Wicked Respite

by Lily Harper Hart

  “Wait.” Boyd held up his hand to get Brian’s and Jack’s attention. “Are you telling me that the man who killed that woman at the campground this weekend is also the person who killed my wife?”

  Jack wasn’t sure how to respond. “We can’t be certain. It is one heckuva coincidence, though.”

  “I’m not even sure you really have my wife.” Boyd held on to his last shred of hope. “I want to see her for myself.”

  “We can arrange that.” Brian was calm as he bobbed his head. “In fact, I’ll arrange it right now. Jack needs to make a few calls. We can resume questioning once those calls are placed and identification has been confirmed.”

  “It’s not going to be her,” Boyd assured the older police detective. “She’s fine. This is some kind of mistake.”

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “I know I am. There’s a way to explain this. I’m sure there is. We just need to figure it out.”

  “One step at a time,” Brian cautioned. “I’ll take you to the medical examiner’s office first. Jack, I believe you have some calls to make.”

  “Definitely.” Jack was already ten steps ahead of his partner when preparing for what had to come next. “I’ll get on that right now.”

  Eleven

  Ivy was still stewing about her mother’s insistence on hosting a barbecue when Jack let himself into the cottage that evening. He’d texted to tell her he would be picking up dinner so her stomach let out a lurching growl of excitement when he placed the takeout containers on the table.

  “Hungry, honey?” He arched an amused eyebrow.

  “I could eat. I skipped lunch.”

  “How come?” He swooped in and gave her a kiss. His favorite part about coming home was losing himself in her. He had a feeling they’d both had trying days so he was eager to slip into the cocoon they’d made in the home they shared.

  “My mother.” Ivy said the two words with a sort of viciousness that Jack wasn’t accustomed to.

  “Do I even want to know?”

  “She ambushed me at the nursery today.” Ivy figured if she had to be miserable, so did he. To her mind, that was one of the best things about having a life partner. The other half had to equally share in the misery.

  “I’m assuming she didn’t ambush you with a gun or anything, so that means she wants something else from you.” Jack left her to unpack the takeout while he floated over to the cupboards to grab napkins and flatware. “Whatever it is, I’m sure it’s not the end of the world.”

  “She wants me to host a barbecue tomorrow. I already agreed, so if you want me to back out you have to call her. I’m kind of hoping you’re looking for a fight because I rolled over and showed her my belly so fast that I’m a bit ashamed.”

  “She wants you to have a barbecue?” Jack wasn’t sure what to make of that. “You’re not going to make me eat a meat substitute, are you?”

  Ivy shot him a withering look. “Have I ever made you eat a meat substitute?”

  “No, but that is my worst nightmare. I mean … I know you would never leave or hurt me so that’s what I’m left with.”

  Even though she was determined not to, Ivy couldn’t stop herself from laughing. “That’s your worst nightmare? Me slipping tofu into your steak, huh? I guess if that’s our worst problem then we’re lucky.”

  “I got lucky the day I met you.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek, hoping it would perk her up. “Tell me what’s really bothering you.”

  He had a way of reading her that Ivy often marveled at. “How did you know something else was bothering me?”

  “I know you.”

  She sighed. “My mother wants to meet Amy.”

  “I figured that’s what this was all about.”

  “She’s already convinced that she’s the one for Max. I warned her not to get ahead of herself, but she won’t listen.”

  Jack pursed his lips as he regarded her. He liked to think of Ivy as an open book – almost everything that crossed her mind escaped her lips – but she blurred on him a bit right now. “That’s not what’s bothering you, though. You were raised in a family of busybodies. You had to be expecting this.”

  “I was. I didn’t think she would pin me down my first day back, but I knew it was coming.”

  “So, what is it?”

  “It’s just something she said. It didn’t even bother me at the time. It was only after, when I was thinking about it, that it started to chafe.”

  Now they were getting to the heart of matters. “Tell me.”

  “Do you think I’m surly?”

  Whatever question he was expecting, that wasn’t it. Jack immediately opened his mouth to respond but no sound came out.

  “You do, don’t you?” Ivy turned huffy. “I’m not surly.”

  He cleared his throat to give himself a moment to decide what to say. “How did this particular avenue of conversation occur? Did she just call you surly out of the blue?”

  “No. She said that she was worried I would be alone forever before you came along because of how surly I was. Then she called you a godsend and said it was time for the family to focus on Max for a change instead of me.”

  Oh, it was multiple things, Jack internally mused. “Well, for starters, you are a bit surly.” He didn’t back down even when she fixed him with a dark look. “Well, you are, honey. That’s the first thing I noticed about you … after the pink hair and bare feet, I mean. You have a certain attitude.”

  “I am not surly. I don’t like that word.”

  “Do you prefer curmudgeonly?” Jack only smirked when she lightly smacked his arm. “It’s okay to be surly, Ivy. That was your way of protecting yourself. I understand that. You’re not surly with me now.”

  “Do you think that they spent all their time worrying about me to Max’s detriment?”

