Cold Read online

  She sat down in the car and slammed the door, not even waiting for me to finish the sentence.

  The engine roared to life, and I had the good sense to step out of the way as she put the car in drive and pulled away.

  “Goddammit, Ivy! Wait for me!” I yelled.

  She sped out the driveway without looking back, so I headed for my truck at a dead run.

  I was halfway to the hospital by the time I realized how ridiculous my reaction to the news had been.

  Sam Murphy had come to mean a lot to me, but leaving Levi chasing after me in a spray of gravel was nearly ridiculous.

  Sam wasn’t my grandfather, and I wasn’t Grace.

  But the lines had so easily blurred.

  When you spent all of your time trying to get into the mind-set of someone else, training yourself to live their reactions, their thoughts, and their wants, it eventually took effect.

  That was, frankly, the only explanation I had for the churn in my gut and the unsteady pooling in my eyes. I saw Sam Murphy as more than a friend—and it was because, at times, I could see myself as Grace.

  I only wished I was smart as she’d been with her feelings around Levi.

  Pulling into the parking lot on a screech of tires, I slid to a stop in a parking space near the emergency door and shoved the shifter into park.

  Evidence and reason said I’d jump out of the car and haul ass inside, but the reality was different. Unsure and questioning my welcome, I sat still in the driver’s seat of the silent car and gnawed at my lip.

  Would Grace’s family even want me here?

  Would they see my arrival as an imposition?

  Would I call unwanted attention to them?

  I was still running the gamut of questions through my mind when a hard knock sounded on my window. I jumped at the unexpected noise and grasped at my chest, but the beating slowed to a reasonably normal pace when the hips bent and showed me a familiar set of blue eyes.

  Levi didn’t wait for me to roll down the window, instead, reaching for the door handle and pulling it open for me.

  I didn’t move from the seat, so he leaned down into the open V of the door and raised an eyebrow.

  “You know…with the speed you used when leaving my house, I figured you’d be moving at at least a quarter of the pace when you got here.”

  I bit my lip and dropped my face into my hands, mumbling, “I’m not sure this was a good idea.”

  “What?” he asked. “Why the hell not?”

  I jerked my face out of its cover, and the skin under my eyes pulled as I scrunched my nose. “Are you kidding? I’m not family. I care about Sam, so making sure he was okay was a knee-jerk reaction, but now that I’m here…I just…”

  Levi squatted in the open space of the door, and the new position afforded me the opportunity to look directly into his eyes. They were open and surprisingly sympathetic given our history and how this all fit into it.

  My chest squeezed, my subconscious poking at it to point out the change. But my brain didn’t trust the validity or longevity of such a sharp swing. I followed the reasonable path and listened to my mind.

  “Sam will be happy to see you. They all will. From what I’ve heard, the whole family has really taken a liking to you.”

  “From what you’ve heard?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Yeah. Hard not to hear it.” He smirked. “Everyone is talking about the fabulous Ivy Stone.”

  My voice dropped out, leaving nothing but the scraps at the bottom. “Everyone?”

  He shook his head. “Not me.”

  My lips opened and closed, gulping for words like a fish. Not him.

  He grabbed my chin and turned my face back up, back to a place where his eyes could easily capture mine. I fought the pull, but I was no match for his power in the end.

  “Not me,” he repeated like a fucking sadist.

  I got it already.

  He laughed at the rapidly degenerating look on my face and winked. “Not me, Ivy. But not because of you. It’s not me talking because I don’t talk.”

  He stood up suddenly and pulled me up with him, setting me on my sock feet on the cold pavement. The shock of the chill running through my feet and into my body pulled at my awareness.

  “Oh my God,” I screeched. “Look at what I’m wearing! I can’t go in there like this!”

  He ran his eyes up and down my body. He tried to hide it, but I couldn’t have missed the way he smiled if he’d hidden it under a layer of concrete.

