Shadowing Ivy

by Janelle Taylor

  She smiled. “Actually, I promised it away before I knew any of this. A vic had her wedding dress stolen right out of her car a few days ago. Can you believe that?”

  “I can believe anything, Ivy,” he said, holding her gaze. “So you told her you’d give her your gown?”

  She nodded and explained about watching Laura at the diner with those annoying kids. About what she’d said about her own father.

  Griffin seemed to be taking her measure, thinking, making assumptions. She wondered what he was thinking. Potential suspect and dupe Ivy Sedgwick is the type who falls for pretty-boy con artists and gives away her wedding gown to any crying woman on the street.

  “So why don’t we stay here tonight,” he said, “keep ourselves situated in the living room so that CSI can do their job, and then we’ll head to the city first thing after you deliver the gown.”

  He was going to stay here? In her house? Were they going to sleep head to toe on her overstuffed sofa?

  “I’ll put on another pot of coffee,” she told him.

  “You know what,” he said, “I’m pretty good in the kitchen. You relax. I’ll make us something to eat, if that’s okay. And I’ll make the coffee.”

  “Be my guest,” she told him, aware that he very likely wanted free rein to snoop in her drawers. “I don’t know if I can eat anything, but my stomach is growling.”

  “How about a glass of white wine to start?” he said. “I see you have some in your fridge.”

  She nodded. “Sounds good.”

  “CSI will be here in a few minutes,” he added, then disappeared back into the kitchen. She heard cabinets opening and shutting. Plates clinking.

  A few minutes later, he had a hunk of cheddar cheese and crackers on a plate and two glasses of wine on the coffee table.

  “Well, isn’t this romantic,” she said and burst into tears, then shot up from the sofa. “I have to stop doing that. Bursting into tears. I’m telling you, Fargo, I’m not the crybaby type.”

  “But your wedding day turned into a nightmare, and you’re entitled,” he said gently, reaching to squeeze her hand.

  God, his hand felt good. Big and warm and strong, and for a moment she wanted to just collapse against his tall, muscular body and let him hold her.

  But Griffin Fargo didn’t seem like the holding type. And she was still a suspect in his eyes.

  The doorbell rang, and Griffin let in the CSI team. Ivy took a sip of wine and tried not to follow them around. She wasn’t a cop right now. They dusted for prints, spent considerable time outside around the perimeter of her house, and then took photographs. An hour later, they were gone.

  Griffin sliced some cheese and topped a cracker with it, then handed it to Ivy. “Eat.”

  She sat down on the love seat across from him and did as she was told. She was about to cross her legs when she realized he would get an eyeful. She accepted the snack—she was hungry. They ate in silence, sipping at their wine.

  “Did you love Declan like a brother when you were kids?” she asked. She wondered if he would answer or again tell her that he would do the questioning.

  He let out a deep breath. “I did at first. I was three when he was born. Our father was having an affair with Declan’s mother for months before he left my mother. Because he and Declan’s mother were married for so long, I thought my father wasn’t such a bad guy, that he just fell in love with another woman. But Declan would tell me about seeing our dad with other women in the house when his mother was at work. She was a nurse and worked the night shift for a while. I think he stayed married to her because she had some family money. Despite being a doctor, my father worked only sporadically, then just stopped practicing altogether. He just wanted to play golf and sail.”

  She looked at him for a moment, surprised he’d told her all that. “My father was a workaholic to his last minute on earth, apparently. But I guess not being a workaholic didn’t mean your father spent any more time with you or Declan, huh?”

  “Nope. Just makes them bad parents,” Griffin said.

  Ivy nodded and took a deep breath. She rarely talked about her feelings about her father with anyone, even her sisters. Any time she brought up her dad, her mother would just rant and rave instead of getting to the heart of what Ivy wanted, which was comfort. It just plain hurt to have a father who didn’t love you, didn’t care about you, didn’t want to know you.

  Ivy realized she was all hunched up on the sofa. Between Declan and thinking about her father, she’d twisted herself into a knot. She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the ache.

