Chapter 46
A car door slams just as I finish washing the blood—Ivory’s, mine, who knows—off my hands. My arms vehemently shake. My breath feels stuck in my lungs. I’m trying to scrub away the appearance of someone who just stabbed her best friend.
The front door opens, and I’m standing at the kitchen sink when Luca enters, smiling cheerfully with Freida’s hand in his. “Hey, we picked up dessert! And Freida stopped by her house to grab some clothes. She’s going to spend the ni—”
His smile vanishes when he sees my face, then he lowers the grocery bag when his gaze flicks over my shirt.
Freida steps in behind him carrying a stuffed bookbag, her eyes widening the instant they pass over my torn sleeve, then behind me at the kitchen floor that resembles a butcher shop.
I pivot around to see what devastation I left in the wake of battle—the shattered bowl, blood everywhere, the corkscrew on the floor…
but no knife. Ivory must have taken it with her.
“Where’s my mom?”
I swallow hard as I glance down at my clothes. “She took off.”
Freida’s face breaks as her eyes skim over my bloody shirt. “What do you mean she took off? Where did she go? Is she okay?”
“I don’t know.” I’m trying to sound soothing, but it’s coming out shrill because I’m panicking on the inside and don’t know what to do. “She’s hurt and needs urgent medical attention. But she ran off and I don’t know where she went.”
“Why didn’t you call the cops?” Freida shrieks.
“She told me not to.” It sounds lame coming out of my mouth, but it’s all I can offer.
Dropping her bookbag at her feet, Freida turns to the door—probably to go in search of her mom—and I rest my hand on her shoulder. I need to warn her so she doesn’t make things worse for Ivory.
“What your mom told me is bad, Freida. Really bad. Your mom would go to jail for it. That’s why she ran off, and I don’t know what to do to help her.”
Freida’s lip trembles. She glances up at Luca for reassurance, but he’s staring at me like I’m about to detonate.
“What exactly did she do?” he asks.
Freida suddenly blurts, “I already know that she faked her kidnapping and lied about my dad. She was helping the crazy rich lady—Gillian—who killed that private investigator. I saw my mom meeting with her right before she ‘disappeared.’” Freida air quotes the word with both index and middle fingers.
“Initially Mom went to a beach resort, which is where I found her.”
So Ivory was at the resort where Detective Yankovic had pinged her phone and where she had texted me from. At least that part of her story is true.
Luca’s head snaps toward Freida. “You knew where your mom was the whole time?”
“Yes, and I’m sorry I lied.” She hangs her head, swiping at tears that dribble down her chin. “I had no other choice…”
“It’s okay, honey. You were trying to protect your mom.” I shake my head, a mixture of frustration and despair for this young girl put in an impossible situation.
“No, it’s not okay!” Luca spits. “You let the police and the whole town—and my sister, her best friend—think she was abducted and hurt… or that she was dead!”
I still don’t understand how Ivory could have pretended it all. The scars on her wrists, the bruises on her face, they were real. I can’t imagine her inflicting those on herself in a make-believe abduction. But I can envision Gillian helping with that…
“I didn’t know what to do,” Freida pleads with me, the only one left on her mom’s side. “Gillian was after you. She even got her son in on it—that Marshall guy. He paid Wren to hit you with Gillian’s car! That’s how psychotic that lady is.”
Luca turns to me. “Wait, are you saying Ivory didn’t just ‘find’ you? She—”
“Lured me to Doomwood Falls,” I finish the sentence for him. “Gillian sought Ivory out after I got out of jail because she blamed me for Ramsey’s death. Apparently Ivory was married to Ramsey before Gillian met him—”
“Stole him,” Freida corrects me. “Gillian stole him from my mom. It really messed her up for years, even after she married my dad. But I guess I should thank Gillian for that, because otherwise I never would have been born.”
Luca wanders into the kitchen, picking up the bloody corkscrew and tossing it in the sink. “So now what do we do? Do we call the cops to sort it out?”
“I think we have to. She’ll bleed to death if we don’t find her.”
“But she’ll go to jail!” Freida wails. “They’ll save her life then throw her in jail for helping Gillian murder that private investigator. And probably for faking her abduction too. My mom would rather die than go to jail.”
“I don’t think that’s true, Freida.” I’ve been to jail, and while it wasn’t a picnic, I came out of it maybe not wiser but definitely stronger.
The poor girl’s lips are a pale blue and she’s shivering. A maternal instinct I didn’t know I have kicks in. “How about I make you some hot tea and I’ll go search for your mom? You look like you’re freezing.”
She nods weakly and reaches for her bookbag. I do a double-take at what she pulls out.
“Where did you get that?” I demand.