  “Ugh,” I whined. “Don’t look at me like that. This isn’t funny.”

  “Oh, yes, it is,” he disagreed. “After weeks of seeing you in nothing but designer wear, this is funny.”

  “These are your clothes.”

  He smiled. “They don’t look like that on me.”

  “Shut up!” I snapped, smacking him on the shoulder. “And I haven’t been wearing designer wear for weeks. I ordered new clothes when I got here.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Still look pretty fancy to me.”

  “Obviously, I just wear them well.”

  He smirked, dragging his eyes over my appearance now once more. The bastard.

  “I’m not going in there,” I declared, my determination renewed. He shook his head.

  “Yeah, you are. Come on.”

  I leaned back into the car, but his strength compared to mine was a joke. The body tug-of-war lasted all of a second.

  “Levi! I don’t want to go in!”

  “Yes,” he said, “you do. You’re just too embarrassed about your goddamn clothes to admit it. But I can tell you right now, Sam Murphy doesn’t give one shit about your outfit. He cares about a woman with a soft enough heart she would rush to the bedside of someone else’s grandpa. Now get your ass moving before I move it for you.”

  Fearful of what he’d do if I didn’t, I moved—sock feet and all.

  “Oh my goodness, Ivy!” Mary Murphy gasped as she shot to her feet in the waiting room. “What’s going on?” She looked down to my feet and worried her lip. “Are you okay?”

  Embarrassment flushed my cheeks scarlet, and my tongue tied in a permanent knot.

  Jesus. How the hell am I supposed to explain this outfit?

  Levi spoke up from behind me. Close behind me.

  “She got caught in the rain, Mary. I lent her some clothes.”

  “Oh,” Mary said, getting the totally wrong idea. I rammed an elbow back, hoping desperately I was short enough to catch Levi where it really hurt.

  He flinched, but I knew by the fact that he was still upright that I’d missed my target.

  “I’m sorry I’m a mess,” I apologized. “I just heard about Sam and couldn’t stop myself from coming down to make sure he was all right.”

  “Oh, sweetie,” Mary cooed, stepping forward to pull me under her arm lovingly. “He’ll be happy to see you. He’s doing fine, by the way. No broken bones so far, but they’ve got a few more scans to do.”

  I didn’t look back as she pulled me away—I couldn’t.

  Something had broken the barrier between Levi and me tonight, and the more moments I spent with him, the more I worried I wouldn’t be able to control myself or my heart for much longer.

  I glanced out in the hall at the sound of Ivy’s laugh.

  She was holding court with nearly half the damn town, her subpar outfit forgotten. She was made for the spotlight, and fame truly did become her. She put everyone around her at ease, and as much as I’d had trouble coming to terms with it in the beginning, her influence in Grace’s family’s life seemed genuinely positive.

  They smiled and laughed and let go of some of their grief. They had faith in Ivy and the movie, and they wanted the closure for their loved one almost as much as they wanted it for themselves.

  Just like me, they’d spent the last six years trying to get over it—but it’d taken the last few months to get them closer.

  “She’s somethin’, huh?” Sam asked from my side, startling me with his pr
esence. I’d damn near forgotten he was there, I’d been so entranced by watching Ivy.

  “Who?” I asked, the innocent act sounding false to even my own ears.

  Sam laughed outright. “Who? That’s funny. Shoo!”

  “Sam…”

  “What, boy? You think I haven’t noticed the way you look at her? The way she looks at you? I’m old, but my eyesight is just fine.”

  “It’s complicated,” I told him.

  He laughed. “Yeah, Lee. I got that. But are you gonna tell me something I don’t know?”

  I shook my head with a smile and sat back in my chair. I tossed the tissue I’d been playing with for the last fifteen minutes in the garbage and turned his inquisition around on him. “Okay, big shot. Why don’t you tell me? What should I be saying?”