  Suddenly, Griffin was standing behind her, his strong, warm hands on the bare skin of her neck. He massaged her shoulders, not too hard, not too soft. Just right.

  “If you really suspected me of being Declan’s partner in crime, you would not be easing my pain,” she said.

  He bent down and whispered in her ear, “Or maybe I’m trying to gain your trust.”

  She whipped around, their faces so close she could lean forward and kiss him. “Don’t play games with me. I’m telling you that right now. I won’t be toyed with.”

  “Touché,” he said. “And it’s a deal.” Then he continued to rub her shoulders.

  Lean forward and kiss him. Where the hell had that come from? She couldn’t possibly be attracted to Griffin Fargo, could she? Yeah, his hands were on her bare skin at the moment, which felt amazingly good. And yeah, he was very good-looking. Tall, dark with those intense brown eyes. Masculine. Not pretty blue, like Declan. He was more George Clooney than Brad Pitt.

  What he was, was on the up and up. Honest. A man trying to solve a homicide. He was the good guy. Not the bad guy. And the man she’d given her heart to these many months, the man she’d dreamed of marrying, was the bad guy. No wonder she wanted to throw herself into Griffin’s strong embrace and just be held for a while. By the good guy.

  Or maybe I’m just trying to gain your trust.

  She’d better remember that Griffin Fargo wasn’t necessarily all good.

  “I need to get to sleep,” she said. “This has been the day from hell.” She needed a break from Griffin, too. His questions, his intensity. His ... masculinity.

  He got up and disappeared into her bedroom, returning with two pillows and her comforter. “I’d prefer that we slept here, on the couch. I don’t want to jeopardize any potential missed evidence in the bedroom. And if Declan comes back, I want to make sure you’re three inches away from me at all times.”

  Three inches sounded way too close for comfort.

  But Ivy was exhausted and her eyelids heavy. She lay down on the oversized, overstuffed sofa, placing the back pillows on the floor so that there would be more room. “I really don’t want to smell your feet,” she told Griffin. She scooted her body back against the sofa to make room for him. “So can we forget about the head-feet thing?”

  He smiled and lay down, staring up at the ceiling. She could smell his soap. Ivory. She had to admit, she did feel safe lying there between him and the back of the sofa. She’d been about to marry the boogie man, and now he couldn’t get to her. He’d have to go through Griffin first, and as demonstrated at the church, that was something he was too scared to do.

  Ivy moved to lay on her back, instead of her side. Their shoulders and thigh touched and a strange spark zipped through Ivy. For a moment, well, longer than a moment, she imagined him turning, that strong body on top of hers, the heavy weight of him against her breasts. The thought obliterated reality for a moment, and for that she was grateful.

  “Penny for your thoughts,” he said, turning his head to face her.

  She closed her eyes. “Good night,” she said.

  “Night.”

  But it was a long time before Ivy fell asleep.

  For a woman who was engaged to Declan McLean, Ivy Sedgwick sure didn’t know much about him. With the woman sleeping less than an inch from where he lay, Griffin stared at his pad, a few notes that gave him very little to go on. He took a si
delong glance at Ivy.

  Damn, she was beautiful. Her skin, so soft and creamy, and those long eyelashes. Her lips were slightly parted, as was the lapel of her white robe. The curve of her breast was visible, and Griffin swallowed.

  He turned back to his notepad, forcing his mind off her body and on to her brain.

  Was she in cahoots with Declan? Were they a team? The only thing he bet she was guilty of was being conned. But he would reserve judgment on that. At the moment, he was trying to figure out how she could know so little about her own fiancé. How was that possible?

  According to what Ivy did know, Declan wanted to run his own corporation one day. He’d talked about retiring to the Caribbean with the millions he’d make, running a tiki bar, sailing. He wanted to learn Japanese. He talked a lot about opening a children’s center, where kids from broken or depressing homes could go after school to play ball, games, have counselors present. Oh, and he liked tuna steak and Nestle Crunch bars. Declan and Ivy saw each other once or twice during the week, rarely overnight, as Declan supposedly had early classes. He’d sometimes stay over on a Friday or Saturday night, leaving early for a “study group.”

