Shadowing Ivy Page 6

  “Who’s Dennis McLaren?” Ivy asked Griffin as he opened the vestibule door to the lobby with a key.

  “You’ll see soon enough,” he said. They took the stairs to the top floor. The detective’s presence took up all the air in the narrow stairwell.

  When Griffin opened the door to Apartment 3A, Ivy gasped. Her hand flew over her mouth. The first thing she saw, just standing in the doorway, was a portrait of a woman and Declan, an artsy rendering, but it was clearly Declan. She could imagine Griffin entering the apartment, seeing the portrait and realizing it was his brother, hoping against hope that it would turn out to be just someone who looked like Declan.

  That was what she was hoping for. Even though she knew, in her heart, it wouldn’t be the case.

  Ivy stepped in, scared to death of what she was about to learn. She wasn’t sure she had the strength for this.

  “It’s a lot to take in,” Griffin said. “I’ll understand if you want to leave, come back tomorrow.”

  Ivy sobered up fast. “Once I leave this place I never want to come back.”

  “Understandable,” Griffin offered. “Come look around.”

  There was a coatrack near the door. Declan’s favorite black leather jacket with the telltale plaid lining was hung on it. As was the multicolored cashmere scarf that Ivy had bought Declan for his birthday. Photos lined the mantel of the fake fireplace in the living room. Photos of a pretty young woman and Declan McLean. In some, Declan was kissing her. In one, an eight by ten, Jennifer was naked from the waist up and Declan’s hands covered her breasts. A few of the photos were in those cutesy frames that said LUV across the bottom.

  Ivy’s shoulders slumped; her entire body seemed to slump, and her legs almost gave out. Griffin steadied her, and she didn’t even have the wherewithal to look up at him. Get your stuff together, Ivy, she cautioned herself. This is clearly just the tip of the iceberg of what you’re going to find out about Declan.

  Or Dennis.

  Declan McLean had another life. How the hell could Ivy not have known?

  And he lived here? Not at the dorm with a male roommate named John? Declan had a cell phone, so Ivy had always only called that number. And she’d only visited the dorm once, when they first started dating. Declan’s things had been there. Well, some things. The jacket he always wore. His briefcase for work. The leather backpack he used for school. A few stupid things placed around a room didn’t mean he lived there. He’d clearly paid some college kid fifty bucks or so to let him pretend it was his room. Because he lived with another woman.

  Declan was thorough, Ivy had to hand him that. She’d been duped because Declan was that good.

  She walked around, the detective allowing her to lead her own way. A door was closed. Ivy put her hand on the knob, but Griffin put his hand over hers. “She was killed in there. CSI has been here, but we don’t want anything disturbed just yet. You can open the door and look inside, just don’t walk in.”

  She looked at him and nodded, then opened the door. A four-poster bed dominated the room. More photos of Jennifer and Declan on the dresser. “Where was she killed?” Ivy asked.

  “On the side of the bed,” Griffin said. “On the floor.”

  “Why do you think Declan—or Dennis, I should say—killed her?”

  “The suicide note is clearly forged, for one,” Griffin said. “He did a good job, but not good enough. Handwriting analysis proved that. He clearly had to work fast and he was unusually sloppy for the Declan that I know. She was knocked against the wall with such force, over and over. There’s no way she could have hit herself backwards against the wall that way. I think she might have found out about you and threatened him, and in a rage, he bashed her head against the wall.”

  “I’m so sorry for her,” Ivy whispered, closing her eyes for a moment to escape the horror of it all. “She looks so happy in all the photos.”

  Griffin nodded. “According to her family, she was very happy. Thrilled to be getting married to a resident at NYU Medical Center.”

  “A doctor?” Ivy asked. “Huh?”

  “Declan’s a really good liar, Ivy. Our father was a doctor. He knew the lingo well enough to get by in basic conversation. I have no doubt he had Miss Lexington and her family completely fooled, too.”

  That “too” included her.

