It didn’t matter to me how messed up Ivy West was, she didn’t deserve to die. After Jesse spilled his story, I had the urge to stab him myself, but I still needed him. If I was going to find the body, I’d have to rely on him to show me where she was buried. And then I’d make sure her story was told.
Back at the hotel, I changed clothes and found Giovanni stretched out on the loveseat reading a newspaper. He folded the paper in half and tossed it on the ground when he saw me enter the room.
“Ready for bed?” he said.
I walked over to the loveseat and sat down. “I need to ask you something.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
Giovanni stared into my eyes.“You want to know if I would have killed him.”
I nodded.
“Not in front of you.”
“What if I hadn’t been there?” I said.
“But you were, so it wasn’t necessary to make a decision.”
I wanted to say ‘do you do that—you know, kill people,’ but I was afraid of the answer. Several months earlier after we’d first met, I searched his name on the internet. It turned out Giovanni had been federally investigated, and not just once, but he was never tried and convicted of any criminal activity. Not yet, anyway. I wondered what it said about me for allowing myself to get involved with someone like him. I was the poster child for individual rights, and yet, Giovanni’s crew was at my disposal whenever I was in danger. I knew it, and so did they. How could I stand for justice while accepting their assistance?
“You’ve gone quiet, luce mia,” Giovanni said.
“Just thinking.”
He leaned forward and rubbed my hands in his. “I know you wonder about me and what I do, but I need you to understand something—I have never harmed any women or children.”
He hadn’t, but what about the others?
“Now I want to ask you something,” he said. “What will you do about Jesse when you get the proof you need?”
I leaned back and closed my eyes knowing all I had to do was say the word, and Jesse would never been seen again. “I honestly don’t know.”
Morning brought a trip to the hardware store for an assortment of shovels. I was surprised when I saw Jesse and noticed someone had taken the time to bandage his foot. Maybe organized crime had a soft spot after all. I didn’t. Not for Jesse. I wanted to tear off the bandage and slam my foot on top of his until the pain was like nothing he’d ever felt before. But I needed to be patient. By the end of the day I’d planned to turn him over to the police, and that was enough for me.
The six of us piled into an SUV and followed Jesse’s directions. Aside from telling Lucio when to take a left or a right, Jesse stayed quiet. But after what he’d told me the night before, I couldn’t.
“I never thought you were capable of such cruelty,” I said. “It goes to show I’m a poor judge of character sometimes.”
Jesse stared out the window acting like he hadn’t heard me. I opened my mouth to continue, but he said, “Stop. We’re here.”
One by one we exited the SUV until we were all out. Giovanni’s men gathered the tools they needed and we set off. Jesse had been outfitted with a pair of crutches, but even then, it felt like we were moving in slow motion.
After a short walk, I said, “I can’t keep this up. Can’t he point us in the direction of the body?”
“We’re close, but she’s right—I can’t make it,” Jesse said.
Giovanni thought it over and looked at his men who were all out of breath and sweaty like they’d just competed in a triathlon.
“I’ll stay with Jesse,” Giovanni said. “You three go with Sloane.”
“How much farther is this thing?” Lucio said.
Giovanni stepped toward him. “Is there a problem?”
Lucio replied, “No boss—no problem.”
I looked around. Trees and bushes dotted the landscape for miles. “Tell me what I’m looking for—a tree, a rock or marker of some kind…”
“A tree,” Jesse said. He flattened his hand, turned it to the side, and used it to point us in the right direction. “Follow this straight up. You’re gonna walk for about five minutes. You’ll come to a wicked-looking tree with blackened branches like it’s been burned in a fire. There’s an X carved into the base. You’ll wanna dig in front of that X.”
It seemed absurd. If I buried someone outdoors, I’d pick the plainest tree I could find so it wouldn’t draw attention. Not the one that stood out like a rabbit at a chicken fight.
“How far down is she—five feet or so?” I said.
Jesse shrugged. “More like three.”
“Three?”
“We knew nobody was ever gonna find her,” Jesse said. “It was late and we were tired.”
I gathered the men and we set off. The wind whistled through the trees whipping dust and fragments of weeds into the air. It was strange—eerie. Almost like Ivy knew I was coming to set her free. Several minutes went by and I caught a glimpse of blackened wood. “I think I see it!” I said.
The tree was twisty and viney and looked like it grew right out of a Tim Burton movie. It had to be the one. The men gathered around while I searched the base for an X. It didn’t take long for me to find it.
“Right here,” I said. “Dig in front of this.”
The excavation began, and since I had the power of three, it wasn’t long before Lucio shouted, “I feel something!”
The men scraped at the dirt with their hands. I watched, my body stiff, unable to move. I couldn’t believe we were actually excavating a hidden grave. Lucio punched his hand down into the soft dirt and then twisted it, trying to grab hold of what he felt before. Seconds later he shouted, “Got it!”
He retracted his hand until it was all the way out and we all gathered around. Everyone had a look of confusion in their eyes. I turned to Lucio. “Keep digging.”