  That was the thing really bothering her, Jack realized. She was the sort who would take pride in being surly under different circumstances. What was bothering her was the idea that Max somehow did without because she needed more of her parents’ attention.

  “I think Max is the older brother, which means he wanted to be strong for them and you.” Jack chose his words carefully. “I don’t think you needed more than him, or stole anything from him. On the flip side, I can see your parents being worried about you. Isolation isn’t always a good thing and you built a wall around yourself.”

  “Do you think I still have a wall around myself?”

  “No. Not with the people who matter, at least.” His smile was warm and comforting, like a fuzzy blanket descending over her on a cold winter day. “You weren’t closed off, Ivy. You were simply careful. There’s nothing wrong with being careful.”

  “Sometimes I think I wanted to give you my heart from the very first second I saw you. Something whispered in the back of my mind that you were the one. I tried to ignore that voice for a whole five days before giving in, but part of me knew.”

  “Part of me knew, too.” He leaned forward and rested his forehead against hers. “Do you have any idea how much I love you?”

  “Probably about half as much as I love you.”

  “No, it’s double.”

  “Half.”

  “Double.”

  “Half.”

  He heaved out a sigh. “You just have to win, don’t you?”

  “I have you. I’ve already won the big prize.”

  “So sweet.” His grin was sloppy when he leaned in for a kiss. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree about who loves whom more.”

  “Fair enough.” Ivy forced herself to focus on him. “How did things go with you today? Did you solve your murder?”

  He wasn’t sure how to respond. What he had to tell her would be difficult … on multiple levels. “We haven’t solved it. Her name is Becky Morris … and she happened to be at the same campground we were this weekend.”

  Ivy felt as if the oxygen had been stolen from her lungs. “What? You can’t be serious.”
/>
  Jack was calm as he laid everything out for her. He spoke in measured tones and left nothing out. Other detectives would probably limit the amount of information they shared with their wives and significant others. That wasn’t how he operated, though.

  “That is unbelievable,” she said when he was finished, her mind working a mile a minute. “Does this mean Gordon is innocent?”

  Jack smirked. “I wondered how fast it would take you to get there. I don’t know what it means. I talked to Trooper Winters today and told him what happened. He’s equally flummoxed. Apparently Gordon has lawyered up and isn’t talking.”

  “Are they going to drop charges against him?”

  “Not yet. They have no reason to. We don’t have proof that the two deaths are linked.”

  “No, but … come on. They have to be linked. It’s way too much of a coincidence otherwise.”

  “I happen to agree.” Jack shoved the vegetarian wrap and fries he’d gotten her from the diner in her direction. “Eat your dinner before it gets cold. Then there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Ivy mechanically grabbed the wrap and took a big bite, her gaze shrewd as she chewed and watched him. She didn’t speak again until she swallowed. “You’re worried whoever killed Stacy followed us here.”

  He internally marveled at how quickly she’d worked that out. “I don’t know,” he replied after a beat. “It’s a bit of a leap to assume we’re the targets. The body was dumped in the freeway median, so it’s possible that someone else is the target and it was a coincidence where she was dropped.”

  Ivy wasn’t sure she believed in coincidences. “Maybe Stacy Shepherd was targeted because she was blond. You said that this Becky Morris was blond, too. Maybe whoever killed them was aiming for Becky the whole time.”

  “I’ve considered that, too. We can’t completely ignore Stacy in all of this, but we have to focus on Becky. She’s our primary concern.”

  “So what’s your next step?”

  “I want to go back to the campground.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “No way. That’s like two hours of driving.”

  “I don’t want to drive back.” He leveled a serious look in her direction. It was pointed.

  “You want to dream walk.” She was already nodding when she realized what he had in mind for their evening. They’d done it before to look over a crime scene. It was often helpful to both of them to do it together. “You want to go back to the scene of the first crime.”

  “I think it’s worth a shot. Are you game?”

  Ivy nodded without hesitation. “Yeah. I’m as worried about this as you are. I think it’s a good idea.”

  “I’m glad. I was hoping you would see things my way.”

  “Don’t I always see things your way?”

  “Actually, very rarely.”

  “Oh, now you’re just whining.”

  “And you’re being surly.”

  “Keep it up.”

  His smile turned indulgent. “For the rest of our lives.”

  Oddly enough, that was good with her. “Let’s eat and then take a bath. If we’re going to bed early, I need to relax.”

  “I have a few ideas on that, too.”

  Ivy had no doubt that was true.

  “JACK?”

  Ivy was antsy so it took her longer than she estimated to fall asleep. Jack slipped under long before she did, and she worried he would give up waiting for her and leave in a huff. Instead, he was sitting by the bank of the river fishing when she arrived.

  “I see you kept yourself busy, huh?” She was amused when her eyes landed on him. “Did you catch anything good?”

  “Just you.” He discarded the pole on the ground. It was a dream, so he wasn’t really littering, and pulled her toward him. “I was starting to get worried you weren’t coming.”

  “I couldn’t fall asleep,” she admitted, rueful. “The harder I tried, the more difficult it became. Finally, it was the sound of your breathing that did it. I focused on that and then, lo and behold, I dropped off right away.”

