Wicked Beginning: An Ivy Morgan Mystery Books 1-3 (54 page)

“Jack is the strongest person I know,” Ivy said. “Does Marcus want to kill Jack, too? Will he settle for killing me and leaving Jack to mourn?”

“No. He wants Jack dead, too. He just wants him to suffer a lot before he finally kills him. Mark my words, when Marcus does finally go after Jack, he’s going to torture him for days first. It won’t be a quick death.”

Ivy swallowed the lump in her throat. “Where is Marcus now?”

“He’s coming for you.”

“IVY!”

Jack was enraged by the time he walked through Ivy’s front door.  After calling Max and finding out she was already gone, and stopping by the nursery to have Michael tell him she returned home, Jack was beside himself. To top it all off, she wasn’t answering her phone.

The cottage appeared empty, which didn’t make any sense. Michael had his car back. Ivy had no means of transportation other than her feet. Where would she go?

“Ivy!”

Nothing.

Jack turned when he heard shuffling in the doorway, a bellow ready to escape his mouth when he saw her. He wanted to shake her for scaring him like this.

“You are in so much trouble you’re not going to be able to walk for days,” Jack hissed, swiveling. His eyes widened when he caught of Laura Simmons standing behind him.

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to a lady,” Laura said, her green eyes shifting brown momentarily before she slammed the vase from Ivy’s front table against the side of his head.

Jack saw the blow coming, but it was too late to stop it. He staggered and fell, falling forward. His last thought was of Ivy. He was convinced he would never see her again.

Ivy found her front door open when she returned to the house, Laura drifting along beside her. Outside of the fairy ring Ivy was having a harder time seeing the morose ghost. She could hear her, though, and Ivy considered that a win … for now.

“Let me go in first,” Laura hissed. “I’ll know if he’s in there.”

Ivy bit her lip and nodded. She had to be smart about this, if only for Jack’s sake. It took Laura what seemed like forever to search the cottage. When she returned, Ivy felt her rather than saw her.

“The house is empty, but it looks like something happened inside,” Laura said.

Ivy pushed her way into the cottage, frowning when she saw the remnants of the shattered vase. She knelt, picking up a few shards to study them. There was blood on one of the pieces.

“Someone has been hurt,” Ivy said, biting her lip. “I … Nicodemus!”

The cat was the first thing that popped into her mind. She’d found him in a Dumpster, near death, and bottle-fed him back to health. She loved him as much as was humanly possible. If Marcus didn’t have any qualms about shooting an innocent police officer in the middle of the street, she knew killing Nicodemus would be easy.

“Nicodemus!” Ivy raced down the hallway, throwing open her bedroom door and found the cat lazily cleaning himself on her bed. She cried out in relief, gathering him in her arms and hugging him. He didn’t like being crowded, so he batted her face away when she tried to kiss him and wriggled out of her arms. He was safe. That was all that mattered.

Ivy returned to the living room, studying the floor with a mixture of dread and curiosity. “Maybe I should call my dad,” she said, glancing around. She’d left her cell phone to charge on the table behind the couch. It was still there. “He was working over at the nursery. He might’ve come over here if he was hungry or wanted to check on me.”

“Something bad happened here,” Laura said. “I think it was Marcus.”

“I’m betting money it was Marcus,” Ivy said, touching her phone screen and sighing when she saw three missed calls. All of them were from Jack. “God, I hope Marcus doesn’t have my dad.” Ivy was worried for an entirely different reason this time. She punched up her voicemail button and pressed the phone to her ear. “I’ll bet Jack panicked when he couldn’t get me on the phone and sent my dad over here to check on me. Oh, God!”

Ivy listened to Jack’s increasingly frantic voicemails back-to-back-to-back and then dialed her father’s number. He picked up on the second ring.

“What do you want, car thief?”

“Thank God,” Ivy cried out, relief washing over her. “I thought something happened to you.”

“Why would you think that?” Michael asked.

“I just got back from my fairy ring and the front door was open,” Ivy explained. “The vase I had by the door is smashed on the floor and I’m sure there’s blood on it. I thought maybe Nicodemus was hurt at first, but I found him and he’s fine. My next thought was of you.”

“Ivy, have you tried calling Jack?”

“No. I had three voicemails from him, though. I left the phone in the house to charge while I was at my fairy ring. Why? Is he mad?”

