by Jill Shalvis
“Everything okay in here?” she asked.
Arlo gave her a sweet wink. “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’re supposed to be resting.”
“Resting is my favorite activity.”
The nurse rolled her eyes and left.
“Can you describe him?” Kel asked.
“Late twenties to early thirties,” Arlo said. “Red hair that needs a cut, scruffy wannabe hipster beard. His left arm was tatted up.”
Kel had started to write down the description, but at this he stilled and lifted his head. “Did you see his eyes?”
“Yeah. One blue, one green. Weird as hell. He’d covered the ground floor security cameras with spray paint and was on the second floor. He’d broken into the business office and gym. He had a stack of laptops and tablets. Somehow he knew that was the only floor that had anything of value in it yet.”
The business center had just been stocked with computers, the gym with state-of-the-art equipment. One week from now at least ten of the units would’ve had people and valuables in them, as this coming weekend the place was opening to the first round of owners.
How had Brandon known to hit the condo building? That answer was easy. Obviously Ivy, who’d gotten the intel from none other than Kel’s own mouth.
The question was . . . why had she told Brandon, and had she known what her brother was going to do? Was she in on it? And how had Kel not seen that coming?
In his professional world, his life had depended on him remaining calm and steady in any situation. After years on the job, where cool thinking was a requirement, it had become habit, which he’d transferred to his personal life as well.
But he didn’t feel calm now. He felt everything but calm. In fact, he felt sick. He had no idea if Ivy had known what Brandon was going to do, but it was his job to find out. And while he expected to screw up in relationships, he wouldn’t fail on the job, not ever again.
But just the thought of Ivy gave him a chest pang. Hours ago, he’d left her warm and soft and sated in her bed, thinking she was a balm on his past and the key to both his present and future.
Now he didn’t know what to think. Brandon had broken into the property and he’d hurt Arlo in the process, giving Kel bad flashbacks to what had happened in Idaho. He pulled out his phone and texted Ivy: Have you seen or heard from your brother? And then went back to giving his attention to Arlo while he waited on her response.
“I caught him at the second floor entryway,” Arlo said. “I pulled my gun and told him to put his hands up and hit his knees. He did, so I moved close to secure him, but before I could, he whirled on me and he had a bat. Came out of nowhere.”
“Was there any exchange of words first?”
Arlo looked a little sheepish. “I might have said something, yeah.”
“Like?”
“Like . . . “ He grimaced. “Go ahead, punk, make my day.”
Kel shook his head. “Watching too many movies.”
“Yeah.” Arlo’s smile faded. “I also said I was going to make sure he rotted in jail because I was tired of punkasses like him thinking all they had to do was take what they wanted instead of earn it.”
“Arlo—”
“I know. I goaded him and he reacted faster than me.” Arlo shook his head. “Turns out, I’m the punkass.”
Kel’s phone buzzed with an incoming text from Ivy. Nothing.
Kel texted: Let me know if that changes. And then he shoved the phone away. “This wasn’t your fault,” he told Arlo, rising to his feet. “Rest up, okay? That’s your only job right now.”
Arlo let him get to the door. “Caleb had me trained at Hunt Investigations before you arrived. Then you came and trained all of us as well. And in the heat of the moment, I disregarded all training. I failed, Kel. And I’m sorry.”
Kel made sure to make eye contact. “Not your fault,” he repeated. Because it was very likely his, for once again believing his heart when he knew better. He left the hospital and ignoring notifications of missed calls and texts, he drove straight to The Taco Truck because this couldn’t wait.
The truck wasn’t open.
Heart pumping, blood pressure up at stroke level, he went to Ivy’s place.
The ladies gave him a long cool look and didn’t return his greeting. Not a good sign, he thought, heading up the walk. He jogged the stairs, motivated by adrenaline and worry and temper—never a good combo for him. By the time he got to her floor, he was telling himself that Ivy was an innocent pawn because she’d never be involved in anything like this, no matter that Brandon was family.
Ivy opened the door to his knock, her face revealing nothing. “I need to talk to you.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
She paused as if surprised he’d ask her that question. Which was a shocking commentary on her low expectations of the people in her life, and he had to take a deep breath and force himself from pushing his way inside and snatching her up against him and holding on tight.
Ivy stood in her doorway, not knowing exactly what to say to Kel. Was she fine? No. Was she going to be fine? The jury was still out. But she couldn’t say either of those things, so she nodded. “Yes, I’m . . . fine.” Ish. “Is Arlo?”
“He will be.” Kel’s eyes tracked to behind her, where on her small coffee table sat her first aid kit, the contents scattered, along with the wrappings of gauze in a pile off to the side.
She knew very well it wasn’t hard to add two plus two to get four and she braced herself when he finally met her gaze again.
“Brandon was here,” he said tightly.
“Yes. That’s what I needed to talk to you about.”
“Did you know he broke into the condo building and attacked Arlo?” Kel asked.
She gasped, feeling like she’d just been hit by a train, which for the record would have hurt less. “No!”
