“Why did you kill him?”
Ivy stared across the kitchen table at her brother, her eyes wide. “What?” she asked. Her hands gripped the wood, her fingernails bending against the hard surface.
“Dr. Stratford. Why did you kill him?” her brother asked, very calmly. Very matter-of-factly. As if they had already established that Ivy was a murderer.
As if he’d known the entire time.
Ivy’s whole body started falling apart from the inside. First, her heart began to slow. Then she felt her stomach shrinking in on itself.
She was going to die. She was going to die right there at the kitchen table.
The corner of Daniel’s mouth quirked up, and he started laughing. “Geez, Ivy, chill out, okay? I told you! I’m just practicing! I’m going to ask the hard questions, okay? Plus, since you actually knew the guy, you’re good practice.” He winked at her. “You’d be surprised how many supposedly minute details have led to arrests. Real arrests.”
That’s what Ivy was afraid of. She took a slow breath and hoped Daniel didn’t notice her shaking. She moved her hands from the table and wrapped them around each side of her chair, like she was trying to hold on.
Maybe she was.
“I don’t have much time,” she told her brother. “We have class tonight, and I’m trying to get in good with the new professor.”
“But you already had class with her,” Daniel said, confused.
“Yeah, twice, but basically all she has done is introduce herself and talk about how sorry she is about Dr. Stratford’s disappearance. Last class, she sipped on an actual glass of prune juice. Seriously, Daniel, if I make her wait she might actually die. She’s that old.”
The words sounded callous in her ears, now, but they were words the Old Ivy would have used easily. Flippantly, even. So New Ivy had to use them too.
She hated herself.
“Hey, I should hook you up to the lie detector sometime. We have an old one down at the station. We’re not really allowed to use them since they say you can fool them now.”
“Boring.” Ivy pretended to yawn, but her insides were jumping. She could never go there, never do that, because then he’d know. “Is it over? Can I go?”
“Just sit tight, okay?” Her brother pulled a crumpled piece of paper out of the pocket of his khakis.
“Really? That’s how you interview a criminal? With a love note from high school? Did someone toss that to you after they got their cell phone taken away?”
She hated herself even more. But she needed him to leave her alone.
“Ivy, seriously? I’m trying here.” He smoothed the paper out on the table and cleared his throat. “Okay. You have to state your name. So, please state it.”
“Ivy Katherine McWhellen.”
Her stomach hurt. Big, sharp stabs of pain. Was this karmic payback? A sign from God, telling her to confess?
Or just more punishment? Her fall from grace hadn’t been enough. Maybe Ivy had been so terrible to the people in her life that hers needed to be ruined. She imagined herself as Piper in Orange Is the New Black, carving a shank out of a toothbrush and trading Cheetos for shower sandals.
“Your relationship to the deceased?”
“Deceased?” Ivy said. “I thought he was just missing.” Her muscles tensed.
Daniel sighed heavily. “No, Ivy. Seriously, we’re just playing here, okay? Just bear with me.”
Ivy harrumphed. “Fine. Just hurry up, then.”
“What is your relationship to the missing man?”
“Um, he was my professor for my psych class. That’s it.” Ivy studied her brother, but he was hardly looking at her. His eyes were glued to the paper. His hand fumbled for the soda can in front of him, and she pushed it into his outstretched palm.
“Thanks,” he muttered. “Um, let’s see. When did you last see Dr. Stratford?”
A flash of Stratford disappearing into the river lightninged across her mental vision, and for a moment she was back at the river, carrying him, her arms straining with his weight.
Helping to throw him into a watery grave.
“Um, during the class when we took the test.”
“The date was?”
Friday, June 12.
Ivy scoffed. “Seriously? You expect me to know the date? I don’t even know what today is.”
Ivy wished she were kidding about knowing the current date. But the more she tried to keep it together, the more everything swam together in a mix of colors and sounds and ideas and nothing made sense anymore. Nothing.
Not even Garrett—the one person she’d thought she still wanted—had made it right.
Not for a second.
But Friday, June 12.
She remembered that. She remembered it in perfect, clear detail. Every last bit. It replayed in her head, over and over, like a film. It followed her into sleep every night, and was there when she woke up. A shadow that clung to her.
Her brother stood up from the table and started pacing.
“Are you Good Cop or Bad Cop?” she quipped.
“I’m asking the questions.” He clasped his hands behind his back. “Okay, Ivy. Here’s a real question for you.” He stopped. “Why is Mrs. Stratford outside our house again?”
“What?” Ivy pushed away from the table and hurried into the living room. She threw aside the curtains and looked out the front window.
There Mrs. Stratford was, her car idling in the street. Ivy turned back to Daniel, frantic. “Daniel, why is she here?”
He frowned at her. “That’s a question for you to answer, isn’t it?”
She peeked out the window again. Mrs. Stratford was just sitting in her car, the engine running and the windows down. Her elbow was perched on the door, and she was smoking a cigarette.
“I am so done with this!” Ivy shrieked. She tore open the front door and marched out, stopping by the driver’s-side door. “What are you doing here? What do you want?” she shrieked.
Mrs. Stratford jumped, her cigarette falling from her fingers onto the sidewalk, showering sparks on the cement. She cursed, and then looked up at Ivy. “I wanted to talk to you.” She pointed at Ivy with a trembling finger, swollen and thick with arthritis.
“Well, I’m here. Say what you want to say.”
Mrs. Stratford stared at her, her eyes crinkled. “I think you know more than you’re letting on. You and that boy next door. You know something.”
“Yeah, we know our professor hasn’t shown up to class. We know he’s missing. It’s everywhere. I know my brother’s working on the case to try to help you find your husband. Is that enough?” She put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes, daring Mrs. Stratford to say anything else.
Mrs. Stratford glared at her. “Why were you so weird in the parking lot?”
Ivy threw up her hands. “Well, the world’s toughest teacher didn’t show up to his own class. Doesn’t that seem a little weird to you, as his wife? I would think that you were the one who wasn’t saying something. What did you do to him to make him leave, huh?”
Ivy was shouting, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t.
Mrs. Stratford’s face crumpled, all the anger and suspicion gone from it like air from a popped balloon.
Daniel, who Ivy hadn’t heard come out, grabbed her arm. “Go inside, Ivy.” His voice was firm. “Mrs. Stratford, I need you to leave my home. Immediately. And I understand that you’re going through a difficult time, but if you spend one more moment talking to my sister, then I have no problem filing a report at the station.”
Ivy took a couple steps back, letting Daniel put himself between her and the car.
Mrs. Stratford spat out the car window and drove off, her car backfiring as she went. It sounded like a gunshot, and Ivy jumped.
Daniel turned to his sister. He rubbed his forehead.
“Having your brother as a cop doesn’t mean you’re above the law, you know.” His voice was quiet, somber. It was like he’d drawn into himself.
“I know,” Ivy said. “I don’t know why that old bitch is following me!”
Except she did.
God, she knew.
It was because Mrs. Stratford, somehow, could see what everyone else was missing: Ivy’s guilt.
Daniel considered her for a moment. “I think we really need to talk about this, Ivy. I think we should see you down at the station.”