Chapter 30
IVY
It had been almost twenty-four hours since I left that cringe voicemail for Ian. Who left voicemails anymore? Chole’s mom, that’s who. I wished I could reach through my phone and take it back. With any luck, he wouldn’t even notice it or listen to it. Thank God I’d been cut off before I could utter any more embarrassing confessions. I’d claimed I wasn’t calling to offer excuses but then went right on to serve up the lamest excuse ever. I’d pulled the pity card. Poor me. If he had listened to the message, he’d probably seen right through it.
Always the optimist, I’d kept my hand curled around my phone in a death grip ever since—just in case. I hadn’t left the message to get him back, and I didn’t expect him to want me back, but a little ray of hope kept me checking my phone every five minutes.
“Can you just stop looking at your phone? It’s not gonna make time go any faster.”
Chloe misinterpreted my agitation.
I hadn’t told my bestie about Ian’s discovery. How had he found out, anyway? I didn’t contact Jack after that single, devastating text, and he never explained further. We both knew what those two little words meant.
Chloe didn’t need to know what was happening with Ian. She’d probably call him and launch into my defense. He’d think I put her up to it, and everything would be worse than it already was, although I don’t know how it could be any worse. I’d lost my man, and he thought I was a piece of shit scammer.
I put down my phone, wiped my hand on the seat of my jeans and grabbed a Diet Coke from the fridge. “I just hope Matt doesn’t call and cancel or get suspicious. It was hard enough to get him to agree to a meeting at his apartment tonight.”
When I called Matt to let him know I was in LA and needed to see him, he’d suggested meeting at a bar. I convinced him that I didn’t want to discuss this subject in public. Then he said he’d come to my place, and I had to assure him that Chloe and I were going to be in his neighborhood, anyway, and we’d drop by. Mentioning Chloe’s name had been the golden ticket.
Chloe pointed to my can. “You need chamomile tea to calm down, not caffeine.”
“I need to be alert and on my game. This is no time for serenity.”
“You wanna go through it one more time?”
She wrapped her black hair around one hand and tossed it over her shoulder, as I nodded my head.
She launched into the plan for the hundredth time. “We’ll take my car. I probably won’t be able to find a parking place in front of his building anyway, since this is West Hollywood we’re talking about, but even if I do, I’ll park down the street a bit. He won’t question that.”
I picked up the narrative. “We’ll go to his place, shoot some shit, and then you’ll mention to him that you bought a new car and ask him if he wants to see it.”
“Right. He’ll want to go, of course, because it’ll give him a chance to ogle my tits.”
She shimmied her shoulders.
“Ugh.”
I covered my ears. “Don’t wanna know.”
“While I’m showing him my...beamers, you’ll be visiting Bob Marley. Grab the flash drive, shove it in your pocket, and then when I bring Matt back, you can make up some BS about your plan. What are you going to say? You can’t drop the ball at that point because he might get suspicious.”
“I’ll tell him that I can get more money out of Ian. He’ll be so pumped at the thought of more cash, he won’t be thinking about anything else. Believe me.”
Chloe dusted her hands together. “We bounce out of there with the flash drive, you can destroy it and go back to the popstar with a clear conscience.”
I chewed my bottom lip. I’d have to explain to Chloe at some point that I wasn’t going back to the popstar. I could just say we broke up over the pressure of the new release. Ian would be touring soon, anyway. He’d forget all about me.
“Matt’s going to realize I took the flash drive.”
“So what?”
Chloe shrugged.
“I don’t want him to come around here, hassling you wh-when I go back to England.
“Don’t worry about me, babe. I can handle Matt, and if you don’t tell him he won’t have any proof we took it. I can pretend to be shocked.”
She crossed her hands over her chest and widened her baby blues. “You mean the flash drive is gone? Your little blackmail vehicle is no more? Guess the party’s over. The key tonight is to get him out of the apartment and leave you there. Have you thought of an excuse for staying?”
“I could come in limping, but I don’t want to add more lies to the story in case I forget to limp in front of him. I can just say, I don’t need to see your car, or I can get on the phone or use the bathroom at an opportune time.”
I couldn’t stand it anymore and picked up my phone. Nothing. “I’ll play it by ear.”
“Okay, I’m going to do some work before show time.”
She paused at the entrance to the hallway. “Have you heard from Ian lately?”
I almost dropped my phone. “Uh, no, why?”
