Chapter 26 #4
Ivy’s stomach lurched, even though, on some level, she’d known exactly where Justin was going.
She’d known when Kieran Kavanaugh had ridden away on his bike, and Justin had stared after him with a fierce, protective expression on his face, that this was coming.
But she wasn’t about to let Justin confront his childhood bully alone.
Not when he’d frozen at the sight of Kieran’s face.
Not when the last time he’d been reminded of how Kyle had treated him, he’d gotten into a fistfight.
“What are you going to do?” she asked warily.
“That kid wants to take ballet lessons, and I’m going to make sure his piece of shit father can’t stop him,” Justin all but growled.
It sounded like a fistfight was not entirely out of the question.
“Wait a second,” she said, skirting the line between walking and jogging to keep up with him. He didn’t stop walking. “Justin, wait!”
He just kept going, and Ivy had a sudden flashback to one of their first days working together, when they weren’t working together at all, when she was following him around ANB doing everything she could to get answers and information out of him.
She sped her feet up and skittered around him, placing her body in front of his and holding her hands out so he couldn’t step around her.
She knew full well that if he wanted to, he could lift her off her feet and move her body out of his way, and make it look graceful.
Thankfully, he didn’t. Instead, he stopped abruptly, putting his hands on her waist to steady himself.
“What are you going to do?” she repeated.
He cast his eyes around over her head, and she watched them sweep across the street, looking at everything but her.
“Hey,” she said, putting her hands over hers and holding them against her. “Take a breath. We’re not going in there without a plan.”
He looked at her then, his cheeks flushed again, and his eyes met hers. “We?”
“Yes, we. I’m going with you. And we’re not going in there without a plan—and punching him is not a plan.”
“I don’t want to punch him, I just—” he objected, but at the look on her face, he didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “Fine. I want to punch him. I’ve wanted to punch him for two decades, and frankly he deserves a lot worse than that.”
“What he deserves is nothing. Not your time, not your energy, not some stupid impulsive decision that’s only going to endanger your career. Again.”
Justin blew out a breath, looking unconvinced.
“What you deserve is to move on. To make a beautiful life for yourself that doesn’t include him because you’ve healed from what happened, and you can come home and see your family and Miss Mary and not give him any more time or energy or power than he deserves.
Which is none. So you are not going to punch him and I am not letting you take another step down this street until we have a plan. Okay?”
Justin looked down at her, eyes blazing, and she held his gaze. She wasn’t going to let him do something he’d regret. She was going to go with him and made sure he got what he deserved.
She slipped her fingers between his and squeezed tight, holding their hands together and against her body. “Okay?” she repeated.
“Okay,” he conceded. “Let’s make a plan.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to make sure he doesn’t ruin that kid’s life like he ruined mine.
I want to make him apologize for what he did to me.
I want to make sure everyone knows what he did so that he has to leave town and can’t ever come home again.
” He was breathing hard again. “You should threaten to expose him if he doesn’t let the kid do it. ”
“What?” Ivy asked, confused. “Journalism’s not for punishing your enemies. And even if there were an exposé to be written here, it wouldn’t be ethical for me to write it. Not when I’m… not when we’re together.”
“Fine then, just pretend you’re going to write it. Make him think you’re going to.”
“Justin, I know you don’t have the highest opinion of journalism, and I know that’s partly because of me, but no. I’m not going to lie about that. You’re basically saying we should blackmail him.”
He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped. “Oh.”
“Yes, oh,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said quietly. “What do you think we should do?”
Ivy looked at him for a moment, thinking hard. “Here are some things that are technically true,” she said carefully, after a long moment. “You could write a book. In fact, you could even technically say that you are interested in writing a book. Right?”
“Right,” he said, stretching the word as if he didn’t quite know where she was going but he thought it might be good.
“And as your friend, and a former journalist, I would want that book to be as accurate as possible. Dates, places, descriptions. Right?”
“Right,” he said, with a slow nod. “That is all technically true.”
“And even if you didn’t name names, anyone in Hillstone who read it would know exactly who you were talking about. It’s a small town. Right?”
“Right.”
