bed. "Okay, I'm going to need a description for the sketch, Ivy, if you could give me as many details as you can remember."
Once she was done, Ivy turned to Grayson. "I don't think there was a sixteen-year-old son, do you?"
He wanted to ask her if she was crazy, but he said, “This ploy has been done tons of times. That’s why I was worried about you when you agreed to meet with some unknown man in Kalispell.
Even if he’d been a teen like you, he could have been bad news.
You don’t know who you’re going to run into.
We had a case where a guy murdered his girlfriend when he was fifteen. He had met her online.”