Chapter 77
The man standing before her wasn’t the straight-edge TA that Ivy had hired. It wasn’t Tristan Coates. Tristan Neely, neither.
It was a bleary-eyed, red-faced psychopath. A broken human being. A man without a father. A father who, like Gene, had prioritized work over everything. And when he’d died, his work incomplete, Tristan had nothing to live for.
“You can make this stop, Ivy. Just tell me where the laptop is.”
“I don’t know.” Ivy took a deep, shuddering breath. Tears fell onto her lap. “I don’t know.”
They were in some sort of mansion. In the kitchen. Large bay windows behind Tristan, overlooking a series of bluffs. Sandy Hook? No, Highlands-Sea Bright. Yeah, that was it.
Ivy had no idea that Tristan had another place. Must have been Steve’s, purchased with earnings from his early crypto investments. Hadn’t shown up on any of the real estate documents that she’d spent hours combing through.
Tristan, knife still in hand, went to the table off to one side and picked up a laptop.
“This is my father’s half—where’s Gene’s?”
Ivy stared at the laptop. Couldn’t take her eyes off it. Thought of Abby, of the text she’d sent after their night out.
I couldn’t find it.
No shit. It wasn’t at his home. It was here. In this . . . place. Wherever the fuck this was.
And Tristan had it all along, just like she’d thought. Her father had entrusted her with his half, it made sense that Dr. Neely would entrust his only child with the other.
“Twenty-seven minutes . . . I know you were in that house for twenty-seven minutes. I know Eugene told you something before he hit his head. I know.”
Tristan was wrong about that. Both men had been unconscious when she’d arrived. Only one ever woke up, and he was never the same.
“I can’t believe you gave him up . . .” Tristan was all over the place. Manic. Obsessed. “You wanted to switch—you wanted door number three.” A tight laugh. “You were willing to sacrifice your own father for your bitch friend. You don’t deserve a father.”
“You don’t understand.” Ivy sobbed; her words were garbled.
“If my dad was still alive, everything would be different.”
Tristan set the laptop down and came forward with the knife. He bared his teeth.
“Steve would still be alive . . . if your father hadn’t killed him.”
“That’s not . . . that’s not what happened.”
“The fuck it isn’t.”
So sure of himself. So very wrong.
Tristan used the tip of the blade to lift Ivy’s chin.
“You know what? Ivy, if you won’t tell me where the laptop is, then you’re going to sit here and do the work yourself. You’re going to solve your father’s half of the equation.”
She couldn’t. She’d tried to solve Steve’s part, got nowhere. Even if Ivy had been smart enough, which she wasn’t, the idea of sitting here and accomplishing what had taken their fathers more than twenty years was ludicrous.
“I can’t.”
“You can.” The knife inched closer to her throat. “And you—” Tristan cocked his head as if he’d picked up a sound. He lowered his voice. “—will. Don’t fucking move.”
Ivy heard it now, too: a car. Approaching slowly.
Tristan put the bag back over her head.
“Don’t fucking move.”
1009 Ocean Boulevard. 1009 . . . a prime number.
Vaughn cut the lights and let the car coast. Spotted a vehicle in the driveway. Trunk open.
The house was incredible. Sprawling. Stunning. Overlooking a massive cliff.
Vaughn shut off the engine and watched the front windows. Shadows moved. He got out, gun clutched in his hand. Stayed low, hidden behind the car.
Ivy had to be alive in there; Tristan wouldn’t kill her.
Vaughn pictured the wall of photographs in Tristan’s locked pantry. The word “LAPTOP” in caps, circled multiple times. Ivy’s photo. She was in there.
Had to be.
Ivy didn’t need to see; all she had to do was remember.
In the same podcast featuring the girl who had mapped the car’s route while locked in the trunk, she’d also explained how she’d gotten out of zip ties.
Ivy bent over and untied her shoes. Looped the long lace from one of them through the zip ties, worked her wrists before pinching it again between thumb and forefinger.
She tied this to the lace of her other shoe.
Then she pushed her feet down while pulling her wrists upward.
She started slowly as Tristan mumbled to himself in disbelief.
Alternated pushing one foot down, then the next, all the while keeping her elbows bent, the tension high.
“Fucking cop . . .”
Ivy worked faster now, sawing her legs back and forth. The shoelace rubbing against the tie made a vrrp vrrp vrrp sound. The plastic snapped in less than a minute, and the pain in her wrists instantly subsided.
Ivy ripped the hood off and ran, but not toward the rear doors—toward the laptop.
Couldn’t leave it. Not after everything she’d been through.
Not after three years of searching. She grabbed it, looked for a place to hide it.
Settled on the oven. Opened it and shoved it inside.
The oven door closed loudly, alerting Tristan.
“Hey! Ivy, get back here!”