Ivy let out a long breath, not entirely sure she was doing the right thing, but confident at least that she had stopped Justin from doing the wrong thing. “Alright then. Let’s go.”
Fifteen minutes later, Ivy pushed her glasses up her nose, knowing that they’d slide down her sweat-slick nose in just a few seconds.
As she looked up at the sign for Kavanaugh Conveyancing, Pty.
Ltd, they did just that. Sighing, she let them sit low on her nose as she took in the sign.
Under the thick layer of soot and ash that lay over the sign and the front window beneath it, the big black block letters looked sinister and foreboding.
She looked at Justin. “Ready?”
He nodded, jaw clenched, but said nothing. Good enough.
Ivy stepped forward and pulled the front door open, and they were greeted by a gust of slightly cooler air that smelled faintly of smoke.
They stepped inside and found themselves in a small reception room that was empty but for the high front desk, behind which hung another Kavanaugh Conveyancing sign.
Ivy presumed that the room had once contained furniture, and that art had once hung on the walls, but today there was nothing.
There was no indication that the building had burned, but the scent of smoke seemed to rise up from the carpet, and if she had to guess, the furniture had been taken away to be cleaned or replaced entirely.
She and Justin stood a meter inside the door, saying nothing.
There was no one behind the desk, but Ivy could hear rustling sounds of movement from some other room behind the open door to its right.
After another moment of waiting, Ivy spotted the bell on the far end of the desk.
She raised her eyebrows at Justin in question, and he shrugged in assent.
Ivy stepped forward and tapped the top of the bell with her fingers in one crisp, decisive movement, and the answering ding seemed to bounce around the almost empty room.
“Be right with you,” a man’s voice called from somewhere beyond the door.
Ivy felt Justin bristle, and she turned to look at him. She gave him a small conspiratorial nod, and after a beat he returned it. He was not alone in this, and he knew it.
“Sorry about that,” came a friendly voice, “it’s a shambles back there, and I’m up to my ears in boxes.
” A tall, broad-shouldered man who could only be Kyle Kavanaugh appeared in the door frame, wearing a warm but sheepish smile.
He looked like Kieran in almost every conceivable way but for his slightly shorter hair, and Ivy understood now why Justin had reacted the way he did to the sight of the boy.
Kieran must look now exactly like his father back when he’d bullied Justin.
“Are Kyle Kavanaugh?” Ivy asked, even though she knew exactly who he was. And she knew exactly what he’d done to the man she loved.
“Yeah, that’s me, how can I—” Kavanaugh stopped talking when his eyes moved from Ivy to Justin. Ivy watched as the friendly smile slid from his face. She planted her feet, ready to play along with the warning Justin was going to deliver to his childhood tormentor.
She was about to inform Kavanaugh—pointedly, ominously—that she and Justin needed to have a word with him, when he hurried forward, wiping his hands hastily on his T-shirt.
“Winters, mate, I heard you were back in town,” Kavanaugh said, approaching.
Ivy felt Justin take a step back, and instinctively, took one forward, then immediately thought better of it.
Perhaps this whole plan had been a bad idea.
She’d thought it best to speak with Kavanaugh in private, but now it occurred to her that if he physically threatened Justin, there would be no one but her to witness it, let alone stop it.
“Justin and I would like a word with you, Mr. Kavanaugh,” she managed to croak out, sounding about as brave as she felt. Her palms were sweating at her sides.
“I was planning to come find you,” Kavanaugh said to Justin, then he gestured vaguely behind him at the door he’d emerged from. “But I got caught up trying to get things organized and cleaned out back there.”
Ivy looked at Justin, whose shoulders were square and set, like he had steeled himself for a fight that might be coming. “You were going to come find me, were you?” he asked darkly.
“Yeah, I wanted to thank you,” Kavanaugh said, almost eagerly.
In the long silence that followed, Ivy and Justin turned to look at each other, and she could see on his face that he, too, was wondering if he’d misheard Kavanaugh. He wanted to thank Justin? And had he just called Justin “mate”?
She turned back to Kavanaugh, and found him looking at Justin, his hand extended as Justin stood there, stiff with surprise, a strange echo of Justin’s own aborted handshake with Kieran not even an hour ago.
“What?” Justin blurted.