Wicked Warning (An Ivy Morgan Mystery Book 5) (15 page)

“The thing is, even though Dan is innocent, we have managed to get closer to this person because of what just happened,” she continued. “Whoever framed Dan was close enough to him to be able to do it without Dan noticing. The list of people who could do that has to be short.”

“I … .” Jessica didn’t get a chance to finish what she was about to say because at that moment two individuals – one a reporter with a microphone in her hand and the other a cameraman with a bright light pointed in Jessica’s direction – rounded the corner.

“She’s here,” the female reported enthused. “We’ve been looking all over the place for you, Jessica. Did you identify the man inside as the one who kidnapped you?”

Ivy hopped in front of Jessica to protect her from the camera. “Get out of here. You have no right ambushing her like this.”

“This is public property,” the reporter argued. “We have every right. The public wants to know what happened to this girl. They have a right to hear the details because whoever took her is a danger to this community and other children.”

Ivy didn’t like the woman’s haughty tone. “And this girl has a right to five minutes of peace without you invading her personal space,” she spat. “Get out of here!”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” the reporter argued, slapping at Ivy’s hand when she moved to push her away from Jessica. “This is a big story. The people are understandably interested.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to attack her,” Ivy said, grabbing the microphone from the woman and hurling it against the side of the police station. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Jack and Brian hurrying in her direction. “Stay away from her!”

“What’s going on out here?” Jack strode toward the cameraman with a purpose. “Turn that off or I’ll confiscate it.”

“You have no right to do that,” the camera operator argued, although he looked nervous in the face of Jack’s size and obvious anger.

“You have no right to frighten that girl,” Jack shot back. “Turn that camera off.”

“I’ll sue you,” the reporter hissed, glaring at her broken microphone as it rested against the cement. “I want her arrested for assault!”

“I didn’t see anything,” Brian said, refusing to make eye contact with Ivy. “Get out of here.”

“You can’t remove me from the premises,” the reporter argued. “I have every right to be here.”

“No, you don’t,” Brian countered. “You have every right to be on public property. This parking lot happens to belong to the real estate office. That means it’s private property, not public.”

“A real estate office is a business and open to customers,” the reporter challenged.

“I can work around that,” Brian said. “Get out of here!”

The reporter ignored him, instead flicking her predatory gray eyes on Jessica. For her part, the terrified teenager cowered close to the wall, the noise overwhelming her. “What happened to the baby, Jessica?”

“What?” Jessica’s mouth dropped open. “I … what?”

“Who told you that?” Ivy asked, horrified. So far they’d been able to keep details about Jessica’s purported pregnancy out of the media. Only an insider could’ve fed the reporter that information.

The reporter pretended she didn’t hear Ivy. “Did it die? Did you kill it because you couldn’t love your rapist’s baby?”

Jessica let loose with a strangled cry, and before anyone realized what was happening she pushed her way between Brian and Ivy and bolted across the parking lot.

“Jessica!”

Ivy didn’t give her actions a lot of thought, instead breaking into a run and chasing after the traumatized girl without casting a backward glance over her shoulder to see if anyone would try and stop her.

Jack, his hands full as he grappled with the cameraman, could do nothing but watch her go.

“Ivy!”

I
vy was stunned
how far Jessica could run given her frail condition. Ivy considered herself to be in fairly good shape, but she struggled to keep up with the girl. Finally, the only thing that could stop Jessica was the sight of the forest behind the barn where she was originally discovered. She pulled up short before hitting the tree line, hunching her body over as she gobbled up oxygen.

“Are you okay?” Ivy asked, brushing the sweat from her brow. “Are you going to be sick?”

Jessica mutely shook her head.

“That’s good,” Ivy muttered. “I think I might be sick and if we both do it that would be undignified.” Ivy rested her hands on her knees as she leaned forward. “I can’t believe you can run that fast given the fact that you’ve spent days in the hospital.”

