Chapter 83
Sarah Kachinski met Ivy in the doorway. No hands on hips this time, no dour expression. The woman was actually smiling. This was so unusual that Ivy found it slightly alarming.
“How is he?” she asked.
“He’s good—fine. Adjusting well to the new surroundings.”
Ivy waited.
But he ran away again? He’s missing?
She held her tongue.
“Great. How about you?”
“I’m fine, too. Much easier looking after one person than a whole building’s worth.” Kachinski suddenly grew uncomfortable. “About my salary—”
“It won’t be a problem.”
“You sure? Because it’s—”
Ivy smiled weakly.
“I’m sure. I just got promoted.”
“Congratulations, Dr. Reeves. And, again, if the salary becomes—”
“Please, Sarah. It’s fine.”
The woman’s smile returned.
“You want me to stick around? Help put him to bed?”
“No, I’ll be okay. Have a friend coming over later.”
“I’ll see you in the morning then.”
“You know what? Take the morning off. Come in around noon.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, you deserve a little break. These past few days . . .” Ivy trailed off.
Sarah’s smile became strained.
“Thank you.”
Ivy watched Sarah get into her car and drive away.
She entered her home. Found the man in the mask seated at the kitchen table. The small chess table was in front of him. He was clutching the rook in his right hand.
Ivy walked over and gently unfurled his mangled fingers. Set the chess piece down.
“Come on, let’s get you ready for bed.”
It took a good half hour to get the man’s teeth brushed and into bed. Sarah had already helped him into his pajamas.
The last thing Ivy did was carefully removed his mask and set it on the nightstand.
“You’re not going to need this anymore.”
Ivy kissed him on the forehead, said goodnight, and went back downstairs.
Grabbed two beers out of the fridge, opened one, set the other on the table beside the chess board.
Sat and sipped.
Despite what Vaughn Ryan had surprised her with tonight, and the subsequent tears and raw emotions, things had been easier for Ivy over the past few days. It was hard to believe that after three years, it was over.
There was a knock at the door.
It opened.
“Hey, bitch! I’m home!”
“Hey, Abs.”
Ivy didn’t get up.
Her feet hurt. Back, too. Wrists were still a little red, even though it had been a week since Tristan had bound her and thrown her in the trunk.
In time, these, too, would fade.
Abby was wearing all black. Her blond hair was pulled up in a ponytail, and she kept one arm hidden behind her back.
“Got you a beer. Did you—”
Abby grinned as she moved her hand out in front of her.
“Right where you said it would be, cooking in the oven. Cops did a number on the place. But they never looked in the oven . . . they were probably men, never seen the inside of one before.”
Abby placed Tristan’s laptop on the table, swapped it for the beer. Collapsed in a chair.
“Weird how it’s easier to break into a crime scene than to gain access to a private residence, huh? I mean, breaking into Tristan’s house was easy enough, but he had this pantry. It was locked up like Fort Knox.”
Ivy stared at the laptop.
“You didn’t say anything about a locked pantry,” she muttered absently.
“I know. I was planning on going back—with more time, I probably would have gotten in. And I thought the laptop was in there. It had to be. I wanted to surprise you. Guess I was wrong. But, hey, it’s here now. It’s all yours.”
Ivy’s thoughts drowned out her friend completely now.
Three years. Three long years.
First, searching the house, causing severe burns in her throat for the effort. Forever scarring her fingers. Then reviewing everything the cops had pulled from the rubble. Having Abby break into Tristan’s dorm. Steve’s old office.
It wasn’t there.
For three years, Ivy had been looking for the laptop.
And when she’d found out that Steve had a son—which her father had never mentioned before—she’d gone as far as to ensure Tristan was hired as her TA with the hope of getting closer.
But while she’d been searching for Steve’s laptop, Ivy had had no idea that Tristan was looking for Gene’s.
And his approach had been more . . . visceral. Visceral and desperate.
She should have known. Should have seen the pattern.
Steve had killed for the laptop; Tristan had done the same.
Like father, like son.
So much death . . .
That had never been part of the plan. Ivy wanted to find the laptop to prevent any more deaths.
“What are you going to do with you know who?” Abby asked, her eyes flicking upward. “He’s not your responsibility.”
He never was, not really.
Despite the rather simple way Vaughn had framed her relationship with her surrogate father, Ivy knew that what she had with Steve was more complex.
Vaughn didn’t understand the math. Didn’t know the true value of their work, the value of the solution to the Riemann hypothesis. He didn’t know how hard things had been for her.
One day, she was a math protégée, daughter to one of the most brilliant minds the country had seen in decades.
The next, everything had been ripped from her grasp. Adopting Steve had been the only thing that had kept her sane. The only person who could understand her problems, her questions, even though he could never answer her.
“I know,” she said simply.
Abs knew better than to press.
“By the way, they finally took that TikTok video down,” her friend said as she continued to drink her beer.
Ivy had forgotten all about it.
A video of her, taken by Zeke’s cell phone but orchestrated by Tristan. He’d planted the seed of the lecture in her mind, knowing that the cops would eventually need help with the crime scene. Paid to boost the video so that her name came to the top of every search list.
Too many variables for her liking, too many unknowns, but it had worked out for Tristan.
Until it hadn’t.
Ivy pictured him lying on the blood-spattered Queen Anne’s lace.
The only thing that had bothered Ivy was the fact that Tristan had used Zeke’s cell phone.
Acquiring the phone had been easy enough—he had access to all the students’ cells before class. But to take the video, Tristan would have had to have known the man’s passcode.
Tristan was good with computers, knew how to hide his tracks. To break into a cell, though?
Ivy was skeptical that her TA had that sort of skill.
What Vaughn had told her at dinner solidified her theory.
Tristan and Zeke had been working together.
Henry Lane, too. Probably Devon Godfrey.
Everyone wanted the goddamn laptops. And now she had Dr. Neely’s, with his half of the Riemann hypothesis, which her father wanted to give away while Steve intended to sell it to the highest bidder.
That was the reason for the fight that night, when they’d finally solved it. Opposites attract.
Ivy set down her beer and swapped it for the chess board she’d taken from the DAL residence. Flipped it over. Picked at the sticker of the 8x8 alternating black and white squares. Peeled it off in one piece.
Tristan had broken into the DAL looking for the laptop, probably broke into her home, too. But it had been there all along, right before his eyes.
Ivy lifted the lid of her father’s laptop.
Save the work . . . save the laptop, Ivy . . . it’s more important than any of us.
Ivy opened Steve’s laptop next, set them side by side. Finally, both pieces of the puzzle. The Riemann hypothesis solved. Thought impossible.
Abby got out of her chair and put her arm around Ivy’s neck from behind. Squeezed her. Ivy patted her friend’s hand.
“What are you going to do with it?”
Ivy continued to stare at the two computers in reverence, in awe.
“I don’t know,” she said honestly.
“Well, whatever you decide, I’ll always have your back, bitch.”