“Gene?”
It felt good to call her father’s name, even knowing that he was gone.
“Gene?”
Ivy ducked into her father’s room. Found the bed not just empty, but made.
This made her brow crinkle. Confused, Ivy headed downstairs next.
“Gene?”
Had Sarah showed up? She’d told the woman to take the morning off. Come in around noon or whenever she felt like it. Sarah Kachinski had been through a lot, too. The woman was kind. Kind and caring.
“Sarah?”
No answer to that, either.
Now Ivy’s brow was so creased that it nearly folded over. The lines on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes felt thick.
Maybe I’ll speak to Abs after all. Get a little Botox.
Yeah, things were different this morning.
“Gene?”
He wasn’t in the kitchen. Wasn’t on the back porch, either.
Where the hell was he?
Ivy knew Abby thought that her looking after the man who had killed her father was odd. And it was a little off base. But Ivy never looked at it that way; she came at it differently.
Steve Neely was part of an equation, a means to an end... no, not an end, a means to asolution.
A piece—
Ivy froze. Only her heart continued to beat.
Apiece.
There was a chess piece on the kitchen counter. A rook.
A smaller version of the paperweight that Steve Neely had used to cave her father’s head in.
Ivy finally managed to move. She picked up the chess piece, felt the strange texture in her fingers that had long since lost most of their feeling. Ivy squeezed the rook in her palm. The pain of the sharp edges digging into her skin brought some of her senses back.
Her eyes scanned the kitchen counter. Saw nothing.
Saw...nothing.
The laptops!
Gene and Steve’s laptops. She’d left them there last night.
Where the hell are they?
Still gripping the rook, Ivy rushed out the front door. The sun was bright, and she squinted as she looked up and down the empty street. Continued to search until a car made its way into her driveway and parked. Sarah Kachinski got out, a big smile on her bigger face.
“Morning!” She took two steps. Halted. “Ivy? What’s wrong? Is Gene wandering again?”
