CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO #2
Not letting go, she allows me to sob all over her dove-white cashmere sweater, the angelic-white palette highlighting her espresso hair and dark eyes.
She’s stunning, as always, with her matching calf-length pencil skirt, high-heeled brown boots, and buttery-tan coat draped over her forearm.
“I’ve been worried sick, Ivy,” she trills.
“Going out of my mind. And I missed your birthday.”
Everyone did.
I lift my face from her shoulder, feeling so small in this moment. She’s three inches taller, and her boots provide another three or four. But it’s more. She’s whole, and I’m the picture of brokenness.
She glances between my mother and me. “So, I sweet-talked us a stroll around the grounds. Put your shoes and coat on, grab that coffee, and let’s get some air.”
My mother brought me clothes last week—items that were at my home with Wells, which has been screwing with my head, but I brush my bafflement over that tidbit aside and do as Celeste instructed.
After I chug the latte for a caffeine buzz and discard the cup, we mosey out to a walled-off garden, a winding stamped-concrete pathway snaking through the bare trees and empty flower beds. Winter and death surrounding us.
“Do you have your phone?” I ask when we’re shrouded by vast, desolate tree branches.
She snickers. “I was told not to give it to you. Not that I ever do what I’m told, but talk to me first.”
“Fine. Can you show the doctors and my mother our texts so I can get out of here?”
Her fingers curl around my bicep, tight enough that it pinches through my coat. “What texts?”
I turn, incredulous, eyelids fluttering. Why is everyone so exhausting? “The ones where I told you about Wells, our out-of-this-world sex, and you told me you were busy being fucked into a coma.”
She chuckles under her breath briefly, but then frowns. “That does sound like something I’d say, and I did indeed get fucked into another state of consciousness, but I never heard from you. Your mother texted me a few days after I left, telling me about the accident.”
My jaw drops, but before I can respond, she wraps an arm around my shoulders and continues, “I would’ve come back, but your mom said I shouldn’t since you were in a coma.”
“No.” My feet won’t move. I’m a statue of pain and anger and disbelief. “That’s not possible.”
She drags me to a bench, covertly pulling out her phone and showing me our text thread, which is blank after the morning she flew out.
But the thread with my mom isn’t. Updates.
Pictures. Every month since September, with the last photo sent on December 3 followed by an update a week later that I was finally awake.
The color drains from my face in a rush that makes me feel lightheaded, even as the icy wind slaps at my cheeks and nose. My whole body is trembling. The sky and pathway and brick walls tilt and quake, like the day I lost Liam. This can’t be happening. It wasn’t my imagination. It wasn’t.
Celeste twists toward me, her leather-gloved hands clutching mine. “Ivy, tell me everything. All signs seem to point toward a head injury, but I’m always in your corner. Ride or die, babe. Let’s untangle this together.”
I heave a deep breath, and my voice quivers as I recount the last three months, starting the moment she wheeled her suitcase toward airport security.
I cover the inheritance issue, meeting Wells and Ty, moving in, and marrying Wells in New Orleans.
Meeting Rena and getting roofied, falling in love and having earth-shattering sex, training and campfires and endearing moments with the guys.
Finding out who I was and the role I was expected to fill, and our ancestry test being the catalyst to it all.
Thanksgiving, meeting O’Reilly, and Liam—the kiss, the shooting, watching the life leave his eyes while he bled out in my arms. And finally, running, hearing Wells, waking up here, and fighting the doctor, nurse, and orderlies until they restrained and drugged me.
Her brows are pinched, jaw slack.
She’s speechless. Celeste is never speechless.
She pulls me against her for a hug. “That’s the most fucked-up story I’ve ever heard.
” Her heavy breaths crash like waves between us, breaking into a silent bafflement that I hope lands on the shore of belief.
“Okay,” she says, “there’s a lot to unpack there, but if we’re going to prove it, we need to get started. ”
I gasp, squeezing her tighter, shocked and grateful that there’s someone who will ride this out with me. “Thank you, Lettie.”
