by Lisa Ladew
Ivy lightly watched people come and go, most seemed to be bailing out loved ones or friends. In her mind, memories of the horrors of the last few days played over and over. She let them play. She knew trying to refuse them was useless. They would stop out eventually.
By midnight, Ivy’s eyes had started to droop. She tried to get comfortable on the horribly uncomfortable chair. She put one leg up and hugged it, and laid her head on the back. She flitted in and out of sleep, occasionally checking her phone. It lay still and quiet. Around four in the morning, the night desk sergeant took pity on her and brought her out a jacket to fold up and put under her head. Ivy smiled gratefully, and fell more deeply asleep in an instant, her mind too sleep-logged to wonder what was taking Ryker so long.
Chapter 21
Ivy woke up with a jerk. Someone was in her space. Her eyes flew open and she brought her hands up defensively. It was Ryker, looking more tired than she had ever seen him, but standing there, real and strong and unbelievably handsome.
“Hey,” he said, sinking into the chair next to her.
“Hey,” Ivy said, folding her hand into his and smiling warmly at him.
“I’m done. Totally done. They said I can go home now.” He rubbed his eyes and yawned hugely. “I’m gonna sleep for a week.”
“What exactly were you doing?” Ivy asked.
Ryker looked over his shoulder at the desk sergeant and lowered his voice. “The guy that blew up his house? Did you see that on the news?” Ivy nodded. “He’s the guy with all the C4 who wanted me to blow up Westwood Prep for him. While I was there with Brandon, I saw he had his house wired with dynamite, and I saw some other things that made me think he was going to plan some sniper attacks. That’s what I was talking to Hunter about. That’s why I couldn’t come with you to the hospital. We had to stop him. After I told Hunter everything I had seen, we did surveillance at his house for most of the night while Hunter had someone put together a search warrant. Because of the dynamite, we had to clear all his neighbors out of their houses before the SWAT team dared to move on him. But he must have realized something was up. He started shooting at us out the window, and then he blew his house.”
“He’s dead?”
Ryker nodded wearily. “Yeah, they recovered pieces of him. Enough to know it’s him anyway.”
Ivy didn’t know what to say. Good, seemed heartless. But justified.
Ryker stood up. “Let’s get out of here.”
“OK, I just have to return this.” Ivy took the jacket back to the desk sergeant. He nodded and smiled at her as his phone rang. Ryker was waiting for her. She took his arm and they walked towards the door.
Behind them, the desk sergeant called out, “Wait!”
They turned. “Are you Ryker and Ivy?” Ryker nodded. “Assistant Chief Foley wants to see you in his office.”
Ivy and Ryker looked at each other, confused. The desk sergeant buzzed them in the security door and indicated the way. “I know where it is,” Ryker said.
They walked in silence to the elevator then took it to the fourth floor. Ivy felt a sense of foreboding building in her chest. She wondered if Ryker felt it too, or if he was just too tired to talk or joke.
As soon as the elevator doors opened, Hunter was standing there next to his secretary’s desk, watching for them. “Good, he caught you. Come in.” They walked to his office and Ivy was struck by how tired Hunter looked. Just as tired as Ryker.
Hunter sat behind his desk and Ivy and Ryker took the seats opposite him. Ivy looked at him quizzically. His face looked serious and severe. Not at all how Ivy was used to seeing him. Ivy’s thoughts spun with possible catastrophes. She wished he’d hurry up and get to the point.
Hunter held up a manila envelope. “I’ve got the preliminary results of the forensic tests we sent to the FBI testing lab at Quantico here from your altercation yesterday with Brandon.”
“You guys send forensics to Quantico?” Ryker asked. Ivy felt confused. That’s not what she would have asked.
“We do in large cases that could result in a jury trial. The jury seems to trust results from Quantico more.”
Ryker nodded. Hunter pulled a piece of white paper out of the envelope. “I can’t interpret this, but my lab technician tells me it says something very strange. Something I thought you two needed to know because, well, because…” Hunter seemed nervous or like he was feeling awkward and Ivy couldn’t understand why. She leaned forward, trying to see what was written on the piece of paper.
