by Brenda Novak
He’d known she would be back to her home, sooner or later.
Footsteps padded closer to him. He’d left the pantry door cracked open, just a bit, and he saw the cop approaching. He backed up a bit, heading into the darkness of that pantry. The shadows.
Come and get me…
The pantry door opened.
A blond man stood there. Had to be the one Ivy had called “detective”. Behind his mask, the killer smiled. The cop wasn’t even looking at him. He was staring at the bread on the nearby shelf. The guy strolled inside as if he owned the place.
You don’t.
The cop reached for the bread.
The killer gripped the weapon in his hand—and he stabbed the bastard with his knife.
The cop opened his mouth to scream. Can’t have that. Before that sound could escape, the killer clamped his left hand over the guy’s lips. He stabbed the cop again and again.
He stabbed him until the man’s body stopped twitching.
Until the detective just slid to the floor.
***
“Bennett? Hi…um, I’m home,” Ivy said when he answered her call. She paused near her bedroom door.
“Ivy.”
She liked the way he said her name. Liked the need and the—
“Is the detective still with you?” Bennett demanded.
She smiled. “He’s downstairs. Don’t worry. I’m totally safe.” She strolled into her room. Gazed down at the street below. It was broad daylight, and the moss hanging from the oak tree at the end of her drive swayed lightly in the breeze. “Hugh is with me, too. Though he’s currently sleeping like—” The dead. She cleared her throat. “He’s sleeping.” She paced back toward the bedroom door. “Bennett, did you learn anything new? Did you—”
Her doorbell rang.
Ivy paused. She’d just looked out the window. There had been no cars in front of her house. She hadn’t seen anyone walking in the street.
“What’s wrong?” Bennett asked her.
“Nothing. Someone’s just at the door.”
She hurried from her room, keeping the phone pressed to her ear as she headed down the stairs. “Hugh just got to sleep. I don’t want anyone to wake him up.” She rushed past the kitchen. From the corner of her eye, she saw the detective, standing just inside her pantry. “I have to get the door,” Ivy told Bennett. “Give me just a second…”
She peeked through her curtains, trying to get a glimpse of her porch. She couldn’t see anyone though and—
The doorbell rang again.
“Get Detective Trout to check outside.” Bennett’s voice sounded angry. “Don’t open the door.”
She took a step away from the window. “Okay. Just settle down, all right? You’re making me nervous.” She cleared her throat. And I’m already plenty nervous enough. He didn’t have to help the situation any.
“Ivy!” The doorbell rang again, right after that loud cry, and she jumped. “It’s Cameron!”
Her breath expelled in a quick rush. “It’s okay, Bennett,” she told him quickly. “I know who’s at the door.”
The floor creaked behind her. She didn’t look back. Detective Trout must be heading her way.
“Cameron’s at the door,” Ivy said to Bennett, “I’ll call you right back—”
“No!” Now his voice sounded desperate.
Ivy had just started to reach for the doorknob with her left hand. Her fingers stilled.
“Don’t let him in. Don’t open the door. I think he’s a killer, Ivy.”
What?
The floor squeaked behind her once more.
“I think he killed—”
The door shook beneath what had to be Cameron’s pounding fists. “Ivy!” He bellowed. “Let me in!”
She spun around, thinking the detective must have been behind her—she’d heard his footsteps, right? Or at least, the creak of the floor beneath him.
But…no one was there.
“Who do you think he killed?” Ivy asked Bennett. Then she laughed because this was crazy. Cameron was her friend, not a killer. “Not Shelly. And he…he doesn’t even have the right hair color, Bennett. I told you, that night at the Order of Pharaohs ball, the man in the mask had dark hair. Cameron has blond hair.”
The door had stopped shaking beneath Cameron’s fists.
“Ivy, get Detective Trout,” Bennett said grimly.
That was what she was trying to do! She hurried to the kitchen. The pantry door was still slightly ajar. “Who do you think Cameron killed?” Ivy demanded again.