She pats at a tear rolling down her pink-tinged cheek. “Of course, but I’ll only help if I get the nitty-gritty details of the kinky sex you had, and you swear not to call me Lettie in front of other people.”
Finally, a smidgen of laughter rumbles from my chest. “Deal.” I clear my head, sifting through all the things we need to look into. “I’m not permitted internet access, so I need your help.”
She pulls up the Notes app on her phone. “I’ll start as soon as I leave. Give me the details.”
Listing off the names and some characteristics about each of my guys, our address, and some information on Rena—since, without my phone, I don’t have her number—I rack my brain for what else I could offer.
I’m not ready to dive into that information about Mercy and Dalton yet, so I store it away for later.
“That’s enough for tonight, and our time is almost up,” Celeste says, pocketing her phone. “In the meantime, you need to figure out how to get yourself out of here.”
“I’m trying. I know what I have to do, but my pride has been getting the best of me.” I lift my chin. “I have to tell them what they want to hear.”
She nods. “Yes, you do. This is a good window for that. Tell them I convinced you, so you can get out of here and investigate this with me.”
I’m not sure if she really believes me, but Celeste has always been my best friend, my champion—the one who wouldn’t let other kids poke fun at me for zoning out, the one who encouraged my painting, the one who didn’t judge, no matter how far we strayed on a viewpoint.
I appreciate the effort even if she isn’t convinced, but that gives me an idea.
On the stroll back, I stop abruptly. “When you come tomorrow, can you sneak me in a knife?”
“A knife? Ivy, I don’t … I don’t know,” she stammers.
“I’m not going to hurt myself or anyone else,” I promise, “but I think I can erase some of your doubts. Grab a chef’s knife out of your butcher block. Hide it inside the lining of your coat.”
“There’s a metal detector at the entrance,” she protests, swallowing, and for the briefest moment, she looks at me like she doesn’t know me.
But then she grits her teeth. “I know a guy in the kitchen here. I think I can maybe snag one from there. I do owe you a birthday present. This can be my Thelma & Louise contribution.”
Leave it to Celeste to know a guy anywhere we find ourselves.
“Fantastic, Lettie.” I throw my arms around her. “I knew I could count on you. Please find my husband.”
“On it,” she whispers, hugging me back.
In my morning therapy session, I laid the foundation for my belief that I’d been in a coma and Wells was only a dream. Apparently, that’s progress, but I still have some work to do—whatever the hell that means.
When Celeste struts in, I’m already dressed for our walk. Her face is tense, which has my stomach in knots.
Once we’re secluded, I turn to her. “What did you find?”
She purses her lips. “Not much. The men don’t exist, Ivy. I mean, people with those names exist, but not with the physical characteristics you offered or the age range and military background. I took screenshots of anyone with their names.”
She passes me her phone, and I scroll through the pictures. None of them are my guys.
“What the fuck?” I hiss as my mind races. “This doesn’t make any sense. What about the house?”
“Empty.” She huffs and hesitates, but my gaze stays planted, waiting for her whiskey-colored eyes to rise to mine. “Has been for a year. It’s for sale.”
A pang of terror stabs me in the chest. My hand presses against my sternum, trying to ease the horror threatening to stop my heart. Jesus, I do feel crazy. But I know it was real.
“Celeste,” I snarl, “how would I give you that address and be able to describe the house?”
Her lips quiver in a frown. “I don’t know. It’s weird, for sure, but that’s what I found.”
“And Rena?” I choke the question out, not sure I can handle anything else today.
“No one would let me talk to her. I explained who I was, that I knew you, but was refused the connection. I left several messages.”
I grunt and stroke my freezing forehead, sweat-soaked in spite of the frigid temperature. “ Fuck. Every day is worse than the one before. I’m spiraling here. There has to be an explanation. Maybe this is my trial?”
She tilts her head, and pity shadows her features. It’s like a punch in the gut. I’m losing her.
“Ivy, let’s say everything you remember is correct.