“When you dream of nothing but running for years on end, you would be surprised what you can do,” Jessica replied. “No matter what I think I can do, though, I can’t go back into those woods. I don’t know much, but I know that’s the way back to … him.”

“You don’t have to go back into the woods,” Ivy said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. What that reporter did was … unconscionable.”

Jessica’s eyes filled with tears. “I … .”

“You don’t have to say anything if you’re not ready,” Ivy said, sympathy welling in her chest. “I don’t blame you for shutting the world out because you’re not ready to talk about the baby.”

“Oh, God.” Jessica sank to the ground, crossing her legs and burying her face in her hands as she sobbed.

Ivy felt helpless, so she did the only thing she could do and sat next to the girl. She slung an arm over her shoulders and let her cry, six years of misery pouring out as Jessica’s body shook. Ivy didn’t know one person could cry that many tears, but when Jessica was done – her eyes red and swollen – Ivy realized the release was cathartic for the girl. “Better?”

“I don’t think it’s ever going to be better,” Jessica said, her voice cracking. “You never believed me when I said I didn’t have a baby, did you?”

“No,” Ivy replied, opting for honesty. “Dr. Nesbitt may be a small town doctor, but he knows what he’s doing. I knew you had a baby. I also knew you didn’t want to talk about it so I decided not to press you on the situation.”

“Even though I deserve to be pressed?”

“I … .” Ivy wasn’t sure what answer the girl wanted to hear. “We’re all concerned about the baby. We would like to know if it was born alive … if it died … or if someone took it away from you. We can’t do anything about that problem right now because we have no idea what to look for. We can’t help the baby until you’re ready to tell us what happened. We can help you, though.”

Jessica chewed on her lip. “It was born alive.”

The four words momentarily thrilled Ivy. The feeling only lasted until the assorted ramifications washed over her. “Was it a boy or a girl?”

“I have no idea,” Jessica replied. “I never got to see it. He kept me tied to the bed. He … delivered it.”

“That must’ve been horrible for you,” Ivy said. “How long were you in labor?”

“A long time,” Jessica replied, her eyes trained on the trees. Ivy worried she was afraid to make eye contact because the self-loathing was too much to bear. “It felt like more than a day, but I could never be sure because there was no natural light in the room where he kept me.

“I lost track of days … weeks … and years,” she continued. “Time had no meaning. Do you know how long I thought I was gone for?”

Ivy shook her head.

“Two years,” Jessica said, laughing bitterly. “I knew it felt like forever, but I thought it was only two years. How stupid is that?”

“It wasn’t stupid,” Ivy corrected. “You were in survival mode. Keeping track of time is difficult when you have no way to gauge what’s happening. No one blames you for that.”

“When I found out I’d been gone for six years it kind of made sense,” Jessica said. “I mean it did and it didn’t. I don’t know how to explain it. I lost six years of my life. It’s all … gone.”

“It’s not all gone,” Ivy countered. “It’s different from what you expected, but you still have a future.”

“I’m not sure I do, but I hope you’re right.”

“I need to know about the baby,” Ivy prodded. “You said it was born alive. How do you know that?”

“I heard it cry,” Jessica said. “I tried to look, but the way he had me tied down made it impossible. The baby screeched … I mean just screeched … and I wanted to hold it. That reporter asked if I wanted it dead because it was his, too, but I didn’t. I didn’t want a baby, but … I didn’t want to let it go either.”

“I believe that,” Ivy said, her stomach flipping. She felt out of her depth and yet determined to help. “What happened after that?”

“He wrapped the baby up in a blanket and left me tied to the bed,” Jessica replied. “Things still … hurt … from the delivery. I was in a lot of pain, but I couldn’t move. He came back eventually without the baby and untied me. Then he told me to clean up the room.”

Ivy felt sick to her stomach. “Did you ask about the baby?”