Hunter addressed Ryker. “You were injured at the scene, correct?” Ryker nodded. Hunter turned to Ivy. “And you too? You shed blood in that house?”
Ivy pressed her hand to her upper lip, remembering the blood dripping down her face. “Yes,” she said.
Hunter leaned back in his chair. “And Brandon Savoy’s blood was everywhere.” His eyes drifted to the ceiling and he frowned, as if about to say something difficult.
He brought his eyes back down and looked at Ivy and Ryker in turn. “This preliminary test shows that two people who were injured yesterday are half-siblings.”
Ivy replayed Hunter’s words. Pain shot through her chest as she realized what Hunter thought it meant. “No, no that can’t be,” she said.
A look of confusion crossed Ryker’s face. “But me and Brandon are cousins. There’s no way we’re half-brothers. My mom and his dad are brother and sister.”
Hunter pointed to a small red circle over an F on the paper. “And my technician tells me that one of them is female.”
Ivy grabbed Ryker’s hand and squeezed it. She shook her head to each side, mutely. Now she understood why it was so important that Hunter caught them quickly. Before they went home. Before they were alone together. Ryker squeezed back, but he didn’t look like he had realized the ramifications yet.
“Ivy,” Hunter said softly. “I looked on your application. You left the square blank where it asked for your father’s name.”
Ivy took a deep breath. She didn’t like to share this story. But she had to. “My mother never told me my father’s name. I don’t know who he is.” The words came out sounding small and stupid to her ears. Could her father really be Ryker’s father? Or Brandon’s father? Either way, that meant she was related to Ryker. Either his half-sister or his half-cousin, if there was such a thing. In her mind’s eye, Ivy saw a memory like a movie of herself kissing Ryker passionately, trailing kisses down his chest, grinding against him and just barely being able to hold herself back from letting him have her fully. What if he was her brother? No! She shook her head again. This couldn’t be. He couldn't be her brother. Or her cousin. They were wrong. They had to be.
“Wait a minute,” Ryker said. “Are you saying that me and Ivy are cousins?”
Hunter nodded. “That’s what the technician says the tests say. Cousins or brother and sister.”
Ivy looked at Ryker. His face was white and drawn. He was also shaking his head. “No way.”
Hunter looked at him with sympathy. “The full results will be here on Thursday. I’m really sorry. I just thought you guys should know because, well you know,” he finished lamely, his eyes glancing around the room. “You two get some sleep. Come see me on Thursday after ten. The tests will be here by then. And we can talk about your status as police recruits then too.”
Ivy stood up, still holding on to Ryker’s hand. His face looked dumbstruck, disbelieving. Exactly the way that she felt. He half-heartedly tried to pull his hand out of hers, but she wouldn’t let him go.
***
Ryker didn’t say a word all the way back through the police department. Ivy couldn’t think of anything to say either. She’d always wanted to know her father. To at least know who he was. But not like this.
Finally she couldn’t stand the silence anymore. As they walked into the parking lot, she told him, “Maybe they made a mistake.”
“Yeah, maybe.” His voice was flat, lifeless. “Ivy, can you drive? I’m afraid I’ll crash.”
&n
bsp; He handed her the keys and headed towards a large white Cadillac. “Whose car is this?” Ivy asked.
“A lady let me borrow it. I gotta take it back to her. But not right now.” His words were starting to slur with exhaustion.
They climbed in the car and Ivy started it.
“Just take me to my mom’s house.” Ryker said.
Ivy swiveled her head, shocked. She hadn’t realized he didn’t want to come home with her anymore. “You can come to my house. You can sleep at my place.”
“But we shouldn’t.” His eyes fixed on her sadly. “We’re related.”
“We’ll just sleep, Ryker. And maybe we’re not. Maybe they messed up that test. Doesn’t it seem farfetched to you that the two of us are related somehow?”
Ryker didn’t say anything. Ivy looked at him when she reached a stop sign. His face was a mask of consternation. But his eyes were closed. He looked asleep already.