Your masked stranger from your eighteenth birthday party was lurking around, protecting and falling in love with you for all these years because some secret cabal wants you to inherit your birth father’s role, but you have to undergo a trial to prove your competence.
How does being committed to a psych ward while your husband and friends disappear from existence accomplish that? ”
My fingers fist into my hair. “I don’t know. I hear it and know it’s ridiculous, but it wasn’t my imagination. You have to believe me.” Tears drip down my chilled face like tiny icicles, chapping the tight skin.
I can still feel Wells. The way he held me and petted my hair.
The way his lips melted against mine, his tongue tangling with the perfect intensity to transport me to the land of euphoric bliss.
His raspy tenor wetting my ear. His wake-up calls and orders and infectious laugh that had to be earned.
The way he listened to my every desire and hope and fantasy, reading between the lines and writing them into our story.
His sugar and scotch that smelled like coming home.
And movies and games and cooking with Liam and Ty and Gage. Campfires and training. Giggling like kids. Secrets and dreams. Family.
Celeste sweeps my hair behind my shoulder, her tone softening.
“I believe one of two things: either you had extensive trauma and that beautiful brain of yours imagined a blockbuster-worthy plot, or that man you love royally fucked you over, using all his erasing skills to abandon you and let you rot in this mindfuck.”
Jesus, what if she’s right? But what would he gain from that? If nothing else, I was one hell of a payday.
It hurts to even entertain that, but they wouldn’t give up millions for nothing.
Although that makes more sense than someone killing them.
If they were dead, it wouldn’t account for the house that’s now empty and up for sale or the records showing it’s been that way for a year.
And no one would be lying to me. They’d tell me my husband perished.
It’s an endless fucking circle of nonsense.
“I don’t like either of those narratives,” I say, wiping my wet cheeks.
“I know.” She passes her phone back to me. “Look at the pictures of you again and the dates.”
She’s already resigned herself to the lies being spun, and I have no idea of how to combat them.
I swipe through the photos of me in the hospital bed. One from each month. “My face isn’t showing in the first three,” I mutter, half to myself. “Only my hair peeking out.”
Pulling up the last one, I dissect it, bit by bit. Dr. Barret is checking my chart. My face is visible in that one. It’s definitely me. My heart shoots up into my throat as I zoom in on the image.
“There.” I point at his stethoscope—or more specifically, the reflection in it.
“That’s my mom, and that man there is Wells.
That’s his suit and his belt. And that glint on his finger is his wedding ring.
I’m certain.” The reflection is distorted and only shows their midsections, but that’s my husband.
Celeste looks, doubt still veiling her face, brow crooked. “Anyone could—”
“Those are Armani suit pants and a Stefano Ricci leather belt—exactly what he wears. Who would be in my hospital room, talking to my mom, wearing that?”
Her mouth falls open to answer, but she says nothing.
My hope soars like a kite. “Did you bring the knife?”
She closes her eyes on a deep breath. “Yes.”
“Give it to me.”
She glances around, uncertain, but digs into her coat lining, sliding it to me.
I take the knife from her and hide myself from anyone inside, stepping behind the massive oak beside the bench.
To test the weight, I toss the knife into the air and catch it.
After the quick flip, Celeste’s eyes widen, but I don’t say anything.
I also need to test the balance point, so I spin it like I’m twirling a pencil, allowing it to stop on my index finger. Steady.
Confident enough to throw, I point out a leaf a little less than twenty feet away. “See that lonely brown leaf dangling in front of the tree trunk over there?”
She peers over at the leaf, eyes squinted with intrigue. “Yes?”
With her hesitant answer ringing in my ears, I launch the knife, shredding part of the crinkly brown leaf but pinning the rest to the trunk.
I can hear Ty whoop in my mind. “You slaughtered that, Freckles. ”
Celeste’s hand covers her mouth with a gasp, brown eyes startled into round orbs of shock. “What the hell was that?”
“Proof,” I quip as a small rush of victory courses through my veins.
“Yeah, okay.” She nods, breathless. “We have to get you out of here.”