“Only once,” Jessica said. “I asked what he did with my baby and he told me I didn’t have a baby and to get over it. When I tried to argue with him, he hit me really hard. I kind of … bounced … off the bed. I couldn’t focus for a little bit and I thought I was going to pass out.

“Do you know what he did? He laughed at me,” she continued. “He laughed and said I was pathetic and then he threw a roll of paper towels at me and told me to clean up or he would give me something to cry about. I didn’t ask about the baby again after that.”

“Jessica, I know it’s difficult, but can you at least try and describe this man?”

“He had brown hair and dark eyes and his breath smelled like whiskey and cigarettes,” Jessica replied.

“Did he have scars?”

Jessica shook her head.

“Was he overweight?”

“No.”

“Can you think of anything that will help us find him?” Ivy asked, desperation clawing at her emotions as she fought to remain strong for Jessica’s benefit.

“He was a normal man,” Jessica answered. “He was a normal man who kidnapped me, locked me in a room, raped me, and stole my baby. I don’t know anything else. That’s the story of my life – and I can’t give you anything else, or even write myself a different story.”

A
FTER
returning
Jessica to the police station and repeating her admission to Jack and Brian, Ivy found herself at a loss with how to fill the rest of the day. Jack was busy discharging Dorsey and searching baby records, so Ivy returned home. The house was lonely, though, and since she hadn’t been to work for the bulk of the week, she ended up at the nursery.

“How is it going, kid?” Michael’s eyes were conflicted when they landed on his only daughter. He sat in the shade next to the greenhouse, an iced tea gripped in his hand. “You look tired, Ivy.”

“I am tired, Dad,” Ivy said, settling on the ground next to her father. “Things are … rough.” She took the opportunity to tell her father about the past couple of days, resting her head against his shoulder and allowing him the brief opportunity to parent her. “It’s just so … much.”

“Do you think the baby is still alive?” Michael asked.

Ivy searched her heart. “Jack doesn’t want me getting my hopes up, but I do,” she replied. “I think that baby was given to someone else to raise.”

“Who?”

Ivy shrugged, helpless. “That’s the question, isn’t it? It could’ve been dropped off at a church or fire station in another town. It could’ve been adopted by desperate parents or … sold … to someone.”

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think the baby selling market in Shadow Lake is very big,” Michael said. “It’s far more likely the child was given to a woman who was desperate for a child of her own.”

“That’s what I keep telling myself,” Ivy said. “It’s frustrating. Jessica can’t engage with the problem because she was never allowed to bond with the baby. She could only worry about her survival … so that’s what she did.”

“And you can’t understand any of it,” Michael supplied.

Ivy balked. “I understand,” she argued. “She was a child. She had no way to mark the passage of time. She’s not even sure how old she was when she had the baby. She was beaten and sexually abused. I understand why she focused on herself. It’s not like she could get out of that room and find the baby.”

Michael chuckled, his daughter’s outburst not ruffling him in the slightest. “That’s not what I meant,” he said. “You don’t understand how someone could hurt a frightened child … or take a baby away and do God knows what with it. You’re kind and you don’t understand the capacity for evil.”

“I understand the capacity for evil,” Ivy clarified. “I want to do evil to whoever did this to Jessica.”

“Well, you need to join the club on that one,” Michael said. “You can’t fix Jessica’s life, my dear, but you can do your very best by her. I have faith that you will figure out who did this and find that baby.”

“Then what?” Ivy asked. “What if the baby went to a nice family? What if they had no idea where it came from? Will ripping the baby away from that family hurt it?”

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” Michael chided. “For all you know Jessica will be happy with the knowledge the baby is okay and with a good family, if that’s even the case. She might not want to raise that baby given everything.”

“I know,” Ivy said, rubbing the back of her neck. “Do you know what my problem is?”

“You’re stubborn and don’t like to lose.” Michael’s answer was seamless and he barked out a laugh when Ivy elbowed him.

“My problem is that I don’t like questions,” Ivy said. “I like answers. It’s the not knowing that’s killing me.”

