Chapter 45
Ivory springs at me again, and the blade whistles past my cheek so close I feel the air shift.
My phone drops to the floor as I blindly scramble along the table, smacking my hand on the surface until it lands on the heavy ceramic serving bowl.
I raise it in front of me like a shield.
Thanks to my time in the slammer, I know how to handle a knife fight.
She slashes again, and I block her with the bowl.
The impact rings up my arms like I’ve just absorbed a lightning strike.
Rushing me with her full body weight, her extra inches of height give her the advantage over my extra belly weight as she easily overpowers me.
She rips the bowl from my grip and shatters it against the wall.
I’m empty-handed against her wild swings while the blade arcs back and forth in front of me, missing me by mere inches as I duck around the table.
Her eyes are wild, wet, burning with something that isn’t just anger.
It’s devotion. Obsession. But fighting is more exhausting than most realize.
Within a couple minutes Ivory’s arms are spent, and she pulls back, chest heaving.
I have barely a moment to dart past her while she catches her breath, but I succeed in reaching the other side of the dining room before she catches up.
I’m left with a choice between my phone or the corkscrew as my last resort.
Ivory’s rounding the table, leaving me with the corkscrew as my best defense.
Placing it between my index and middle finger, I aim the twisty point at my friend, wondering how we got to this point.
“Please stop!” I beg, and Ivory pauses just long enough for me to jab at her, forcing her a step back. “What is going on?”
We’re in a faceoff, but she has momentarily stopped swinging. “None of this was ever about Fred. You think this is about his affair?”
“If it’s not about Fred, then what’s it about?”
Ivory’s sucking in frantic breaths. “You have to promise not to tell the police.”
I shake my head. “It’s too late for that.”
I really should think before I speak. We both swing almost simultaneously, her knife slicing across my arm while my corkscrew grazes her chest. She reels back, hunched over, and I grab my fileted skin and cover it with the shredded sleeve of my shirt.
Our friendship vanishes in an instant, and we’ve become rival animals fighting for survival.
Taking only a moment to assess her wound, she comes at me again, charging after me as I dart into the kitchen.
I throw myself sideways as her knife stabs into the cupboard door behind me.
She yanks at it furiously, but the blade sticks.
I kick her shin hard enough to knock her off balance.
She stumbles, crashing into the center island.
The knife falls on the tile. I dive for it.
So does she. We collide, both of us scrambling for the handle.
Her nails rake across my wrist, but her hesitation gives me enough time to reach it first. My fingers close around the knife, and without looking, I stab it in her direction.
It sinks into her stomach, then I pull it out and fling it across the room. It skitters under a barstool.
Ivory’s breath breaks, but she chases after the knife, me clumsily trailing.
My body hasn’t had a workout like this in months, and I’m feeling every bleeding cut, every muscle shaking, my adrenaline fading.
Ivory collapses against the barstool leg, grabbing her bleeding abdomen with one hand and the knife with the other, sobbing so hard she quivers.
I crawl backward facing her, panting like my lungs are about to explode. We stare at each other, her holding out the knife, me holding out the corkscrew, but neither of us wanting to engage.
Every cell in my body vibrates with the urge to attack, but I don’t. My body is too fatigued, and it’s not about winning a battle. I just need to know the truth.
“You said it’s not about Fred. Then what’s it about? We’re best friends. What is going on?”
Her face twists with pain, and she clutches her stomach. “We weren’t supposed to be friends, Shar.”
How could she say this? From the moment we met, friendship was our destiny. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, Shar,” she sighs, “I knew Gillian way before I met you. We’ve been planning your downfall since before you arrived in Doomwood Falls.”
I slump against the cabinet as the gashes across my arms start to burn and my hit-and-run injuries catch up with me.
“Why?” is all I have the energy to ask.
“She knew about my cybersecurity and police work background. She hired me as a headhunter to seek you out, offer you a job when no one else would, and convince you to move here to Doomwood Falls with the intent to ruin your life. From the moment I reached out to you on that headhunter website, it was so I could play you. I even used an old police case as inspiration for my own abduction.”
No, this can’t be true. “So you did fake it.”
“Initially, yes.”
I can understand Gillian hating me, but I had never met Ivory before moving here. “What did I ever do to you that made you dead set on ruining my life?”
“You ruined my life first.”
My arm dips slightly. Ivory’s bleeding too much, and I’m worried it could be fatal. “I need to call 9-1-1 before you lose too much blood.”
“Wait!” She raises her hand with the knife to stop me. “Not until I tell you everything. In case I don’t get another chance. Please.”
I wave my corkscrew for her to hurry up. “You were about to tell me how I ruined your life. Though I didn’t even know you. And about Gillian… how did you know her before all this?”
“Ramsey Shenk.” The name shoves a pick in my eardrum. “Ram is dead because of you.”
The house tilts around me, or maybe I’m the one tilting. My sense of balance shifts drastically. “How do you know Ramsey?”
