CHAPTER TWENTY

 

“Don’t even think about it, you are not coming with me,” I said to Brigit.

We were standing outside my office building. I was trying to drop her off, and she wasn’t having it.

“You shouldn’t go there and be alone with him,” said Brigit. “What if you sleep with him again?”

“I’m not going to sleep with him,” I said. “I’m going, and you’re not coming.” I headed back for my car.

“Ivy, he could be dangerous!” Brigit called after me. “I’m calling Miles. You shouldn’t go alone.”

I stopped. “Brigit, don’t call anyone.”

“Well, the only way you’re going to be sure I don’t call anyone is to let me come with you.”

“No,” I said. “You’re not coming.” I was just going to have to risk it. “Don’t call Miles. Don’t call anyone. Please.” I got into my car.

Brigit folded her arms over her chest.

* * *

“Well, Ivy Stern,” said Cal Pike from behind his desk. His face was still swollen from the beating that Miles had given him. “I haven’t seen you in a while. Funny, because I thought we were pretty good together.”

I was standing in the open doorway. “We need to talk, Cal. I know what you did.”

“Shut the door,” he said. “I wouldn’t mind it if we had some privacy. If you get sick of my big brother’s lack of passion, I’ve got enough for both of us.”

I didn’t move. “I just came from talking to Chloe Avery.”

“Seriously, Ivy? I thought we were past this. I told you that I would never do something like that.”

“Actually, Cal, I’m pretty sure you did.” I shook my head. “What I don’t understand is why.”

He got up from his desk. “What did Chloe say to you?”

“Well, she said she was lying for you, that the two of you weren’t together on the day of the shooting.”

He walked past me and shut the door behind us. Now we were close, his body practically touching mine.

I wanted to move away from him, but I was trapped. The door at my back, his body in front of mine.

“Well, I only told her to lie for me because you were so suspicious of me,” he said, smiling down at me.

“That’s the thing,” I said. “I wasn’t. You were the one who leapt to the conclusion that I thought you murdered Gilbert. You did that because you actually killed him. And not by proxy, like I had originally thought. You didn’t hire some drug dealer to take out your brother. Instead, you did it yourself. You brought the gun there, not Gilbert.”

“You’re crazy, Ivy.”

“Did you always plan to make it look like a school shooting? Did you always plan to shoot all those other people?”

“Stop it.” He reached for me. “Stop saying these insane things.”

I slapped his hand away. “Do not touch me.”

“That’s funny, because you seemed to like it before. I remember the way you moaned when I had my hands on you, the way you—”

“Shut up.” I felt as if my throat was going to close up. Not again, not again. How was it that I had managed to sleep with a murderer again? “Please, Cal, give me some reason to believe that you’re telling me the truth. Give me some piece of evidence that I can hold onto. I don’t want to have slept with a murderer.” Not again.

“I didn’t kill Gilbert,” he said.

“And I want to believe you. You have no idea how much I want to believe you. But it all points to you. Everything points to you. You’re the one who got the gun. Gilbert didn’t get it. You did. Do you deny that?”

“I never got any gun.”

“Chloe Avery says you did.”

“Well, she’s lying.”

“Why would she lie?” I pleaded with him with my eyes to give me some reason why she’d lie. “I thought she was your friend. Isn’t she your friend?”

“Yes, but…”

“But what, Cal? What?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

“Make me believe that. Tell me that there’s no connection between you and Charlene Jarrett.”

At the mention of that name, Cal winced.

“Damn it,” I muttered. “It was the two of them you wanted to kill, wasn’t it? Just them. Because they betrayed you. Your brother for taking your girl, and your girl for choosing someone besides you. And so you were going to shoot them, but then the other people were there, and you shot them all.”

“No,” said Cal. “I didn’t do that. I would never hurt my brother.”

I squeezed my eyes shut. “You did,” I whispered. “All along, it’s been you.”

“There’s no proof of that,” said Cal.

I was seized by the sudden urge to sob.

But I held it in.

“There isn’t,” he insisted. “There’s no proof.”

There was Chloe Avery saying she saw him with the gun. There was the fact he’d been in a relationship with Charlene Jarrett. Crane had seen them together, and other people would have as well. There was the fact he had no alibi. I might not have fingerprints or DNA, but I had enough.

“You did it, Cal.”

“No,” he said.

I wished I could believe him. I really wished that I could.

But I couldn’t, so I just blindly felt behind me until I caught the door handle with one hand. I turned it, and the door gave way behind me.

I tumbled out of his office and got the hell out of there.

* * *

“You’re not serious,” said Miles, crossing his office to shut the door behind us. “I thought this crap with my family being suspects was over. You said that Cal didn’t even know about the energy shake.”

I’d come directly to the police station after leaving Cal. I knew that I had to tell Miles right away.

“The energy shake wasn’t his motive,” I said. “It was a girl. He and Gilbert were both involved with the same girl. That’s why he did it. Chloe saw him getting the gun.”

Miles shook his head. “No. You said—”

“I know what I said, but I was wrong.”

“There was that Peterson girl,” said Miles. “That crazy girl who was threatening someone’s mother. What about her?”

“Miles, it’s Cal,” I said. “He did it. He’s been lying about it this whole time. You know it’s true. You know he’s capable of it.”

“No.” He clenched his hands into fists.

I moved toward him.

He held up both his fists. “Don’t.”

“Miles—”

“Go away.”

I drew back, hurt.

He turned his back to me for a minute, and then he whipped back around, and his eyes were wet. “What do you expect me to do, Ivy? Arrest my own damned brother?”

“I…” I didn’t know what to say.

“After what just happened with Gil, do you have any idea what this would do to my family?”

“I know. It’s awful, but—”

“No,” he said. He unclenched his fists and buried both his hands in his hair. He started to pace. “No one knows about this, right? You didn’t alert the media or something?”

“Well, I know,” I said. “Chloe Avery knows. Brigit knows. Cal knows. And I was just at his office, so other people might have heard—”

“But it’s not official or anything,” he said. “And the department has already ruled on this. They aren’t even investigating it. So, we’ll just… we’ll keep it quiet. We won’t do anything.”

“Miles, no, you can’t.”

“I can.” He stopped moving and gave me a defiant gaze.

I sucked in air through my nose. “That’s not what we do. We bring justice. And you’re going to let Cal get away with it?”

“He’s my brother.”

“And he killed your other brother.”

Miles’s face crumpled. “No. No, that can’t be right.”

My voice was soft. “But it is.”

“Get out,” he said.

“Please, I—”

“Get out!”

“Miles, I know this isn’t easy, but if you would just listen to me, you’d see that I was only trying to help you.”

He crossed the office, opened the door, and stood next to it. He was silent, his face like stone.

I took a deep breath, ready to say something, but I looked up at him, and nothing came out.

Finally, I just left, like he wanted me to.