  “I think I’m going to throw up,” Ivy said and ran for the bathroom, where she was stopped dead in her tracks. Taped to the mirror above the vanity was a note in Declan’s handwriting: 7 a.m. Jen Babe, gotta head to the hospital for a double shift. Won’t be home till tomorrow late morning, and then just briefly before I take off for the week-long seminar in Boston. I’m going to miss you so much!

  Romantic. What a pig. What a lying pig! He was going to honeymoon with Ivy in the Bahamas, then come home and marry Jennifer?

  And had he written that note after he’d killed her? To throw off police?

  Ivy froze. He had come over to her house that morning and made love to her as though he hadn’t just killed another woman in cold blood. Oh, God. Ivy slid down against the wall and buried her head in her hands. “How could I have been so blind? So stupid?”

  Griffin kneeled down beside her. He was so close she could smell his soap. “He’s that good, Ivy. I’ve know him a long time. Trust me on that.”

  She took a deep breath and nodded and accepted Griffin’s hand to help her up. His hand was warm and strong and for a moment she wanted to collapse against him.

  “I’m going to take you home, Ivy. And then in the morning, if you’d like, we can start from scratch on where you think he might be hiding, what resources he might have. I’d like you to come down to the precinct, if that’s all right.”

  Ivy nodded numbly. Right now, she just wanted to go home.

  “But I want you to be clear on something, Ivy,” he added. “You’re clearly a smart woman. I can see that. And you might be that good, too. You might be working me right now, for all I know.”

  Fury shot through Ivy. “You’re saying you think I’m Declan’s partner in crime? That I had something to do with that poor woman’s murder?”

  “I’m saying I’m a detective, Ivy. And a good one. That’s all.”

  Ivy wouldn’t have thought it possible, but this day had managed to get worse.

  As Ivy exited Griffin’s car and headed to her door, she could feel his eyes on her. He was watching her. Before she could even get to her porch he was behind her.

  “I’d like to come in, search the house. For your own protection,” he said.

  She whirled to face him. “For my own protection? Or because you think my partner in crime is inside, hiding from you?”

  “Either,” he responded, holding her gaze, those intense dark brown eyes steady on hers. She couldn’t imagine Griffin Fargo ever faltering.

  And she couldn’t blame him for wondering if she were as guilty as Declan. She’d learned very well today that you couldn’t trust anyone. Even the person closest to you.

  She’d worked so hard to trust the people in her life. Especially her sisters. There was no way she’d allow Declan to destroy her faith in people. People weren’t bad. Declan was.

  Dr. Phil would be proud.

  “I can protect myself,” she said. “And given my day, I’d like some time alone, to process everything.”

  He nodded, glancing around the property. “Check the door to make sure it’s locked.”

  She did, and it was. “Declan didn’t have a key, by the way. He didn’t stay here often.”

  He seemed to be mentally taking notes on everything she said. “I’m going to check the windows for breaks or entry,” he told her. “Just as a precaution.”

  What would Declan possibly want with her now, anyway? It wasn’t like she would be coming into any money. And he knew she was an honest person, that she would turn him in in a second. Ivy figured Declan was on his way out of the country, to fool some other unsuspecting women.

  Just as she had no doubt that Griff
in would spend the night in his car, outside her house. Watching. She followed him around the property, his gun at the ready. There were no signs of forced entry. No sign of Declan. Griffin walked her back to the front door. “I’ll need you at the precinct tomorrow morning first thing. Nine a.m.”

  “You have my word that I’ll be there,” she told him. “Though I’m sure you or your partner or some poor uniform like me will be stuck on all-night surveillance, to make sure I don’t flee with Declan in the middle of the night.”

  “Good night,” was all he said, and he turned back to his car.

  The moment Ivy stepped inside, the phone rang. It had probably rung off the hook all night. She glanced at the message counter on her answering machine: fourteen messages. Twenty was the limit. She let the machine pick up. It was her captain. He wanted to reiterate from his earlier message that she was to use any and all of the precinct’s resources in this difficult time.