“Your father.”
She almost dropped the phone. That was just…just crazy. No way had Cameron killed her father. Her father had committed suicide. Her fingers—quivering just a bit—reached for the pantry door. She opened it.
It was dark inside.
Ivy flipped the light switch.
And saw the body on the floor.
“Ivy, Ivy talk to me…”
She rushed inside and nearly slipped in the blood. So much blood. “Bennett…” She put her hand to the detective’s throat. “He’s dead, Bennett. Detective Trout is dead.”
“Cameron is in the house!”
“No.” Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “He’s at the front door. Detective Trout is dead inside. The killer is inside.” A killer that wasn’t Cameron.
Then, up above her, she heard a creak. Ivy’s head tipped back as she stared at the ceiling. Her guest room was directly above the pantry. Hugh was up there. Asleep.
Helpless.
And I don’t think he is alone.
“Hurry, Bennett. Hurry.” She shot out of the pantry. “Because I can’t let him kill my brother!”
“Ivy, Ivy, baby, no, whatever—”
“I love you,” she whispered. Then Ivy shoved the phone into her back pocket because she couldn’t keep the phone in her grasp when she was fighting that jerk upstairs. She spun around in her kitchen, looking for a weapon.
She had a block of knives on her counter, and she grabbed the butcher knife.
Then she ran for the stairs.
***
“Ivy? Ivy!” Bennett yelled.
But there was no answer.
Shit, shit, shit! He floored the gas even as he put in a frantic call to the PD. He gave the dispatcher Ivy’s address and told her, “An officer is down and the suspected perp is in the house.” In the house—Dear God, with Ivy. “Get units there, now!”
But he would get there before they arrived. He was just a few miles away.
Just a few…
But Ivy had never seemed farther from him.
I love you. Her last words whispered through his mind, driving him right to the edge of sanity. If he got there and Ivy was hurt…if she was lying dead in a pool of blood, like Shelly…
No, baby, no.
He raced right through a red light, honking his horn to alert the other drivers. Fear was an acid, burning in his gut. Ivy—she was all he could think about. Ivy was the only thing that mattered.
Ivy. He prayed that he wouldn’t get to her…too late.
***
Ivy wasn’t letting him in.
Cameron backed away from her front door. He was lucky the neighbors hadn’t already called the cops on him. But he’d been forced to yell and pound at Ivy’s door so she’d know it was him out there. He hadn’t brought his phone with him when he’d ditched those cops who’d been on his trail. He’d needed her to know it was him on her porch. Needed her to understand that she was safe.
After their little chat at the station, it had been abundantly clear that Bennett suspected him. The guy’s green gaze had glittered with fury as he stared at Cameron. So who knew what shit the detective had told Ivy? He had to reassure her.
Only Ivy still hadn’t answered the door.
Because she believed Bennett’s lies or…
He jumped off her porch and stared up at the house. Ivy’s room was to the left. And the guest room was to the right. The blinds were drawn in the
guest room.
He looked back over his shoulder. A sedan was at the end of the street. It looked like an unmarked police car to him. But…if it was…if Ivy was in the house with a cop…
She would have answered the door.
Ivy was his friend. There was only one reason she wouldn’t let him in.
Because she’s in trouble.
Dammit, Ivy needed him.
He ran around to the back of the house. Her back door was made partially of glass. The front door was too hard to break through, but the back—I’ll bust my way inside.
Because he was getting to Ivy.
***
Ivy rushed off the stairs. She flew toward the guest room.
And she nearly ran into the man who was waiting for her. A tall man, with broad shoulders. A man wearing a white Mardi Gras mask that totally covered his face. The mask covered everything, except his bright blue eyes.
She looked into those eyes…and saw evil staring back at her.
She jumped away from him and lifted her knife. “Who the hell are you?”
His eyes gleamed. “The man in the mask…”
He was just a few feet away from Hugh’s door. And there was…there was a bloody knife in his hand.
