CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IVY
I ’m home from college for the weekend. It’s my senior year, six weeks before graduation, and my parents are hosting a couple for dinner. While they mingle in the formal living room, sipping cocktails, I’m studying in my father’s office.
He insisted that I minor in computers. Who knows why. He’s always trying to help me be well rounded and prepared. For what, I’m not sure. As an artist, I can’t see how computer language will aid me, but I’ve found I have a knack for it, and it makes him happy, so why not?
As I complete my assignment, the blathering continues to filter in. It’s nothing more than background noise, along with my music playing, so I lose myself in my work.
After years of my father’s information challenges, my brain instinctually knows when to tune in and out.
Sometimes, the information gets tucked away, popping up at random when something triggers it.
Other times, it draws me out of my daze and beckons my immediate assessment.
Tonight, my head is all over the place—the computer, the conversation, the song lyrics, and post-graduation plans.
Still, even in my chaotic brain haze, I’m aware.
My mother takes Mrs. Stetson on a tour of the terrace, pool, and pond. Spring is generally a beautiful time out there, but we’re still enduring April showers, so the entertainment area is a soggy mess. It’s common etiquette to share all the nooks and crannies though, so off they go.
I code a new site into existence and then hack it for fun.
The hacking isn’t part of the class, but the study partner I was assigned isn’t the most ethical student.
She was exactly who I would’ve picked to partner with, myself.
She teaches me silly little tricks when we get bored.
While I haven’t mastered the ins and outs, I enjoy the art of finding an alternate route.
The men light cigars, and my father breaks out his aged brandy.
Being a doctor, my father detests smoking, but he claims cigars are the exception because when smoked in a social situation, they’re a bonding tool.
That’s a man thing, for sure. Lettie and I have never needed a Cuban to dish.
She’d make a dick joke if I said that to her, hoping for a different kind of Cuban in her mouth.
Mr. Stetson’s voice lowers, which draws my attention, my subconscious adamant that I should soak in their conversation even though I’m thoroughly immersed in my computer jargon. “Monroe Montgomery was a mess at our meeting last week. It seems Dalton is in trouble again.”
“What sort of trouble this time?” my father drones. He has a way of playing the hardly interested role, which encourages people to entice him with what they know. He’s a man others long to impress and, in turn, spill to.
“Similar,” Mr. Stetson says. “You know the Holden girl disappeared about two and a half years ago after filing a domestic violence complaint against him. Montgomery never said so at the time, but I had a feeling he helped Dalton get rid of the girl. Her body, that is. He’s not a terrible man, but I think he’d sell his soul for his son.
Of course, that’s all speculation, but the events didn’t sit right. ”
My father grunts, irritation clear in his tone. “Not an easy thing to voice without proof.”
“Exactly, so I kept my mouth shut.” Mr. Stetson’s tenor is laced with a shaky nervousness.
“Nothing I could do at that point anyway. But last week, he mentioned the Phillips girl disappeared at Christmas—Mercy. She’s never filed an official report, but she’s been hospitalized with significant bruises and broken bones, and she gave birth to Dalton’s son six months before going missing. ”
“And the boy?” my father asks. I can hear his keen interest rising.
Mr. Stetson sighs. “Gone too. Montgomery was beside himself, muttering nonsense mostly, but said something about not being able to choose his son over his grandson. That this time was different and he wouldn’t find himself digging in the Dundee Caverns.”
Glass rattles. My father must be pouring a drink. He hums. “That sounds an awful lot like an admission, Walt.”
Regret and panic and fear huff out through a muffled groan. “None of us are sinless, but this—enabling abuse and murder of innocent girls and a baby—it’s against the code. The Holden girl was only nineteen. And Mercy … Christ, Tom, I went to college with her father. If she’s …”
“Don’t.” My father’s stern timbre wraps around his order for Mr. Stetson to leave it alone. “Let me look into it.”
The memory floods me like a drowning of sorts because my father had his stroke two days later, probably before he could uncover anything.
And mixed into those details are specks of La Lune Noire when I was reading in the Noire brothers’ penthouse suite with my AirPods on Transparency mode.