  Thanks, Cap. But she had no intention of calling him or anyone back. The moment the machine clicked off, the phone rang again. Alanna. “Ivy, honey, I’m just so worried about you. Can you call me back, just assure me you’re okay? I know this is the fourth time I’ve called, but I’m worried sick.” A few seconds later, it was Amanda. Then Olivia. Then another officer from the PD, then her mother. Then her mother again. And again.

  What was there to say to anyone other than: My dreams not only went up in smoke, they turned into a nightmare?

  Ivy took a deep breath and unplugged the phone, then took off her coat and hung it up on the coatrack, her gaze moving to the living room, where she and Declan had made love that morning. Again, Ivy thought of how perfectly normal he’d seemed, not the slightest bit nervous. Though now she understood why he’d bundled up the way he had to head back into Manhattan for the meeting at her father’s attorney’s office. The sunglasses. The scarf practically up to his nose. It had been cold, but not that cold. He’d been trying to hide his face.

  Some cop I am, she thought, her legs shaking.

  Declan’s just that good, she recalled Griffin saying. She owed him that.

  She peered out the living room window. Griffin sat inside his car. Those seats weren’t too comfortable. But there was no way she was inviting him in. She couldn’t handle it. Not tonight, anyway.

  Ivy doubted she could sleep, but she headed like a zombie into the bedroom, peeled off her clothes, and grabbed a robe, a different one than the one she’d worn this morning. That one she’d burn.

  She lay down on top of her bed and tied the sash of the short white terry robe, clutching the ends as if they were a lifeline. She was so, so tired, in every sense of the word. If only she could sleep, just make this entire day go away, if just for a little while.

  Who was she kidding; there was no way she could close her eyes. She sat up, her brain working at warp speed, trying to think of something, anything that would clue her in about Declan. Something he said or did that seemed strange.

  But there was nothing. He was that good. A good liar. And Ivy, so in love, had apparently wanted to believe anything he said. She stood up and glanced in the mirror above her bureau—and froze.

  Someone had scrawled in red lipstick across it:

  Tell that cop anything and you and your sisters are dead.

  Chapter Six

  Ivy instinctively raced for her gun, then remembered that she had locked it up at the station house for safekeeping until she returned from her honeymoon. She grabbed her baseball bat from under her bed, then her cell phone and called Declan.

  In seconds he was on her porch, his six-foot-two-inch muscular frame filling the doorway. “Are we in agreement that nothing is to be put past Declan McLean?” he asked.

  She stepped aside to let him in, pulling the sash of her robe tighter. She nodded, her legs trembling. She was suddenly very glad the detective had been outside. That he was inside now. She was so drained, mentally and physically. She needed someone else to be in charge.

  “In the bedroom?” he asked, his gun drawn.

  She nodded. “The mirror.” She followed him into the bedroom and forced herself to look at the glass, shivering under the robe.

  He stared at the mirror, then took in the room. “I’ll call in CSI and my captain for an order of protection for your family.”

  As he dialed, she nodded. “I have no doubt they’ll both leave town right away. They both have children to protect. And I’ll stay at my friend Alanna’s tonight. She’s the officer you met at the church. I’ll feel safe with her.”

  He held up a hand as he spoke to his captain. Ivy wasn’t even grateful for the reprieve from his questions. The moment his attention wasn’t on her, Ivy felt ... unsafe somehow. He clicked the cell phone closed. “Ivy, to be very honest, I’d like you to stay with me tonight. Declan is somewhere close by, and he was clearly brazen enough to break into your home and threaten you and your sisters. I live just a few blocks from my precinct. I’ve got a two-bedroom, and you’re welcome to the spare.”

  She stared at him. “Am I bait? You want me to lead Declan to you?”

  “I would never use you as bait, Ivy. I simply want to protect you. Declan has turned to murder, and he could come after you anytime.”

  “But why? I don’t know anything. Clearly. I don’t even understand what he thinks I could tell you.”