“I texted him yesterday about Project BlueFin, and he didn’t get back to me. I think I squelched all that nonsense. I just wanted to give him an update.”
Chloe smacked the wall with her hand. “He did pay me already, though. I should switch my clientele from Fortune 500 companies to celebrities. The celebs pay a lot better.”
“I’m glad it worked out. He’s really busy with the release, but I can pass on the update.”
Once Chloe disappeared into her bedroom to work, I collapsed on the sofa. Ian had paid off Chloe to get us both out of his life. His actions couldn’t be any clearer. I expected it, but the knowledge only twisted the knife even more.
After staring at my phone, almost comatose, for thirty minutes, I shook myself into action and vacuumed the house, cleaned my bathroom, and went out to pick up groceries for dinner. I didn’t feel like eating anything, but Chloe could eat through an alien invasion.
She didn’t emerge from her room until I was well into cooking the pasta. She strolled into the kitchen, stretching. “I thought I smelled garlic cooking out here. You didn’t have to make anything. We could’ve gone out to eat in West Hollywood, made it worth our while to trek out there.”
“Getting that flash drive is going to make it worthwhile.”
I stirred the linguine in the pan with the tomatoes, basil, onion, and garlic. “It’s not a big deal. Nothing I cook is a big deal.”
She poked me in the back. “You’d better expand your repertoire. Englishmen do not live by spotted dick alone.”
She couldn’t get enough of that joke, but I didn’t feel like smiling.
“Oh relax.”
She massaged my shoulders. “This is going to work.”
It had to work. Once Matt knew Ian and I were no more, nothing would stop him from exposing me with that video.
***
A few hours later, with my stomach in knots and my hands clenched in my lap, Chloe circled Matt’s neighborhood. “Damn, I can’t even find a place to park on his block.”
I hit her arm. “There, there. That guy’s pulling out.”
She made an illegal U-turn in the middle of the street and put on her signal. “I’m nervous about parallel parking my baby. Can you guide me into the spot?”
Grabbing my purse, I exited the car and stood on the sidewalk, waving my hands in the air. Chloe had every electronic parking feature known to mankind on her car; she shouldn’t have needed my efforts. If she was as nervous as I was, we were fucked.
With her Beamer snug against the curb, Chloe jumped out of the car. “Let’s roll.”
My legs felt like the pasta I just cooked as we walked down the block to Matt’s old-style apartment building. We veered onto the property that sat flush with the sidewalk. Each unit of the complex opened onto a cement quad with planter boxes filled with dead foliage and a few towering palm trees in the corners. The quad smelled like weed and damp clothing.
We planted ourselves in front of unit number five, and I knocked on the screen door, rattling it and causing a cat to jump from a basket chair nearby and flick its orange tail.
Matt swung open the door, and the smell of cigarettes wafted through the mesh of the screen. “Hey, you. Welcome to my humble abode.”
He winked at Chloe, who was all smiles. “I plan to upgrade real soon, though. What’s the emergency?”
Damn. Too fast. I put my hand to my throat as if dying of thirst. “Can I get something to drink? And I never said emergency, did I?”
He narrowed his eyes so like my own. “You’re here, aren’t you? Across the pond.”
“I had to come home, anyway. Just thought I’d check in with you.”
I pounded my throat with my fist. “Can I please have something to drink? Water.”
As if we’d just crossed the Sahara Desert instead of the urban landscape of LA.
“Sure.”
He eyed Chloe up and down like a starving man checking out the buffet. “Something for you, Chloe?”
“You have some wine?”
She ran her tongue around her glossy lips. “Red, white, pink, doesn’t matter.”
My fingers dug into my thighs. She didn’t need to be drinking at this crucial moment. Flirting, yes. Drinking, no.
“I think I might have some white in the fridge. You’re lookin’ good. Still with that dickwad boyfriend of yours?”
“Nope. All broken up. White’s good.”
When Matt turned his back to walk into the kitchen, I sliced my finger across my throat. She lifted her shoulders and tipped her head toward the Bob Marley poster over a bookshelf crammed with old albums, CDs, DVDs, Xbox games, and a few books. Looked harder to reach than I had imagined.
When Matt returned with our drinks, I shifted my gaze from the poster and picked up a pamphlet from the sofa. My eyes bugged out when I saw the sleek Tesla on the front. “Don’t tell me...”
I thrust the pamphlet at him.