He let out a slow exhale, like he was trying to be very careful what he said. “Are you sure, Ivy? Because the bat seems like a family signature. Are you sure you didn’t know what he was going to do?”
She stared at him in utter shock. “Are you kidding me? Of course I didn’t know!” She shook her head, stunned but also angry. And not a little hurt to boot. Never a good combination for her. “How could you ask me such a thing?”
“Because you’re siblings.” Again he looked past her to the first aid kit. “And because he was most definitely here.”
She felt sick. “Are you going to come in?”
“Are you going to implicate yourself in a felony?”
She closed her eyes for a beat, and he swore beneath his breath before nudging her aside so he could come in.
Turning from him, she locked the door and slid the chain into place.
“Isn’t that a little like locking the barn door after the horse has escaped?” he asked.
She turned to face him. Not all that long ago, he’d been buried deep inside her, making her feel things she’d never felt before. Ever.
Now he stood a mere foot from her and yet he might as well have been on the moon for the space and distance between them. “There are things you don’t know,” she said.
“Then you should have told me.”
“I tried. But my phone’s . . . missing. When I realized it, I went downstairs to use Martina’s phone, but I couldn’t remember your number. Or Caleb’s.”
“Okay.” He crossed his arms and studied her, impenetrable. “What exactly were you trying to tell me?”
“That Brandon came back,” she said. “After you got called away. He’d been shot. He told me that he needed money to pay some people off, but he didn’t have it. So he’d done something stupid.”
“Like break into a building for all the new, expensive equipment to fence,” Kel said. “When he pushed Arlo, Arlo fell and hit his head, requiring surgery for a brain swell.”
She looked away. “I didn’t know. I didn’t know he was going to do any of that.”
“But the only way he knew abo
ut that building and what was in it was if you’d told him.”
“The first time he showed up, that night you were here, after when we were talking, I told him about my condo and the great building it was in. He joked about me stepping up in the world.” She met his gaze. “I had no idea he’d use that info the way he did.”
“He needs to turn himself in, Ivy.”
She had to laugh. “And you think I can get him to do that?”
“You two are a whole lot closer than I thought,” he said. “So yeah, I do think you can get him to do that.”
She shook her head. “He’s . . . he’s paranoid about prison.”
“He nearly killed a man while looking for a quick buck. He’s going to have to get over his paranoia and face the consequences.”
“I know,” she said, more quietly now, hugging herself because he was keeping his distance on purpose, which possibly made her heart hurt more than it already did, and it hurt pretty damn bad. “Near as I can tell,” she said, “he either made some bad bets, or he conned someone he shouldn’t have out of a lot of money. He’s desperate to pay them off, nearly as desperate as the guys he owes are to get their money back.”
His eyes sharpened. “What do you mean?”
“They came here looking for him and then showed up again at my truck.”
There was a muscle jumping in his jaw now. “And?” he asked tightly.
“They didn’t do anything,” she said. “But they made it clear he needs to pay up or they’ll get it another way.”
“And I assume they think that other way is through you.”
She looked away. Yeah, that was what they assumed alright, and she was so on edge it was like her childhood all over again.
“Ivy, this is bad.”
“And you think I don’t know that?”
“How could you let him back in?”
“Well, one, I didn’t know what he’d done. And two, he’s my brother, Kel.”
“You housed a criminal.”
She tossed up her hands. “I didn’t know!”
“It doesn’t matter. You hid him. And when I texted asking if you’d seen him, you replied that you hadn’t.”
She blinked. “Wait. What?”
He shook his head and turned to the door, but she grabbed his arm and pulled him around. Okay, so he allowed her to do it, and she took the smallest bit of comfort in that.
Or she would have, if she wasn’t vibrating with fury and a pierced heart, both nearly bringing her to her knees. “I didn’t send you a text,” she said.
He pulled out his phone and showed her a short conversation between him and . . . her phone.
“What?” he asked when her mouth tightened.
“Brandon has my phone,” she said. “I think he took it when I went down to the basement. He must have texted you back pretending to be me in order to throw you off the trail.”
“That’s pretty ugly.”
She nodded. She knew.
He blew out a breath. “I’m fighting a bad case of déjà vu here,” he said.
Lifting her head, she stared at him as the hits kept on coming. “You don’t believe me,” she breathed.
“I believe in facts, Ivy. Cold, hard facts. And at the moment, they’re stacked the wrong way.”
She couldn’t help it, she gaped at him. “Against me, you mean.”
He just looked into her eyes, his own not giving anything away.
“Wow,” she said, reading him loud and clear, words or not. Heartsick, shaking with it, she turned to the door and opened it. “You need to go now.”
Chapter 24
If you want it bad enough, make it happen
Of course he didn’t leave, Ivy thought. Nope, he just stayed right where he was, looking like everything she’d ever wanted and had never gotten.
He wasn’t giving much away but it wasn’t a big leap to assume he blamed her for what Brandon had done, and she got it. She blamed herself too. But he needed to go, now, before she lost it. “Please leave.”