She drove him home in silence, her mind racing. When she reached her apartment she cajoled him out of the car and up the stairs, then took him straight into the bedroom. He climbed into her bed without a word and seemed to fall asleep immediately. She pulled his shoes off and his socks off, but didn’t dare try to get his pants off. If they hadn’t heard that information she would have stripped him down to his underwear and crawled in the bed next to him in her underwear, holding him tight for hours. But she had heard it. The words brother - cousin marched through her mind again and again. Her back against the wall, she sank to the floor and watched him sleep. She tried to make a plan. Tried to think of someone to call, something to do. In the end, Ivy laid down on the floor, put her head on her arms, and fell asleep.
***
Ryker slept for almost twenty-four hours. When he woke up, their talk was awkward, stilted. Like they barely knew each other. They tip-toed around subjects of importance. This wasn’t how Ivy had imagined things at all. She had imagined lots of kissing and laughter and touching and much more that she could barely bring her mind to admit now.
What she’d never thought could happen was this tense, quiet atmosphere where neither knew what to say to the other. She cried inside a lot and died inside a little. It was almost like she had lost her boyfriend, like he had cheated on her or taken off … or been killed. She tried to keep the hope alive that a mistake had been made, that she wasn’t related to Ryker at all, but she found it harder and harder as the days wore on. She ignored all her calls and prayed that Jen wouldn’t just show up on her doorstep. She didn’t want to deal with Jen's inevitable questions.
Ryker asked her to drive him to go get his truck, and then to follow him to the woman’s house who had lent him the Cadillac. The kind-looking, elderly woman had taken one look at Ivy and clapped her hands in joy. “You did it! You saved her!” she’d exclaimed. When she told Ivy and Ryker that they would have very exotic-looking — and athletic — children, Ivy had cried. She couldn’t help herself.
And then Ryker said he wanted to see his mother and hesitantly asked Ivy if she wanted to come with him.
Ivy shook her head no. Again, she had imagined this differently. She’d thought they would walk into Mrs. Well’s house triumphantly, surrounded by happy tears and joyful greetings. An no one would have this thick fog of horrible uncertainty hanging over them.
Instead she’d asked Ryker to take her home. He promised to pick her up in the morning. Ivy felt half-destroyed and half-relieved that Ryker wasn’t going to stay the night with her again. At least tomorrow, they would finally know for sure.
Chapter 22
Ryker showed up at Ivy’s door at 9:30. He looked as forlorn as she felt. She gave him a small smile and ran to grab her things. Once they arrived at the police department she ached to take his hand, but didn’t feel she could. She wished she had someone to support her. Someone to hold her. Someone who wasn’t just as terrified as she was of what they were about to find out.
Hunter wasn’t in his office when they arrived, but his secretary told them to go right in, he was expecting them. They sat in the same seats they had sat in before, but this time they sat silent and emotionally distant. Ivy felt almost in a terror. Ryker’s face was unreadable.
Hunter hurried in, another envelope clasped in his hand. He looked rested and well. He smiled and greeted them both warmly.
“Chief,” Ryker said stoically.
“Hi,” Ivy said, itching to rip the envelope out of his hand and read the paper within.
“I’ve just come from my technician’s office. He explained everything to me.” He pulled out the piece of paper and studied it. Ivy clenched her eyes shut. Just spit it out, am I his brother or his cousin?
He dropped the piece of paper on the desk and looked at them closely. “You three weren’t the only people injured in that house.”
Ivy felt a small inkling of hope explode inside her chest.
“This is the same house that Officer Price was shot in the day before, is that correct?”
Ivy nodded vigorously, feeling her hair bounce against her cheek. She reached out and grabbed Ryker’s hand for the first time in two days.
“The homeowners never cleaned up Officer Price’s blood, and our team collected a sample, just to be sure.” Ivy nodded, leaning forward, wanting to hear the rest of this with all her heart. “Ivy, you and Officer Price are half-sisters.”
Ivy let out a shriek, then covered her mouth with her hands, embarrassed. Unbidden, tears dropped from her eyes. Gratitude, relief, joy, and wonder blind-sided her, knocking the breath out of her for a moment.