  Griffin did recall that his half brother liked chocolate bars. Other than that, hell if he knew if any of the rest was true or part of the package Declan had created to snare Ivy. Griffin had barely spoken to Declan in the past ten years. Each instance they had spoken, Declan had broken the law. Or a law—of human decency. But Declan would play the “my big brother Griffin is a cop” card, and he’d be let off, just like that. Years ago, Griffin had alerted his precinct that his brother was a con artist, but Declan had gotten much more careful over the years.

  One truth Declan had told, in part, was about his name. He had been born Declan Fargo, choosing to take his stepfather’s name—McLean—when he was eighteen.

  Declan had gotten into a huge fight with their father right before then, and that had been that. Their dad had long ago washed his hands of Declan, so the name change hardly broke his heart. It had bothered Griffin. Even though he and Declan were hardly close, the last name Fargo was their one connection; it seemed the only thing that had made them brothers. And Declan had gotten rid of it.

  Another truth was the fact that Declan had worked briefly at Sedgwick Enterprises, very likely to find his way to a Sedgwick daughter. As Declan’s mother was an old friend of Ivy’s mother, that hadn’t been hard. And it made sense that Declan would have to introduce himself to Ivy as Declan McLean. He’d had no choice.

  The more Griffin thought about it, thought about what kind of person his brother was, how smooth he was at lying, at spinning a story, at conning everyone he’d ever met, the more he knew that Ivy had been set up. It was easy to see how she wouldn’t have been able to stand a chance against Declan, no matter how good a cop she was.

  A memory flashed briefly into his mind, of the time right before Griffin’s stepmother, Declan’s mother, discovered their father in bed with a nurse from the hospital. Griffin had been devastated by his father’s betrayal, his father’s insensitivity. He’d believed in his heart that his father had left him and his mother to marry Declan’s mother because he was so deeply in love, but here he was, making a mockery of that, in bed with someone else.

  Declan had told Griffin about the terrible argument, involving lamps being hurled, that had followed. His father had been married twice already. Griffin wasn’t nuts about his stepmother; she wasn’t the most emotionally generous person in the world, but she wasn’t out and out unkind. He felt for her. Declan’s response to his mother finding his father in bed with a nurse in her own home? Laughter. And then: What an ass. You’d think Dad would be smart enough to screw around in the chick’s house or a hotel.

  Nothing much affected Declan. He didn’t seem to have much of a conscience.

  Griffin wondered if he was on his way to some non-U.S. island at the moment, traveling under what Griffin assumed was a wallet full of aliases and fake identification. Maybe. Or maybe he was close by, waiting to get his hands on Ivy. For what, Griffin wasn’t sure. The threat on the mirror indicated that she knew more than she was telling. More than she knew, perhaps. Griffin would put his bets on the last one.

  The memory of his father, able-bodied, of sound mind, strong and handsome, shook Griffin for a moment. Just six months ago, Frederick Fargo had been slumped over in a wheelchair by the window overlooking the concrete patio of his nursing home. A few stone tables, each with a potted geranium, made up the view. His father would fuss, wave his hands around, until he was led to his spot by the window. And he’d just stare out.

  Griffin had visited every day, despite the fact that his father had no idea who he was. Once, he’d mentioned Declan’s name, and he could have sworn he saw a light go on in his father’s eyes, but it had gone out a second later. He’d sat with his dad by the window for a half hour, then he’d go check in with Joey, the eighteen-year-old boy—young man—whose own father was also ravaged by Alzheimer’s. A senior in high school, Joey would come every day after school, at four o’clock, and sit with his dad by another window and tell the man everything. Joey’s dad, only in his early fifties, seemed unhearing and unseeing, but Joey would sit and talk regardless, sharing his day at school, how the basketball team did, that his mom’s new husband wasn’t so bad, even though he had a “stick up his ass.” Turned out Joey’s mother had divorced her father well before illness struck. Griffin wished he’d had that much to say to his own father, but he didn’t despite being almost twice Joey’s age. Griffin was thirty-two. And he knew more about Joey’s father, more about Joey, than he knew about anyone.