Kel shut the door, but he didn’t leave. His expression was formidable. Remote.
The cop was in residence.
If someone had asked her yesterday if she could be surprised by anything life had to offer, she’d have said no way. She’d been through too much. Seen too much.
But Kel thinking she might be involved in Brandon’s scheme surprised her. And hurt. It left her feeling extremely raw and vulnerable, two emotions she’d hoped she’d left behind a long time ago. She’d built walls, protective walls, so she couldn’t ever feel vulnerable again.
But Kel had gotten through.
How ironic then that it hadn’t been her to screw it all up.
But Brandon. Not that this was a huge surprise. He’d probably never meant it when he agreed to turn himself in. He’d just needed her to be stupid enough to believe it. Once again, he’d blown up her life, and the worst part was, she’d let him. She’d literally handed him everything he’d needed in order to do it.
She might as well have hurt Arlo herself. So as much as she wanted to demand that Kel get the hell out so she could nurse her emotional wounds in private, she couldn’t until she gave Kel everything she knew so that he could make this right.
Heartsick, she met Kel’s distant gaze. “What do you need from me?”
“Tell me again exactly what happened when he showed up here,” he said.
“He was bleeding. Said he’d been shot.” She swallowed hard, fighting tears. “I tried to get him to go to an ER, but he refused. So I got my first aid kit and did what I could. I told him he had two choices. He could stay and turn himself in, and I’d be there for him, or he could leave and never come back.”
Kel didn’t seem at all moved by any of this. In fact, it was like he was a robot. Zero reaction. “And he said?”
“He said he’d stay,” she whispered. “I ran down to the basement to throw the bloody towels in the washer. While I was down there, I reached to pull my phone from my pocket to text you that Brandon was here and he’d been shot. But it wasn’t there. I didn’t realize until I got back upstairs that he’d taken it.”
He held her gaze for a long beat, but said nothing.
She drew a deep breath and finished. “When I got back, he was gone. And that’s when I knew he’d probably never really considered staying and turning himself in. I think he took my phone with him, which didn’t make sense until I got a PayPal notice on my laptop that my transfer had gone through.”
“What transfer?”
She looked away, she had to. She hated the way he was looking at her almost more than she hated having to admit this part. “He transferred a large chunk of money from my account to his. He had to have used my phone to do it. And then he probably received your text and responded as me to keep you off his tail.”
He stared at her. “He took money from you.”
She nodded.
“How much?”
She closed her eyes.
“Ivy.”
“Twenty thousand,” she said quietly. “It was what I’d been saving for my down payment on the condo.”
He let out a long breath and waited until she looked at him to speak. “Did you call the authorities? Anyone?”
“I contacted PayPal to start a dispute on the transfer,” she said. “I was able to do that from my laptop.”
“Okay, but what about Brandon. Did you call the police when he showed up with a bullet hole?”
She held his gaze with difficulty. “No.”
“You do get that’s why he wouldn’t go to the ER, right? They’d have to report it.”
“You have to know that if I’d been aware that Brandon had hurt someone, I’d have been the first person to turn him in,” she said shakily.
She could see the doubt in his eyes, and her heartsick turned to anger. “I did promise I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Doesn’t mean you meant it.”
Like a dagger to the heart that she had never meant to give him
access to. “If you’re done with the interrogation, I’d really like you to leave now.”
He closed his eyes for a beat. “Ivy,” he said low and pained. Like she’d hurt him.
“I don’t understand what you want from me,” she whispered, hugging herself.
“Honesty.”
“I’ve given you that, even when it hurt and was humiliating,” she said. “But it’s not enough, is it.” She grabbed her bag and keys. “I’m tired of feeling like I’m not enough. For once, I want the person in my life to be what I need them to be.”
“And what did you need me to be?”
“It no longer matters.”
“It does,” he said, sounding very serious.
The words escaped her mouth before she could filter them. “I want someone to have my back without question.”
“I think I’ve done that.”
“Really?” she asked. “Because you think I withheld information from you, on purpose. You accused me of hiding my brother, of lying to you via text.” She held up a hand when he would have spoken. “I know. I get it. I can see how it looked to you, but you have the facts now. At least all the facts that I have. And yeah, I made a mistake, a big one. But that mistake wasn’t lying. It was believing in Brandon when I knew better. And I did know better.”
Kel blew out a breath. “He’s your brother and you wanted to believe in him.”
“It was stupid,” she said. “And I won’t do it again.” Once again. And with that, she walked out of her own place.
Completely wrecked.
It felt like she’d lived a year in just today alone, but unbelievably it was only eight in the morning. And yet all she could think was . . . Kel hadn’t believed in her, and in doing so, he’d played right into her worst fears. That once again she didn’t have anyone at her back.
On the street, she ran to catch the bus to the Pacific Pier Building because she wasn’t up for walking. She was pissed off and still shaky, and . . . so, so unhappy. But hell, she’d been unhappy before. She would live.
In the meantime, she needed to earn money, now more than ever, since she clearly wouldn’t be getting her condo. Or anything anytime soon.