“Well,” Jesse said. “What did you find?”
I grabbed an object from my pocket and hurled the object in Jesse’s direction. It landed at his feet.
He reached down and picked it up with a quizzical look on his face. “You shouldn’t have. What’s this supposed to be anyway?”
“A message.”
“In a bottle?”
He turned it around in his hand.
“Look inside,” I said.
Jesse stuck his pinky finger in and pulled out a dirty piece of paper.
“Read it,” I said. “Out loud.”
JESSE
I SAVED THE BEST FOR LAST
“What is this—some kind of joke?” Jesse said. “Where’d you get this thing?”
“That thing was found in the hole where you said Ivy was buried.”
“So you found her—her body, I mean?”
I shook my head. “She wasn’t there.”
He shuddered, terrified. “No…no…no…she has to be. Maybe you weren’t in the right spot.”
I whipped out my phone and showed him the picture I’d taken of the carving on the tree. “Is this it?”
He nodded.
“The guys dug even deeper than you said—still nothing.”
Jesse flung the bottle to the ground. “How’s that possible?”
“Obviously she wasn’t dead when you guys put her in there.”
“But we covered her up—a person couldn’t survive that, could they? Even if she wasn’t dead, she would have suffocated.”
Giovanni gave Jesse a look like he was a total amateur.
“How long did you wait there after she was buried?” I said.
“I dunno. Half hour, maybe less. We wanted to get the hell out of there. It gave us the creeps.”
“What’s the significance of the BUD LIGHT?” I said.
He shrugged.
“Oh, come on, Jesse. There has to be one. The bottle at your house, the one here. You were drinking it the night you buried Ivy, weren’t you?”
Jesse frowned.
One of the men looked at
Giovanni. “What you want us to do with him, Boss?”
Jesse’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “You’ve got no proof I did anything to Ivy. Let me go!”
I smiled and retrieved a digital recorder from my pocket. I wiggled it back and forth in front of Jesse. He frowned, well aware of the implications.
“Insurance,” I said. “Attempted murder. And you’re a cop, so you know how it goes.”
Giovanni instructed his men to squeeze Jesse in between them in the back seat until I decided what I wanted to do next.
“Well,” I said looking at Giovanni, “I’d say we have our motive. Revenge.”
“My baby!” Trista screamed into the phone. “She’s missing!”
“For how long?” I said.
“I don’t know!”
“Have you called the police?”
“They’re on their way—so’s Rosalind.”
I looked at Giovanni and he turned the car around. I grabbed a piece of paper from the glove box, scribbled Trista’s address on it and handed it to him.
“Trista—I need you to take a deep breath and tell me everything that’s happened since Alexa left you. Don’t leave anything out.”
“I don’t know if I can, Sloane. I feel like I’m going to pass out—I keep blacking out and grabbing the counter for support.”
In that moment, I was glad her twins were at school. They didn’t need to see their mom like this.
“If you want me to find her, you have to tell me whatever you can,” I said. “I know it’s hard. Everything will make sense when I get there, but right now, I need you to keep talking to me.”
“Alexa left here Sunday night. She wanted to get back because she had a shift at the hospital the next morning. But she never showed up for it.”
“What time did she leave?” I said.
“Around six pm last night.”
“Is that the last time you heard from her?”
“Ummm, no. She called me to say she forgot to take the money I left on her nightstand and asked me to mail it out today.”
“What time was that?”
“Hold on a sec…”
She pressed a few buttons on her phone. “It was at 6:52 pm.”
“Okay, so that explains why she wouldn’t have turned around—she’d been driving for almost an hour. Is that all she said?”
“We talked for a minute and she said she was stopping at a gas station.”
“Do you know which one?”
“Andy’s. She liked to go there because of his custom-made sandwiches.”
“What was she driving?” I said.
“2011 Jeep Liberty—Rosalind bought it for her.”
“Color?”
“Red.”
I relayed the information to Giovanni and he made a call.
“Trista, how did you find out Alexa was missing?”
“She didn’t answer any of my phone calls last night. I assumed she was sleeping. We usually talk on her way to work, but when she didn’t call to check in, I called the hospital and they said she hadn’t shown up. So then I called Alexa’s roommate. She said Alexa never came home last night. She assumed she stayed here another day and....”
The line went quiet, but the phone was still engaged. I heard a thud like a hundred pound bag of sugar hitting the floor.
“Trista! Are you still there?”
I turned to Giovanni. “Hurry!”
Andy, of Andy’s Gas and Grub, confirmed a red Jeep Liberty had been parked in the corner stall for about eighteen hours. He’d checked his security cameras and saw Alexa exit the car, but she never entered the store. At one point she looked over and walked to the other side of the building like she was meeting someone, but it was beyond the parameters of his security cameras. He’d called police to report the abandoned car, but so far no one had arrived to check it out.
We arrived at Trista’s and I sprung from my seat before the car screeched to a stop. A police car pulled up behind us and an officer shouted, “Wait!” But I had no intention of following his orders. Inside the house, Trista was face down on the kitchen floor, drool dripping from the side of her mouth. I stuck two fingers on her neck—she had a pulse.