Her lips trembled. “What did you do?”
“I made sure we could be alone.” He made no move toward her. Just held his knife.
She held hers.
“Mirror, mirror…pretty broken mirror…” he whispered.
She inched down the hallway. “Hugh?” His name emerged as a broken cry. She tried again. Louder. “Hugh?”
The man in the mask laughed. “He can’t answer…”
Her fingers tightened around her butcher knife.
“Such a shame…”
He’d said that before. In that dark corridor at the Order of Pharaohs ball.
Inside, Ivy was breaking apart. Breath by breath. Her heart was splintering. But she tried her best not to show any fear. She suspected he’d like her fear too much. “The police are coming.”
His bright blue gaze darted to her knife. “Think you’ll kill me before they get here?”
Yes. Because if he’d stabbed her brother, if he’d taken Hugh from her, I will kill him.
“I’m not the one you should fear, sweet Ivy. It was never my plan.”
Glass shattered. The sharp sound came from downstairs and Ivy jerked. Her gaze flew toward the stairs.
And the man in the mask lunged toward her.
“No!” Ivy lifted her knife and she drove it into his stomach. There was a sickening, wet sound as that blade cut deep and his blue eyes widened.
“Ivy…” Anger and pain twisted in his voice.
Her knife was still in his stomach.
And his knife was at her throat. She remembered another time. Another knife. Sebastian Jones’s step-father had wanted to cut her throat, too.
But she’d held him off.
Then Hugh and Cameron had arrived…
“Ivy!”
Relief nearly made her dizzy. That was Cameron’s voice. Cameron pounded up the stairs. Her alarm was shrieking, and she knew that he must have broken in through her back door. That shattering she’d heard had been the door’s glass panel breaking.
“If you move,” the man in the mask told her, “I will cut you ear to ear.”
She had her knife buried to the hilt in him but he was still standing there, like some terrible movie monster, far too strong.
“Ivy…” Cameron sounded so close. So desperate.
Her gaze slid toward him. He was right at the landing, and his gaze glittered wildly.
“The police are coming,” she managed to say, choking back her fear. “He’s not going to get away.”
Cameron shook his head. “No. He won’t. I promise you that.”
Cameron was wearing jogging shorts and a t-shirt. His body was covered in a light film of sweat, as if he’d run to her house.
“I know a secret,” the man in the mask said to Ivy, his voice nearly gloating. “Want to hear it?”
Then he leaned in real close to her.
Her fingers were slick around the handle of her butcher knife, slick with his blood and her sweat.
The masked man’s lips feathered over her ear. “You’re not safe…”
That wasn’t a secret. He had a damn knife at her throat. Ivy tensed, knowing what she had to do. She’d need to move fast. She’d have to hit him again, take him down.
Or I’ll die…
“He’s the one who wants you,” the masked man rasped. “He’s the one who started it all…”
What?
“Your friend…Cameron…”
Once more, her gaze cut to Cameron. He was advancing, slowly and…Cameron had a knife in his hand. She could just see it—hidden behind his leg. Another one of her kitchen knives.
“He did it all…” The masked man told her. “And you never knew.”
Ivy yanked back on the handle of her knife. There was a wet slosh as the blade slid out of her attacker.
His knife sliced over her neck and—
Cameron roared. He attacked. Cameron grabbed the masked man and yanked him away from Ivy. Then he drove his knife right at the killer’s chest.
Only the masked man seemed far too ready for his attack. He dodged that blade and launched himself at Cameron. Their bodies twisted—Cameron and that masked man—and they fell back, tumbling down the stairs again and again with a sickening crunch of bones.
And then they stopped, a heap at the bottom of the stairs. Ivy stared down at them, horrified.
The masked man began to move.
So did Cameron. Cameron drove his fist at the other guy.
She looked at the bloody knife in her hand, and Ivy crept down the stairs.