“Yep, all mine. Bought her last week.”
He handed me the glass of water with a smirk, and I had to grind my back teeth together to keep from smacking it off his face.
“How’d you manage that? You’ve gotten just 75 grand from me. That model costs more than 75K.”
Chloe sidled up next to me and drilled her knuckle in my back as she took her wine from Matt.
Matt cocked his head. “From you? It’s not your money, sis, and duh. You ever hear of car payments? I put a down payment on it.”
“You qualified for a car loan?”
I snorted, and Chloe drilled harder. “Did they actually do a credit check on you?”
“It’s not the best interest rate, but I gave them a hefty down...thanks to Ian Pope.”
The blood in my veins simmered, and I was two seconds from throwing my water in his face and throttling him.
Chloe took a big gulp of wine. “I got a new car, too, a BMW. Wanna see it?”
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Matt got a big grin on his face. “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine. Kinda like that?”
“Sure.”
Chloe set her glass on the cluttered end table. “Let’s go.”
Was that my cue? I dragged my phone from my purse and studied the picture of Scruffy on my home screen, my mouth twisted to the side. I tapped the screen as if entering a text message.
Matt brushed past me and opened the front door. Holding it ajar, he made a half turn. “You coming, Ivy?”
“Maybe in a minute. I have to answer this text from my editor. You guys go.”
Matt’s step faltered over the threshold of the door, and I held my breath, my eyes glued to Scruffy’s picture. Matt finally moved. “Alright. Hurry up, and don’t touch any of my shit.”
As he and Chloe stepped outside, they bumped into someone. Matt said, “Hey, Buzz. Whaddya need?”
“Nothing, man. Just dropped by to see if you wanted to have a beer.”
Buzz poked his head inside the apartment, his long hair swinging over his shoulders, and I lifted my hand in a wave.
Go away. Go away.
Matt gave Buzz a fist bump. “Hit me up in about a half hour. My sister and her friend are here, and we’re gonna look at my car.”
“Sweet ride.”
Buzz tucked his hair behind his ear. “I’ll come by later.”
Matt and Chloe turned to leave, but Buzz hovered in the doorway. I stretched my lips into a tight smile. “Yeah, nice to meet you.”
“You wanna have a beer with me while we wait for Matt and your friend?”
“No, thanks.”
I clutched the Tesla pamphlet to my chest as if it were an important document. “Actually, my brother and I have a little business to discuss. Like he said, we’ll be done in about thirty.”
“I gotcha, I gotcha.”
He held up his hands and backed away from the door.
As soon as the screen door slammed, I rushed to the poster. Reaching over the bookshelf, I felt along the bottom of the glossy paper with my fingertips. I lifted one corner, peeling the sticky putty away from the wall. I slid my hand behind the poster, running it along the plaster. No luck.
Standing on my tiptoes, I smoothed both of my hands across the slick paper from Bob’s elbows down to the bottom of the poster. I didn’t feel any lumps or bumps, and I couldn’t reach above his elbows.
I twisted around and spotted a kitchen chair pulled up to a round table. I tripped across the room and grabbed the chair by the back and dragged it to the bookshelf. I stood on top of it, and leaning forward, I reached for the poster again. I started at Bob’s elbows and ran my hands upward. My fingers tripped over a lump just under Bob’s chin—dead center in the middle of the poster.
I’d have to peel it back from the very top. My fingers crawled up the paper to the top edge, and I loosened one corner. If I could just get a little higher. I glanced down at the bookshelf. I put one foot on the top shelf, bracing my hand against Bob’s crotch.
The screen door banged open, and Matt yelled. “I knew it! I knew you were up to something.”
I jerked to the side, my hand grabbing at the flash drive beneath Bob’s throat through the paper. I curled my fingers around it and ripped. With the flash drive and a bunch of poster paper in my hand, I teetered backward.
Matt charged toward me and finished the job. He tackled my legs and took me down from the chair, falling on top of me. I formed a fist around the drive. He’d have to pry it from my cold, dead hand ‘cuz there was no way I was giving this up.
As he grabbed my wrist, the screen door bashed open again, and I screamed. “Come and get the flash drive, Chloe. I have it in my hand.”
Instead of Chloe’s voice, I heard the sweetest sound in the world and figured Matt must be choking the breath out of me, causing me to hallucinate.
That low voice with the English accent shouted, “Get off my girl.”