  Griffin shook off the past and stared at Ivy. How could she know so little about Declan? How could Griffin know more about a stranger in a nursing home—someone else’s father—than Ivy claimed to know about her own fiancé? She knew nothing of his past, except the nonsense he’d fed her, and even that didn’t amount to much.

  Then again, what did he know about what made people fall in love? Griffin had never been married, though he could imagine being married. He’d fallen pretty hard for stupid reasons—once he’d heard a woman singing and fell before he laid eyes on her. Another time, it was the way a struggling single mother had talked so lovingly with her toddler, despite having just been robbed. He’d loved and he’d been betrayed, too. People got duped all the time, by con artists and by perfectly nice people.

  Ivy looked so fragile lying there in her robe. He could tell she was sleeping fitfully.

  A noise, like a gentle click, startled Griffin, and he bolted up. The front doorknob was turning. Quietly, as if the person outside didn’t want his presence known. With his gun at the ready, Griffin silently padded to the door, ready to face his brother again.

  This time Declan wouldn’t get away.

  Chapter Seven

  Griffin moved to the side of the door, quietly unlatched the deadbolt, and threw open the door, his gun pointed at ... Ivy’s friend, the cop. Alanna something. He lowered his weapon and replaced it in his holster.

  “I apologize,” he said. “But I can’t be too careful.”

  He’d spooked her. Shaking, the woman took a deep breath to regain her composure. “Agreed,” she said, her eyes wide. She peered around Griffin. “Is Ivy here? Is she okay?”

  The lady in question rose from the couch, wide-awake now and alert. “Alanna? What’s going on?”

  Alanna rushed in. “I was just so worried about you, hon,” she said, pushing her long, brown ponytail behind her shoulder. “You didn’t answer your phone. I’ve called so many times. And I stopped by earlier and you didn’t answer. I just needed to see you with my own eyes, see that you’re okay.”

  “You stopped by earlier?” Griffin asked. “What time?”

  “Around seven-thirty, a little after,” Alanna said, glancing between Griffin and Ivy. “Why, what’s going on?”

  “Declan was here,” Ivy said. “He left me a threatening message on my bedroom mirror.”


  Alanna let out a breath. “I know. I heard about it from the station house. New York City Homicide informed them. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been calling like crazy.”

  “When you stopped by, did you notice anything out of the ordinary?” Griffin asked Alanna.

  She shook her head. “Certainly nothing that caught my attention, and believe me, my guard was way up. The front door was locked, just as it was now. I tried it then, too. But, of course, Declan had a key, right?”

  Ivy shook her head.

  “He very likely took her keys and had a copy made, letting himself in and out,” Griffin said.

  Alanna stood next to Ivy and took her hands. “You’re welcome to come stay with me, Ivy. I’d feel so much better if you did.”

  Ivy ran a hand through her silky brown hair. “I really appreciate that, Alanna, but I’ve got a much bigger bodyguard right here.” She gestured her thumb at Griffin. “He needs me first thing at the precinct to answer more questions, so it’s best if we just stay here.”

  “And if Declan comes back,” Griffin added, “I’ll be ready for him.”

  “I got a taste of that myself,” Alanna said, “so I know you’re in good hands, Ivy. Call me when you can, okay? Anything I can do on my end, just let me know.”

  When Alanna left, Ivy sat back down on the sofa, pulling her throw over her. “It’s good to have friends,” she said, those pretty blue eyes cloudy with worry and hurt.

  “And there’s no reason to think that you can’t trust Alanna?” Griffin asked as casually as he could.

  Ivy shot up, the throw falling to the floor. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Do you trust her?” he repeated. “Unequivocally?”

  “Of course I do,” she shot back, sitting back down and tucking her legs beneath her. She settled the throw around her, covering up that beautiful glimpse of cleavage. “I’ve been close friends with Alanna since even before the police academy.”