Ryker dropped her hand and leaned forward intensely, his hands on Hunter’s desk. “So you’re saying that me and Ivy aren’t related at all?”
Hunter nodded. “Yep.”
Ryker stood up. “Excuse us a second.”
Hunter nodded again, a small smile on his face.
Ryker grabbed Ivy’s hand and pulled her outside of the office. Ivy felt like she was floating on a cloud of her own happiness. Ryker pulled her down a hallway and found a quiet corner. He pressed her body into the wall urgently, almost roughly. Ivy’s breath caught in her throat. She’d wanted this so bad, and now it was happening. His strong, clean scent filled her nose. She breathed in happily, smiling up at him, encouraging him. Telling him ‘yes, yes’ with her eyes.
He bent his head towards hers and grinned his cocky, cowboy grin at her. She could smell peppermint on his breath. “I can finally do this,” he told her in a husky voice, covering her lips with his own. Ivy’s head swam with happiness and her body flooded with warmth as Ryker’s kiss told her everything he’d been feeling over the last few days. Thoroughly, he tasted and teased her lips until she felt she couldn’t stand it anymore. Until she screamed inside to be home, to be anywhere private.
Finally he released her mouth. “Oh thank God, Ivy. I thought I was going to die if we were related,” he told her, his voice cracking slightly.
“Me too,” she whispered, her hands on his chest, feeling the warmth of his body still pressed against hers.
“I’m sorry for how I acted. I had a hard time facing it.”
“Don’t be sorry, Ryker. I know how you felt. I felt the same way.”
Ryker grinned, the hard planes of his face softening. Ivy felt her heart melt and transform into something that could only ever belong to Ryker.
“We better get back,” he said, smiling radiantly. Looking as happy as a child at Christmas. Ivy couldn’t remember feeling this much joy in her entire life. And it had nothing to do with the fact that now she had a father. Father! She’d met her father. His face popped into her mind. William Price. The consummate volunteer. He’d given her chocolates. She couldn’t reconcile his face with the horrible picture of a man her mother had painted all of those years. But Kara was older than her, she thought. Had William had an affair with her mother? Determined not to taint her opinion of the man already, she put the questions out of her mind, for now.
“Ryker, I met him.”
“Who?”
>
“William Price, Kara Price’s father.” Ivy couldn’t quite bring herself to think of him as her own father. Could it really be true? “He came into my hospital room. He brought me presents.”
“What’s he like?”
“Sweet. Funny.”
“Cool.” Lightly, his eyes teasing her, he pulled her back along the corridor to Hunter’s office.
Ivy followed him willingly, trying to remember every detail of William Price’s face. She and Ryker plopped back down in Hunter’s chairs, giddy smiles on their faces.
“So! This changes things,” Hunter said brightly, his eyes traveling over their flushed cheeks and Ivy’s swollen lips. Ivy giggled, nodding.
“Ivy, I happen to know Officer Price’s father’s phone number, he’s pretty popular around here. His name is William. He volunteers at all of our events and helps out the recruit class instructors. Would you like me to call him? Break the news gently? Feel him out?”
Ivy nodded, too nervous to explain to Hunter that she knew him. That she’d met him. Anxiety leapt in her throat. Would William reject the news? Reject her?
Hunter appeared to think deeply for a moment. “Actually, since the blood we tested was Kara Price’s and not William Price’s, we have a duty to notify her first.” He inclined his head towards Ivy. “Is that OK with you?” Ivy nodded quickly. Hunter picked up his phone and dialed a number. Ivy bit her lip, trying to keep her emotions in check. Evidently, someone picked up on the other end because Hunter spoke. “Officer Price, hello, this is Assistant Chief Foley.” He smiled and listened for a moment. “You’re very welcome. We can’t wait for you to get back to work. But, that’s not what I’m calling about, actually. I’ve got something to tell you that might be shocking. Are you sitting down?” Hunter looked at Ivy, his expression clear and calm. Not tentative and nervous, like Ivy felt.
“Good. Ivy Oakes and two other people were injured in the same house that you were injured in. We sent all the blood samples and data to Quantico and received some surprising results back today. You and Ivy Oakes are related.”