Axel and Ryker were anxious, questioning Wells and Ty about Dalton, Mercy, and the Holden girl who had gone missing.
More truth. More proof I’m not losing my fucking mind, which I know, but when people keep insisting I dreamed a reality while suffering from a head injury, it’s challenging not to fall into an abyss of doubt.
Am I crazy?
The answer is fuck no .
Not in the way they think. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t sense a subtle unraveling occurring deep inside me. Patience is a virtue though. That’s Etiquette 101.
People tend to believe the picture of rage is painted in tantrums and threats and violent outbursts. But sometimes, rage finds a home in silent calculation.
It’s been a week since I was sedated after identifying both the betrayal of my mother and the outright gaslighting of the staff here, which means I spent my twenty-third birthday caged, like a science experiment gone wrong.
I’m not sure what their angle is, but it’s obvious punching and biting my way out of here isn’t the answer.
I attempted to sign myself out a few days ago.
Physically, I feel fine—another sign my body hasn’t been bedridden for three months—but due to my unhinging and “necessary sedation,” I was evaluated, placed on a three-day psych hold, and admitted for insisting that I did not dream up my husband, his friends, and the last three months of my life. How fucked up is that?
My mother walks into the room, a latte in hand. She sets it on the table tray attached to my bed. “I came with a peace offering. Can we talk?”
“That depends.” My eyes remain firmly on the television. The sound is off, and I haven’t a clue what I’m watching—some sort of baking competition show. I’ve been quietly seething, devising my plan, but also trying to stuff some more recipes into my apron for Gage and the guys.
She lowers herself into the chair at my bedside, legs crossed at the ankles. “On what, Ivanna?” Her voice is far chipper than my current incarceration warrants.
“Do you have my wedding rings? May I have my phone or at least use yours? Are you prepared to admit that you’ve been in Europe for three months and cried on the phone when you heard how happy I was with my husband?”
She sighs, hands clasped in her lap. “I do not. You may not. I am not.”
A saccharine smile blooms across my face while syrup glazes my voice. “Then, take your fucking coffee and get the hell out.”
“Seriously, Ivanna.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “It’s like you’re a different person. You never spoke to me like this.”
My head whips toward her so fast that my neck cricks in protest. “And you never lied to me before, Mother .” I scoff at the use of her name.
“Actually, that’s not even true. You lied to me my whole life.
I don’t know why I’m surprised.” As angry as I am, I won’t strip her of her maternal title by shoving what we both know down her throat any further.
That isn’t the way I want to handle that discussion.
Her eyes brim with tears as she wrings her hands—a gesture reserved for utter desperation, like my father’s stroke—and a part of me shatters. I love my mom, but I won’t allow anyone to do this to me. Not even her.
She dabs at the corner of her eye with her ring finger, her lips quivering. “I know you don’t understand this, but I’m doing what’s best for you, Ivanna.”
There’s a confession in those words, along with a plea. My heart hammers with hope. “I don’t want to be at odds with you, Mom. What’s best for me is the truth and my husband and my freedom to leave this place.”
She huffs and shakes her head. “That was the only truth I can offer. It’s your job to secure your freedom. I can’t do that for you.”
I turn back to the television, more disappointed than I was when she walked in. She just admitted that lying to me is best—her truth. No clue what to do with that, and she’ll never admit that’s what she meant.
Seething resumed.
“The peace offering wasn’t the cup of coffee,” she says, her voice small, like a little girl’s.
Not interested in anything less than a full admission of her despicable, outright lies, I unmute the baking show in answer to her stupid fucking peace offering.
“Someone is here to see you,” she announces above the racket.
I click the power button and twist in my bed, breath caught in my lungs. “Wells?”
Her eyes close, and she swallows. So not Wells.
She rises from her chair and clacks her heels the few yards to the door. “Come in, dear.”
Celeste struts in with a bright smile and her arms open wide. “Hey, bestie!”
Jumping out of bed, I thrust myself into her embrace, knowing she’ll help me navigate this. Celeste will talk some sense into them. I have no words though. The first tears since the day they sedated me flow. I’ve been stifling the anguish, but Celeste is always safe. “God, I missed you, Lettie.”