Chapter Thirteen
Bennett slammed on the brakes and jumped out of his car. The car door hung open as he raced toward Ivy’s house. He grabbed for that front doorknob, but it was locked. “Ivy!” The door was hard, sturdy, reinforced…and there was going to be no breaking it in easily.
But the back door isn’t like this one. He remembered seeing it before—and thinking that Ivy needed more security back there.
He ran to the back door and saw the broken glass littering the ground. The door was open, swaying a bit in the breeze. He rushed inside. “Ivy!” He had to find her.
Then he heard the grunts, the thud of fists hitting flesh.
Bennett burst out of the kitchen. Two men were fighting at the foot of the stairs. Cameron Wilde and a man with dark hair, a man bleeding and snarling.
A white Mardi Gras mask lay just a few feet from the struggling men.
Ivy was there, inching down the stairs. Her gaze was totally locked on the two men. The knife in her hand dripped blood and she began to lift it. Up, up—
He had his gun out and he aimed it at the two men. “Freeze the fuck now!”
They froze. Cameron jerked away from the man and his desperate gaze found Bennett. “Shoot him, now! He came to kill Ivy!”
The alarm blared all around them. Bennett caught sight of a white Mardi Gras mask on the floor—part of the mask had broken away. “I said freeze,” Bennett roared. “Both of you!”
Ivy was on the steps, far too close to those damn men. His gaze flew over them—Cameron had blood dripping from his busted lip. The other man—he was just as Ivy had described the first night. Tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired. His blue eyes glittered and a smirk twisted his lips.
Both men appeared unarmed.
Appeared.
Both men were also between him and Ivy, and that shit just wasn’t going to fly.
“The place is going to be swarming with cops in moments.” Bennett motioned to the dark-haired man. “You’re not getting away.”
The man laughed.
“Shoot him!” Cameron yelled. “He killed Shelly, he killed—”
“My brother,” Ivy said, her voice breaking.
Oh, fuck. Bennett didn’t even know h
ow Ivy was holding things together if Hugh was dead.
“Hugh?” Cameron shook his head. “Not Hugh. He’s…he’s my best friend.” And he sounded confused.
The dark-haired man laughed. “And that’s how your fucking house of cards goes down…down, down, down…”
Bennett knew Cameron was going to attack. He saw the man’s eyes blaze with hate and rage and—
Cameron lunged for the killer. Only the killer was moving, too. But not going toward Cameron. The man turned and grabbed for Ivy.
She slashed out with the knife, and it cut across the killer’s forearm. The man yelled and he reached for her again. She sliced out with a butcher knife once more.
Cameron drove his fist into the man’s back. “She was never for you! Leave her the hell alone!”
The dark-haired man rammed his elbow into Cameron’s face. Bones crunched and Cameron fell back, howling in pain.
Bennett was already racing forward. He jumped over Cameron, intent on his target. Before that bastard could grab for Ivy again, Bennett had his gun pressed to the back of the man’s head. “I told you to freeze before. Move again, so much as an inch, and I will pull the trigger.”
Cameron was behind him, still moaning and groaning, but from the sound of things, getting to his feet.
Ivy stood just two steps above the killer. The knife was clenched in her fist. Her eyes burned with her fear and horror.
He killed Hugh.
The man in front of Bennett…laughed.
Bennett’s finger started to squeeze that trigger.
“This is almost like the way your father went out,” the man murmured to Ivy. “Isn’t it? Except the gun is at the back of my head, not being forced into my mouth by Cameron.”
Ivy’s face bleached of its last remaining bit of color. She lifted the knife, as if she’d stab the man again.
“Don’t, Ivy,” Bennett said because…shit, hadn’t he suspected the same thing? That Cameron had killed Ivy’s father? But how—how did the man in front of him know that?
That’s how your fucking house of cards goes down, down, down…
“He’s lying!” Cameron yelled from behind Bennett. Bennett didn’t look at him. He was afraid that if he took his eyes off the dark-haired man, the guy would go for Ivy once more. “You know…Ivy you know I always protect you!”