Her eyes flashed open and she grabbed me. “What happened?”
One of the police officers grabbed me from behind and attempted to pull me back, but I didn’t budge.
“Remove your hands from her,” Giovanni said.
The officer spun around and glared at him. “What’d you just say?”
“He said remove…your…hands…from…the…lady. Now,” Lucio said.
The officer, who had the thickest mustache I’d ever seen, opened up his mouth to speak but Trista yelled, “Stop! Sloane’s here to help find my daughter, and if you want to waste time harassing her, you can leave.”
A second officer entered the room. “You can’t kick us out of your house ma’am. This is a formal investigation. We have a warrant.”
“Show it to me,” Giovanni said.
The officers looked at each other and then at Trista like no one had ever called their bluff before. Officer Mustache said, “What can we do to help, ma’am?”
I grabbed Trista’s arm and helped her off the ground. There were too many cooks in the kitchen, so I moved her to the sofa while Giovanni got her a glass of water. Once Trista was settled she gave the cops the same information she offered me. I excused myself, leaving Giovanni to look after her best interests, and went into the bedroom where I placed a call to the hospital Alexa worked at.
“Guardian Children’s Hospital,” a female voice said.
“Hi,” I said. “My daughter never showed up for her shift today—Alexa Ward. Could I talk to her supervisor?”
“Hold, please.”
In a hushed voice, the woman on the other line spoke to herself as if she was searching some kind of list. Then she returned to the line.
“Her supervisor isn’t here right now.”
“When will she be back?” I said.
“Says here she’s taken a leave of absence.”
“For how long?”
The woman sighed into the phone. “I’m not her keeper—I don’t know these things.”
She went to click the phone down and I said, “Wait! Is there anyone else I could talk to?”
Another deep sigh and then, “Hold on.”
I started to say ‘thank you’ but was cut off when the instrumental version of “You Light Up My Life” streamed through the phone. I considered hanging up, figuring the woman who answered wasn’t trying to light up my life, she was trying to ruin it, until a male voice answered.
“This is Doctor Ashby.”
“I’m trying to get in touch with Alexa Ward’s supervisor,” I said.
“And you are?”
“Alexa’s mother.”
“Funny.”
“What?” I said.
“I’ve met Alexa’s mother. Her voice is higher pitched than yours. Should I hang up now?”
I sighed. “I’m a private investigator, who went to school with Alexa’s father, and I am in town trying to find clues about what happened to him, but now we have an additional problem: Alexa’s missing.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“The real Trista Ward is in the next room talking to the police,” I said. “I can put her on the line.”
“Shayna Robbins isn’t here right now.”
“Who?” I said.
“That’s who you’d want to speak with…she’s Alexa’s supervisor. I’m only in charge of Alexa and a couple other interns during Shayna’s absence.”
“How long has Shayna been off work?”
“Three weeks, and if you ask me, I hope she stays gone.”
“Why?”
“Ever since the new interns started, she hasn’t been herself. Especially with Alexa.”
“How was she different?” I said.
“Shayna followed Alexa around and tried to get together with her outside of work, and we don�
�t condone relationships between supervisors and staff.”
“Can I send you a photo?” I said.
“What for?”
“I’d like you to take a look at it and tell me if you recognize the woman in the photo. Don’t pay attention to the hair or the clothes—just the face.”
“I guess.”
“Great, I’m sending it over now. I’ll write my number on the fax.”
When I returned to the living room, Officer Mustache was conferring with Officer No-Mustache in the corner. Their whispered banter was interrupted by Rosalind who flew through the door like The Wicked Witch of the West, except she’d forgotten her broom.
“You won’t find my granddaughter by standing around,” she spat.
Officer Mustache said, “We’re following up on some leads now, Mrs. Ward.”
“Such as?”
Officer Mustache thumbed in Giovanni’s direction. “He just informed us Alexa’s car was spotted about an hour from here.”
“I don’t care about the car—where’s my granddaughter!”
Both officers stood there unsure of what to say.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket and I excused myself from the room. “Thanks for returning my call so quickly,” I said.
“I got your fax—and you’re right—this is a really old photo, but the face is remarkable. It’s like Shayna hasn’t aged one bit.”
“You’re sure the woman in the photo is Shayna Robbins?”
“One hundred percent. But I don’t understand. The fax you sent said the woman in the photo is named Ivy West and has been missing for two decades.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you more, but I have to go.”
I ended the call and found Trista. “Can I talk to you—alone?”
We entered her bedroom and I locked the door behind me.
“What’s going on—do you know something?” Trista said.
I hated this part. “Yes.”
Trista grabbed my shoulders and squeezed. “What is it? Tell me!”
“I know where Alexa is—well, not where she is, but who took her. But it won’t make sense to you until I tell you everything.”
I Have a Secret (A Sloane Monroe Novel, Book Three) Page 14