  He upped his chin in the direction of the mirror. “Declan clearly thinks you know something.” Griffin stared right at her, taking measure of her. Waiting to see the wheels turning, she was sure. Did he still think she and Declan were working together?

  “Tell me the truth, Fargo,” she said. “Do you think I had anything to do with Jennifer Lexington’s murder?”

  “I’d be a bad detective if I said no, Ivy. You know that. Of course I think you might be involved. You and Declan, grifting together, bilking women out of their money. You have no conscience, so you don’t care if he sleeps with other women in order to marry them and get his hands on their fortunes.”

  “I have no conscience. Right,” she snapped. “I’m a cop, Griffin.”

  He shrugged. “You’ve never heard of dirty cops? There’s an entire division devoted to sniffing them out.”

  “So guilty until proven innocent?” she asked, eyebrow raised.

  “I’m just following all leads, all possibilities,” he countered. “That fair?”

  “Fair enough,” she said. “Just don’t waste your time on me.”

  “I don’t think any time with you would be a waste.”

  The comment was so unexpected that she glanced up at him, but he’d turned away.

  She was suddenly aware of her short robe. “I’m going to change.”

  “Actually, I’d prefer if you didn’t touch anything in your bedroom until CSI has gone through it.”

  She nodded and wished her robe were a little longer. It reached to mid-thigh, but that was hardly long enough when a stranger stood in your living room. A stranger. Huh. Griffin was hardly that. Had she married Declan today, he would have been her brother-in-law. Not that she and Griffin would have met. She had a feeling Declan would have made sure to keep his past a total secret.

  I don’t want to put a wedding announcement in the paper, he’d said. Somehow that seems so public when my love for you feels so private, so personal. I almost wish we could elope to Italy, just the two of us. But I know it’s important to you that your sisters come to our wedding.

  Just one of Declan’s many supposedly romantic statements. And she’d been suckered by them all. Of course he didn’t want a wedding announcement in the newspaper. With his real name. Well, his real name until he was eighteen. It would have made his name searchable online, and Ivy had no doubt Griffin Fargo had been checking all the names he knew Declan as.

  “You might know more about Declan and his activities than you think, Ivy. And he also might have hidden things in your house or via your name. And then there’s the matter of what your father had against him. The fact that he wouldn’t tell you
makes me think Declan threatened him. Perhaps with something like that,” he added, pointing at the mirror.

  Chills slowly crawled up Ivy’s spine. “You think Declan threatened to kill me and my sisters if my father interfered with the wedding?”

  “Maybe,” Griffin said. He ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I wouldn’t doubt it.”

  “But why? Wouldn’t Declan clearly know that William would make sure he—we—got none of his money?”

  Griffin pulled on his plastic gloves and began looking around the area by the mirror, searching for clues. “Who knows what Declan threatened him with? That we’ll find out,” he added. He stopped for a moment and stared at her. “You know, Ivy, it’s also very possible that Declan did love you, for real. He could have very unexpectedly fallen in love. Perhaps Jennifer Lexington learned about you, learned about the wedding, threatened to tell you about herself, and he killed her to silence her.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” she asked.

  He smiled ruefully, shook his head, and resumed looking around.

  Ivy closed her eyes for a moment. “In a parallel universe, I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon right now. Making love. Swimming in the moonlight.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “For that part. For the part that was supposed to be real and innocent and true.”

  She glanced at him, surprised he understood. “Yeah, me too. I just needed to feel sorry for myself for a second there.”

  Griffin smiled again, a genuine, if closemouthed smile, and for a second she felt ... protected somehow, not so alone.

  Right. Griffin was after Declan, plain and simple. Ivy was a means to that end. She’d do well not to forget that.

  She stared at the dress bag on the back of her closet door. “I promised someone my wedding gown and need to drop it off tomorrow morning.”

  He glanced at her, surprise lighting his dark eyes. “I thought all brides kept their wedding gowns in their closets for a hundred years. Though I suppose I can understand why you wouldn’t want to keep this one.”