  Sam rolled his eyes and dove right into it, ornery righteousness thickening his normally crackly voice. “How about that you loved Grace, and while you kept your mouth shut about that for the sake of everyone else, it’s been killing you every day since?”

  The smile slipped off my face, but he kept going.

  “Or you could talk about how you still feel guilty over what really happened to my granddaughter, and you’ve decided to close yourself off ever since?”

  “Sam,” I whispered, my voice tarnished. “How the hell—”

  He waved an aggravated hand in front of his face. “Nobody else knows. But my granddaughter told me a lot of things, and with a little observation and a lot of time, I’ve put together the rest.”

  I closed my eyes and dropped my head back, covering my face with my hands.

  “What I don’t understand is why you’re carrying any of that shit over to Ivy. You know as well as I do that she and Grace are two different people. About the only thing tying them together is you.”

  I uncovered my eyes and leaned into my knees. Sam met my eyes and held them.

  “I’m not comparing the two of them.” He scoffed, and I shook my head. “I’m not. Not anymore.”

  “Knock knock,” Ivy said from the door. I spun my head quickly to her face, desperate to search it for signs that she’d heard what we were talking about.

  A soft smile curved the corners of her lips and convinced me she hadn’t caught even the tail end.

  “I just wanted to say goodbye,” she told Sam. “I’m gonna head home and get changed. But I’m glad you’re doing okay. I’ll be checking on you via text and bugging you until you’re ready for a rain check on our dinner.”

  “Soon,” he promised. “Mary will try to keep me bedridden, but they won’t be able to keep me down.”

  Ivy laughed and turned to me. “Thanks, Levi,” she muttered, confidence waning enough that she looked to the ground when she said my name. “I’ll, uh, get these clothes back to you tomorrow at work. Maybe you can bring mine too?”

  I nodded, but Sam caught my eye and glared, jerking his chin at Ivy. I did my best to give in to his demands.

  “Ivy, wait,” I called as she cleared the door to Sam’s room and turned back at the sound of my voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  This time, she didn’t fight me.

  “Okay.”

  Ivy was quiet as we walked side by side down the long hallway to the main entrance of the hospital.

  It’d taken a few minutes to say our goodbyes, having to go through the bevy of Murphys and the chief and his wife, Margo, but we’d finally done it. Of course, I’d gotten a slap to the head from the chief as a parting gift.

  As it turned out, he didn’t like being hung up on, no matter the circumstances.

  “Sorry for the way I took off,” Ivy said, breaking in to the silence. “You know, back at your house. I realized on the way here how ridiculous it was.”

  I shrugged and gave her elbow a squeeze. “No big deal. And it wasn’t ridiculous. It was nice to know you care about Sam that much. He seems to feel the same way about you.”

  “Were you talking about me in there?”

  “Not really,” I lied. “I can just tell.”

  Thankfully, she nodded, letting me off the hook instead of demanding an explanation.

  The automatic doors at the entrance opened with a whoosh, and we stepped outside into the cold night air. The sun had set completely now, and any marginal warmth of the day had completely disappeared.

  “God,” she moaned as the bitter wave hit us in the face. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get used to the cold.”

  I smiled at that, thinking of how nice she must have it in California. Bad weather of slightly cloudy days and cold temperatures in the upper sixties. Born in raised in Cold, I only had my imagination to guide me.

  “Must be a tough transition,” I agreed, putting a soft hand to the small of her back as we headed for the car.

  The windshields of every car we passed were foggy with the change in temperature, but when hers came into view, I pulled her to a stop with a fierce grip on the fabric of her sweatshirt.

  My bones locked, and my lungs froze as the past washed over me.

  On her windshield, smudged into the frosty glass, was a distinctly familiar broken heart.

  Levi stopped dead in his tracks, his strong hand wrapped around the material of my sweatshirt and preventing me from moving any closer to the car.

  I followed his gaze to the windshield of my rental.