  “It’s okay. I know it’s difficult to fall asleep when the pressure is on.” He linked his fingers with hers. “I want to go back to the night we found Stacy’s body. I want to look around again, see what we can see.”

  “I figured.” Ivy lifted her chin as they slipped out of the woods and emerged in the campground they’d only left the day before. “It looks different from this vantage point, doesn’t it?”

  Jack slid his gaze to her, confused. “What looks different? Are you saying the campground looks different? I thought I did a good job building that while I was waiting for you.”

  Jack and Ivy had been sharing dreams from almost the start. Weeks after they met, they found themselves taking on leading roles in romantic rendezvous meet-ups. They initially assumed they were partaking in harmless dreams until the truth came out and they realized they were climbing into each other’s brains at night. Ivy explained that she believed Jack was calling to her because he was having trouble living with what happened to him, his former murderous partner trying to kill him. They worked together to smooth things over for Jack and, in the process, fell head over heels for each other. Ever since, they’d continued to go on dream adventures, although they’d limited themselves to once or twice a month because they didn’t want to become reliant on a fake world when the real world they already lived in was so fulfilling.

  “It’s not that,” Ivy reassured him hurriedly. “It’s just … I guess I didn’t realize the woods were so close to the trail from this direction. You would know better, though. You went into the woods so you could head down to the river and fish.”

  Jack, his brow furrowed, looked back and forth between the trail and the woods. “No, this distance feels right.”

  “It looks like it’s a longer distance when you’re standing on the hill,” Ivy noted. “I didn’t go into the woods at all this trip. Once the body was discovered, that seemed like a stupid idea.”

  “True.” Jack kept his eyes busy on the ground. “Okay, move to the spot where we were standing on the hill,” he instructed as he stood on the trail.

  Ivy dutifully did as told. There was no danger in this world. It was a place she and Jack had created out of thin air. Nothing could hurt them here. “This is where we were when we realized what we were dealing with,” she offered. “It was so dark we could hardly see at all.”

  “I remember that.” Jack rubbed his chin. “Stacy’s body was here.” As if by magic, the outline of the blonde’s body appeared at Jack’s feet. “She was facing the woods,” he noted. “That’s why we believed it was possible she fell. She honestly could’ve tripped and tumbled face first and landed the way she did. Maybe she really did trip, but it was probably because someone was chasing her. That might explain how she landed … and if our killer managed to catch her, he could’ve pressed her to the ground with a foot or something while breaking her neck.”

  The visual he was painting caused Ivy to swallow hard. She didn’t know how he dealt with the images in his head sometimes. She studied the ground on the hill rather than immediately react. “There aren’t a lot of rocks or sticks poking out to cause her to trip. I guess, if she was frightened enough, she could’ve tripped over her own feet. The thing is, if she was being chased, why not scream? We weren’t all on top of one another, but we would’ve heard her scream and come running.”

  “That’s a good point.” Jack dragged a restless hand through his hair. “That means it had to be a blitz attack. If she saw her killer coming then she would’ve alerted. I think you’re right on that front.” He lifted his eyes so he could stare in the direction of their campsite. “We left the fire going up there. Everyone left their fires going.” He turned in a circle and studied the landscape in every direction. “If I was going to kill someone and expected to get away with it, I wouldn’t hang around after the fact. I would head to the shadows to hide.”

  “Unless he wanted to watch everyone
’s reactions,” Ivy argued. “That’s possible, right? I mean … serial killers get off watching. Right now, we happen to believe that he’s killed more than one woman. That might not make him a serial killer, but it definitely makes him dangerous.”

  “Both the women looked alike,” Jack noted. “Maybe Stacy really was an accident. Maybe he was looking for Becky the whole time and somehow screwed it up.”

  “Or maybe they’re both substitutes and he’s really after someone else. Maybe our killer is triggered by blondes because somewhere in his past, maybe even a long time ago, a blonde did him wrong. Or he believes she did.”

  “That’s actually not a bad theory,” Jack mused, shifting from one foot to the other. “I still think it would’ve been smartest for the killer to hide in the shadows. You’ve got me thinking, though. Do you remember who rushed out when that woman started screaming after discovering the body?”

  “Um … .” Ivy racked her bran. “We were here.” She moved down two feet. “Max was here and I thought he was going to freak out.”

  “Right.” Jack gestured to his right. “Jeff was standing here. He looked really confused because he was by himself and didn’t have anyone to tell him what was happening. There were those two other guys who claimed they were on a fishing trip but were really having a weekend together.”

  Ivy’s eyes widened. “You mean the two hot ones who were dressed really well? They were together? I guess I should’ve seen that coming. They never went anyplace without one another.”

  “You thought they were hot?” Jack made a face. “I believe I’m the only person you’re supposed to think of as attractive.”

  “Whatever. Like you don’t have a thing for Kate Beckinsale.”

  He drenched himself in faux innocence. “You’re the only person I find attractive.”

  “Lies, lies, lies.” She shook her head. “I’ve seen you watch those Underworld movies. You love her in black leather and you know it.”