“Well, you can only take things one step at a time,” Michael said. “I have a feeling you’re going to get every answer you’re looking for. You might not get it exactly when you want it, but that’s life.”

“You used to say things like that to me when I was a kid,” Ivy groused.

“I did.”

“I didn’t like it then either.”

“I know,” Michael said, ruffling her hair. “Ivy, one of the great joys of my life has been watching you grow up to be the strongest woman I know. You’re even stronger than your mother, and that’s saying something.

“You’re determined, loyal, and you love with your whole heart,” he continued. “You’ll find the answers you’re looking for and I know you’ll do right by Jessica in the end.”

“How do you know that?”

“A father always knows, little one,” Michael said. “I see greatness when I look at you. No one can ever tell me otherwise.”

I
VY
busied
herself working in the greenhouse after her father returned to work, the idea of mingling with customers and answering a myriad of questions about Jessica forcing her to remain away from the public.

She was so lost in thought she didn’t notice a furtive figure lingering by the open door until the sound of someone clearing his throat caught her attention. When she lifted her eyes she found Douglas Dorsey staring at her.

“Your father told me you’d be here,” Douglas muttered.

“If you attack me I’ll kick you where it hurts again,” Ivy warned, not even bothering to get to her feet. Despite what she’d done to him – and the anger she was certain he felt – she wasn’t afraid of him. “Then my father will come running when he hears me and he’ll do it, too.”

Douglas scowled. “I’m not here because I’m angry,” he said. “I’m here to … apologize.”

Ivy arched a dubious eyebrow. “You’re here to apologize?”

“My mother made me,” Douglas said, his shoulders sagging as he took a step inside. “Trust me. I wouldn’t be here apologizing to you if I didn’t have to do it.”

“Oh, I believe you.” Ivy bit her lip to keep from laughing, the teen’s dejected expression striking her as oddly funny. “I accept your apology. For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about kicking you.”

“What about punching me?”

“I’m not sorry for that,” Ivy replied, not missing a beat. “You shouldn’t approach women on the street in the manner you did. I’m not sorry for punching you, but I shouldn’t have kicked you while you were down.”

“Whatever,” Douglas grumbled, scuffing his foot on the floor. “Did you hear they’re releasing my dad?”

Ivy was surprised by the question. She thought for sure the boy would take off after delivering his apology. She couldn’t speak highly of the boy’s manners, but his mother was clearly trying to raise him right. “I did,” she confirmed. “I was there when Jessica told the police he wasn’t the one who kidnapped her.”

“Why do you think her stuff was found at my dad’s house?” Douglas asked.

“I don’t know,” Ivy replied honestly. “I think someone is trying to frame him. I have no idea who, though.” An idea occurred to her. “Does your dad have a lot of friends?”

Douglas snorted. “No one likes my dad,” he replied. “Heck, my mother hates him.”

“Still, he must hang out with some people,” Ivy challenged. “He hunts and stuff, right?”

“He used to be really close with Uncle Frank, but they don’t talk anymore,” Douglas said. “He says hunting is something men do alone because if you go with someone else you have to talk and that’s something women do when they’re together and only a dink wants to do women things.”

“He sounds like a real peach,” Ivy deadpanned, shaking her head. “Still, there has to be someone he spends his time with.”

“Other than the guys he plays cards with, I honestly can’t think of anyone.”

Ivy was intrigued. “Cards?”

Douglas nodded. “They all go to that bar out on M-88 a couple of times a week and play poker there,” he said. “They have like three tournaments a week or something. I don’t know any of the guys, though.”

“But they might know him well enough to plant stuff on his property,” Ivy mused, mostly talking to herself.

“I guess,” Douglas said. “Can I go now?”

“Sure. I’m not stopping you.”

Douglas didn’t move to leave. “Um … my mom says she needs you to tell her I apologized before I can go home. She won’t believe me otherwise.”