“He has a boyfriend, Daniel.”
“Uh-huh.” He considered her. “Now—what can you tell me about Mrs. Stratford’s initial contact with you?”
Ivy rested her hands on her knees. Her movements felt purposeful. Uncomfortable. Wrong.
“Well, I was giving Mattie a ride home, and she stopped us to ask questions. She seemed—really . . . upset. Or maybe she wasn’t. She said she and Professor Stratford had been in a fight and he’d taken off.”
“Uh-huh. Did she expand on that?”
“Um. Well, we told her to call him. And she said he wouldn’t answer anyway. It almost sounded like maybe they get in these sorts of fights a lot.”
Daniel began rolling a pencil across his desk. Back and forth, between two stacks of papers, on the only tiny bit of wood that was actually visible. “Did she seem concerned?”
Ivy tried to remember. Had she? “She must have been, I guess, since she was actually looking for him. But no, she didn’t seem really worried. At all. Like I said, she mentioned that if he had his phone, he wouldn’t be answering her calls anyway.”
Daniel paused.
“So why did she zero in on you, then? Why isn’t she at Mattie’s?”
“Uh, maybe because she’d have to get in the front gate? Can you really imagine Janice Byrne letting that car into her drive?”
Daniel chuckled. “No.” But then he squared his shoulders, and the smile dropped off his face. He looked at her sternly.
“What?” Ivy asked.
Daniel hesitated. “Look, Ivy. I don’t want to waste time here. Are you going to tell me if you know something, or not? Because if you do, if Mrs. Stratford’s little hunch is right, I’d rather you tell me now than have it come out later. The hard way.”
Ivy tilted her head. Was her brother actually trying to Bad Cop her? She’d almost been ready to spill her guts, and now he was practically threatening her? She was his sister. “Excuse me?”
“I’m saying that Mrs. Stratford has her eyes on you. And I’ve known you long enough, Ivy, to know when you’re not telling the whole truth. And frankly, I don’t think you are.”
“Are you kidding me right now? I think this detective bullshit is going to your head, Daniel. I told you I don’t know anything and I don’t. If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been having a rough few months, okay? Things haven’t exactly been easy. And you dragging me down here like . . . like some sort of criminal isn’t exactly helping.”
Her phone buzzed in her pocket again, but she didn’t reach for it. She leaned forward and looked hard at her brother.
“What, exactly, do you think I’m guilty of here, Daniel? Because I’d really, really like to know.”
Daniel pushed back in his chair, which banged into the bookshelf behind him. “I—I think—”
But before he finished his sentence, the door crashed open and Mr. McWhellen stormed in. He slammed it shut behind him and stared at his son. His face was bloodred and a vein in his forehead was pulsing.
“What,” he said, his teeth gritted, “in the ever-loving hell are you doing to my daughter?”
“I—I’m questioning her.”
“Your own sister?” her father roared. “I thought you had morals and values, son. Are you so desperate to solve your first case that you’re willing to consider your own sister as a suspect?”
Daniel opened and closed his mouth, his eyes wide. Sweat dribbled down his forehead. “She’s not a suspect, Dad.”
“Good,” her father shouted. “Then we’re going. He grabbed the door and ripped it open. It slammed into the wall, and her brother’s degree from the local university fell off the wall and shattered on the floor.
“Don’t bother coming home for dinner,” Mr. McWhellen added. “Come on, Ivy.”
Ivy had thought she was too old to be rescued by her father, but she was wrong.
And while the whole police station watched, she followed Mr. McWhellen out of her brother’s office and into the sunlight.
But her relief was mixed with pain. Because her brother’s instincts were good. Leaving with her dad . . . well, she knew she was choosing herself over Daniel.
She was selfish like that.
Sometimes, at night, she felt like she had changed from the Evil Queen Bee who ruined others for her own gain. She felt the way the things she said hurt in her chest and turned her stomach. She felt like she could never be that horrible again.
But in moments like these, she knew she was the same evil bitch that she always had been.
And she never hated herself more.
Mattie
Monday, June 29
It was the first time he’d ridden the bike since it had appeared back at the house.
It still felt new. Whoever had taken it clearly hadn’t ridden it much. He tried not to think of where it had been. Who it had been with.