“They found Laura Simmons’ hotel room,” Michael said. “Jack called me about … I don’t know … forty-five minutes ago. She’s been stalking you. She had hundreds of photos of you and Jack.

“Jack thinks she’s coming for you right now,” Michael continued. “He was on his way to your house.”

Ivy’s heart rolled. “No … .”

“Is his truck there?”

Ivy glanced out at the driveway. She would’ve noticed Jack’s truck on approach. It wasn’t there. “No. He’s not here.”

“That doesn’t mean he wasn’t there,” Michael said. “You hang up and lock the door. Call Brian and tell him what’s going on. I’ll be there in two minutes. Don’t open that door for anyone but me. Do you understand?”

Ivy nodded, tears filling her eyes. “Dad … .”

“We’ll find Jack,” Michael said. “We’ll find him.”

JACK
woke in a dark room, his head throbbing. He tried to focus, but the edges of his eyesight were blurry. He probably had a concussion. He tried to remember the last thing that happened, and that’s when Laura’s smiling face swam into view.

He moved quickly, trying to push himself up from the chair he sat in, only to find himself tied in place, his hands secured behind him. He swore, tilting his head to the side and listening. There it was. Someone was in the room with him. He could hear breathing.

“Laura?”

A light snapped on, causing Jack to close his eyes to ward off the glare. When he risked opening them again, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. He was in a basement, the only light coming from a naked bulb with a chain overhead.

Laura stood beneath the light. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and her face bare of makeup. She looked like a different person.

“Where are we?” Jack asked.

“In a safe place,” Laura replied. “I’ve been scouting locations for a week. This house is empty because the owners moved to Bay City. I set up a showing with a local realtor and got the combination for the lockbox on the door. It was pretty easy to gain access. The place is ours … and there are no neighbors within screaming distance.”

Laura looked pleased with herself.

“Where is Ivy?”

“Oh, little Miss Ivy evaded me,” Laura said, rolling her eyes. “I was trying to get her, but she disappeared into the woods. I was following her, but I somehow lost her. I gave up and went back to her cottage to wait for her to return – I was going to kill her there and leave you to find her dead in her bed with a bunch of roses spread around her – but you showed up instead.

“I had to make a choice,” she continued. “I knew I was running out of time after seeing you at the hotel. As much as I want Ivy, I want you more. I had to settle for you. I guess Ivy gets a pass … for now.”

Despite his predicament, Jack was secretly relieved. Ivy was safe. With his disappearance, Brian, Max, and Michael would rally around her. She wouldn’t be alone. If the unthinkable happened and Laura managed to kill him, at least he would pass with the knowledge that Ivy would live on. That was everything to him.

“I don’t understand why you’re doing this, Laura,” Jack said, deciding to approach the woman from a place of friendship and shared mutual pain. “I know you loved your brother, but is this really what you want to do?”

Laura contorted her face in dramatic fashion. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

“Get what?”

“I’m not Laura. I’m Marcus.”

Jack bit the inside of his cheek, unsure. Was Laura so mentally unbalanced she thought she was Marcus? That was a problem he wasn’t expecting. “You’re not Marcus. You’re Laura Simmons. Marcus was your brother. Deep down inside, you have to know that.”

“You’re such an ass,” Laura said. “I know who I am. I’m Marcus. Somehow I managed to jump out of my body right before I flew over that guardrail. I landed in Laura’s body. She was asleep, so it was pretty easy for me to push her out.”

That was the most ludicrous thing Jack had ever heard. “Did you see that on a television show or something?”

Laura frowned. “Do you really not believe me? Are you going to force me to prove myself to you?”

Jack considered the question. Maybe there was hope for Laura if he proved that Marcus wasn’t inside of her. Maybe she would finally see the truth of what she’d done if he could somehow manage that. “Let’s do that,” he suggested. “Prove to me you’re Marcus.”

“Okay.” Laura tapped her lip as she thought, eerily mimicking one of her brother’s mannerisms perfectly. Jack swallowed hard. She was really going all out. “Okay,” Laura said, taking a step forward. “Six months after we became partners we went out for our first beer together. It was a little Irish pub on the south side of the Cass Corridor.

“I bet you that I could pick up a girl before you could,” Laura continued. “We made an agreement about overtime and I approached a brunette with huge boobs. You went after a mousy thing at the bar. She shot you down and I went home with the brunette.”

Jack’s heart rate sped up. That was true. He remembered that night. Still … . “Marcus could’ve told you that story,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “He liked to boast about his sexual prowess. I’m not sure why he would do that with his sister, but I wouldn’t put it past him.”