“He was my husband, Shari,” she says, lowering the blade slightly. It might be enough that I can grab it out of her hand. Or maybe kick it, if I had any aim left in me, which I don’t.
“Ramsey Shenk is the man who broke your heart?” Twice, I want to remind her, but I don’t for the sake of self-preservation. “That’s how you know Gillian—through Ramsey.”
“Yes, she stole him from me but you killed him.” She sobs, releasing the knife to clatter to the floor. “Gillian saw your brother Luca boarding Ram’s boat on the same day the boat sunk and Ram died. Gillian figured out that you had your brother kill Ramsey in an act of revenge.”
“That’s not—that’s not what happened,” Well, not exactly.
I hope she’ll listen to each breathless word I need to say.
“Ramsey lied about the embezzlement, and Gillian helped cover it up. Gillian is just as much of a liar as Ramsey is. Why do you think Gillian never told the police about Luca? Because it’s a lie! ”
I think she’s actually believing me, but then she launches into a whole new direction. “I was so angry with you when Gillian told me what you did to Ram, she begged for my help. That’s why she’s here.”
“That doesn’t explain why she seduced Fred. Or why she killed Janet Vick,” I remind her. “Gillian is here to cover up something worse.”
I swallow down the memory that invades me.
I recall every word of my last conversation with Stewart, on the night before he died, when he admitted he’d made a terrible mistake investigating Ramsey.
Stew sensed Ramsey caught wind that he was about to be exposed.
Hours later a supposed hunting accident took my husband’s life.
The next think I knew, evidence against me was planted and I found myself on trial.
“Ramsey killed my husband, but he needed to discredit me so no one would believe a word I said when I turned him over to the police. And he won. But I had evidence that proves what he did—the embezzlement, the murder, everything. And Gillian doesn’t want it leaked.
That’s why she’s here, and that’s why she’s using you to get to me. ”
“I know.” Pain rips through Ivory’s expression, distorting her features. “That’s why I came back.”
“Came back?” I echo.
“Gillian and I initially planned for me to disappear with the intent to frame you for my abduction, but then Freida found me. She was convinced I had it wrong about you, that you were a loyal friend. And she was right.”
“So why didn’t you tell all this to the police?”
Ivory’s head drops and her chin meets her collarbone. “Gillian threatened to frame me for Janet Vick’s murder if I came clean.”
“But you still told the police that Fred kidnapped you! He’s going to jail for a crime he didn’t commit.”
“The asshole should have thought twice before he cheated on me! I expect no less from Gillian—she stole Ram from me twice, after all. So it’s not a surprise that she would attempt to seduce my husband.
But Fred vowed never to betray me and he did it anyway.
I was furious, Shar. And hurt.” Her eyes flutter closed, and her breaths grow shallow.
“But this conversation isn’t about Fred. It’s about you and me.”
She goes still, and for a moment I wonder if she’s dead. I shuffle across the tile beside her, wrapping my arm around her. Her body is warm, her lungs rising and falling, but I don’t think she has much time left.
“I need to call for help.”
Grabbing my wrist, she shakes her head. “Not yet. I need you to know I’m sorry, Shar, for everything. If it’s any consolation, I love you like a sister. And I’ll tell the police the truth about everything. Even Fred’s innocence.”
Although I now know the truth, it brings me no comfort. Ram didn’t just destroy my life while he was alive. He’s still destroying it from beyond the grave. Piece by piece. Person by person. Friend by friend.
He turned my best friend against me and destroyed Ivory’s marriage. He created a murderer out of Gillian and a liar out of Ivory. And now that I know the truth, I have no idea what to do with it. I’ve been behind bars and I don’t want to do that to my best friend.
But that’s the least of my worries. The blood isn’t just seeping anymore, it’s pooling around her. A flashback of Stew’s mortal injury fills me with trauma all over again. This is far too similar. She needs emergency medical attention, like five minutes ago.
“Ivory…” I whisper, watching the bloodstain spreading across her shirt. “I’m calling 9-1-1.”
But she doesn’t move. I jerk up to my feet, squat beside her, and press my fingers to her neck.
I can’t feel a pulse or anything, but I don’t know if I’m even doing it right.
I grab the hand towel from off of the counter and press it to her abdomen, unsure if I’m even in the right spot.
There’s too much blood to see the wound.
My phone—I need to find my phone. I last remember having it in the dining room, and I search the floor until I spot it. The phone case slips in my palm, and the screen can’t detect my blood-covered fingers. I wipe my hands on my pants and try again, this time bringing my phone to life.
The 9-1-1 operator asks me what my emergency is, but when I return to the kitchen where Ivory had been laying at the foot of the barstool, the space is empty except for a bloody trail that smears across the floor toward my open back door.
The gate along the fence creaks closed, which is where I assume Ivory has already headed.
I run to the backyard screaming, “Ivory? Wait!”
She’s long gone. I sink to the cold hard patio, hand pressed to my heart. I’m alive, but I’m worried Ivory won’t make it through the night.