  Oh my God. I gasped and lifted my hand to cover my mouth while my brain tried to make sense of it all.

  I blinked. Once. Twice. Three times.

  As I stared at the plate of clear glass, my gaze took in the familiar shape of a tiny broken heart drawn into the frost.

  Nearly a replica, it mirrored the tiny broken heart Walter Gaskins had carved into his victims’ skin.

  Morbid and vile thoughts filled my head, and I shuddered.

  Surely, it was just a tasteless joke by someone with way too much time on their hands.

  It had to be a prank…right?

  I didn’t know the answer, but I knew whoever had done this was the biggest, most disgusting, thoughtless asshole I’d ever had the unfortunate—the exact opposite of pleasure—of knowing existed.

  Two steps forward and my hand trembled as I slid a damp, folded piece of paper out from its place nestled beneath one of the windshield wipers.

  Like a faucet opened up to full capacity, adrenaline spilled into my veins, and both of my hands trembled as I unfolded the note.

  The black ink was smeared down the page in ominous drips and drops, likely from the moisture in the air. With a shaky inhale, I scrolled over the words, and once I came to the signature, I dropped the sheet of paper like it had lit up in flames.

  “What?” Levi questioned. “What does it say?”

  I didn’t have a response, my brain too muddled with confusion and fear.

  He leaned down and lifted the now even wetter paper from the ground with just his fingertips and read it, the menacing words falling from his lips in hushed and concern-filled waves. “Notice this. Notice me. Notice everything I send to you. Love, Me.”

  Me.

  Only two letters. One tiny little word. But it packed a hellish punch. Straight to my gut, that single word held the power to make me want to fall to my knees.

  “The flowers you got at Grace’s house,” Levi said, breaking the deafening silence. His eyes moved slowly from the sheet of paper and didn’t stop until they locked with mine. “The card was signed the same way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does the handwriting look familiar?”

  “The card for the flowers was pre-printed.”

  “Fuck,” he muttered and ran a frustrated hand through his already messy dark locks. “We shouldn’t have touched this note. This should’ve been treated like a crime scene.”

  “A crime scene?” I asked, and my eyes popped wide in confusion.

  “Yes,” Levi responded without hesitation. “A fucking crime scene, Ivy. Those flowers, this note, that fucking broken heart
drawn onto your windshield. This is not okay.”

  “You can’t arrest someone for writing me a note or sending me flowers, Levi.”

  “Yeah, but I can make sure we have evidence on hand if shit like this continues to escalate.”

  “Escalate?” I damn near shouted.

  Holy fucking shit. I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that.

  And…escalate to what?

  Pretty sure you do not want to start thinking about worst-case scenarios right now…

  Nausea roiled and coiled itself inside of my stomach as Levi placed a strong hand on the small of my back and led me the few steps toward his truck.

  I didn’t question or pull away, though. I was too damn focused on not letting my brain veer down a path where I had racing thoughts about a psychopath kidnapping and killing me.

  He unlocked his vehicle and opened the back passenger’s-side door with a quick jerk of his wrist. After rummaging in the back for a good twenty seconds, he pulled a container of clear Ziploc bags from a black duffle with the words COLD PD inscribed on the side.

  Carefully, he released the note from his fingertips and slid it inside an empty plastic bag and secured it closed.

  “W-what are you doing?” I asked once my brain caught up with the fact that he was wrapping up the note like you would a turkey sandwich.

  “Evidence,” he said and placed the bag inside his duffle before zipping it closed. “We can test that fucking note for fingerprints. Do you still have the card from the flowers?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I don’t really remember what I did with it, to be honest.”

  “No doubt, both items will already be riddled with your fingerprints and mine, but maybe the crime lab can find someone else’s DNA on them.”

  “Levi,” I said on a deep sigh. “This is crazy. I agree that the note and the…” I paused, unable to form the words to describe that tiny little heart. “The…the windshield were in poor taste. But no one committed a crime.”