“Oh, good grief!” Laura kicked an empty bucket across the basement, the sound echoing throughout the space. “Fine. If you don’t believe me, ask me something that only Marcus would know. Make it as obscure as you want.”

“Okay.” Jack licked his lips. “What happened to the gun Marcus used to shoot me with? How did you get it?”

“That’s not the type of question I was talking about,” Laura snapped. “I’ll answer it for you because I know how you like answers, but then you’re going to ask me another question. After I shot you – and I was sure you were dead, so I have no idea how you managed to survive – I knew I had to get rid of the gun.

“I drove to that old lot where we used to question narcs and dug a hole and buried it,” she continued. “I dug it up again about six weeks ago and used it on my mother because she would not shut her filthy hole. She figured out that I switched places with Laura and she was threatening to do an exorcism on me. The old bat always was a superstitious moron.”

Jack shook his head. “But … .”

“No! Ask me something to prove that I’m Marcus,” Laura instructed. “This isn’t going to be any fun if you don’t believe.”

“Fine,” Jack said, searching his memory. “Um … what did I tell you after the prostitute murder at the Renaissance Center? We were in the elevator on our way down, and I confided something in you. What was it?”

Laura screwed up her face in concentration. Jack was convinced he’d won until her eyes brightened. “You told me that you didn’t understand how anyone could hire a professional because sex was so much better when emotions were involved,” she said, chortling. “You said you believed you would find love one day. I guess you did, huh?”

Jack was dumbfounded. There was no way Laura could know anything about that conversation, and there was no reason for Marcus to ever confide anything of the sort in his sister. “Marcus?”

“There it is,” Marcus said, gleefully bending over to stare Jack in the eye on an even level. “How’s it going, buddy?”

“I DON’T
know what to do,” Ivy said, pacing her living room as Brian and Michael watched. “He’s out there somewhere. Marcus is going to torture him to death. We have to do something.”

Brian rubbed the back of his neck, conflicted. He was convinced Ivy was losing her mind. “Sweetie, I think you’re in shock,” he said. “Marcus Simmons is dead. Laura is the one behind all of this.”

Ivy rolled her eyes. “I can’t explain this to you right now,” she said. “I know that Laura Simmons’ body is doing all these things. Marcus is inside of her, though. We’re not going to find Jack by thinking like Laura would. We have to think like Marcus would.”

Speaking of Laura, Ivy hadn’t heard a peep from the ghost since her father arrived. She wanted to talk to her. She wanted to ask a thousand different questions, and yet she knew if she started holding a conversation with thin air Brian and Michael would have her committed.

“Honey, why do you think that?” Michael asked, his voice soft. “Did you hit your head?”

Ivy slapped his hand away when he tried to rub it down the back of her head. “No!”

“I can’t deal with this right now,” Brian said, exchanging a worried look with Michael. “Jack is out there. A crazy woman bent on revenge has him somewhere. We found Laura’s car abandoned on the side of the road about a mile down. That means she has Jack’s truck. That’s why Ivy didn’t see it when she returned to the house.”

“How are you going to find Jack?” Michael asked.

“The state police are sending everything they’ve got,” Brian answered. “Bellaire is, too. They want Laura badly because she took out one of their own. We’re setting up a search grid and going from there.” He darted a look in Ivy’s direction. “Ivy, you need to stay here with your father. I’ll call as soon as we know something.”

Ivy made a face and turned away from Brian and her father. She knew they were trying to do the right thing by her, but she was frustrated. She couldn’t listen to  them when she had to focus on Jack. He needed her. Somehow, deep inside, she knew she would have to be the one to save him.

“I’m going to lay down,” Ivy announced, moving toward the hallway. “I feel sick to my stomach and my head is pounding. I … need to lay down.”

“I think that’s a good idea,” Michael said, his heart breaking for his only daughter. If Jack died, he knew Ivy would never recover. He had no idea how to console her, though. “Do you want me to bring you anything?”

“I just want to be alone,” Ivy said, fighting back tears. “Just … leave me alone.”

She stalked into her bedroom and slammed the door shut with enough force to scare Nicodemus off the bed. He shot her a disdainful look before crawling under it. He was not having a good day.

“Laura?” Ivy hissed, keeping her voice low. “Are you here?”

“I’m here. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to risk them thinking you were crazy.”