Page 23 of Corrupting Ivy

A weird question to ask. “No.”

She looked up from her screen, studied my face, then went back to her typing.

Her questions came one right after the other until time flew by. Randall had long since left; the birds stopped their morning chirping, and my bruised butt hurt worse than before.

Just as I thought she’d finished her line of questioning, she’d fire off another round. I tipped my head back, staring at the blue sky as the sun burned against my skin. Sweat rolled down my spine from the midday heat, sapping the moisture from my mouth and the energy from my body.

“Are we almost done?”

“Almost. Do you know anyone who might have done this?”

I shook my head. “No.” There was no one I knew that was capable of such evil, not anyone alive, that is.

“So why is your name carved into her back?”

I watched her, unableto keep her out of my sight while the humidity and heat smothered me to death. Agent Aguilar interrogated Ivy for well over three hours now, her discomfort becoming clearer as time pressed on, and there was nothing I could do to help her. It was like nothing I’d felt before, this strange compulsion to protect, this peculiar pull she had on me. I didn’t hold these attachments to anyone. Ma taught me at an early age not to let people get too close. It took a long time for me to form a relationship with Jake and Alek. So for me to have this magnetic-like pull to a woman I knew nothing about was bizarre and out of the ordinary.

The country music I'd listened to for the better part of an hour had begun grating on my nerves. Just as I leaned over to turn it down, Ivy stood and shook hands with the Agent. She’d finished her interrogation worse for wear, as I suspected. It takes a lot out of a person to sit and wrack your brain for every single detail you didn’t think was important at the time.

Ivy yawned, stretching her hands over her head, exposing a creamy patch of skin just above her belt buckle when my phone rang and Alek’s picture appeared on my screen.

“Yeah?”

“What’s going on down there?”

“Another dead woman.”

“When do you think you’ll be back?”

Well, there was the matter of Ma that still needed to be handled, but I didn’t feel like bringing her up. Then there was Ivy, which again I didn’t want to talk about. “Uncertain at this point.”

“Well, it needs to be sooner rather than later. We have a meeting coming up, and I need you here.”

“Understood.”

Alek, Jake, and I have been friends for a very long time. In fact, we aren’t just friends, but business partners as well. It takes a certain type of relationship to do business with your friends. One that requires loyalty. And we were loyal to each other, through and through.

“Let us know if you need help to wrap things up there,” he said as I watched Ivy turn and scan the surrounding area. The agent sitting before her packed up her laptop into a matching case when Ivy’s gaze collided with mine.

I placed my elbow on the door and ran my thumb over my lower lip as I watched her look both ways down the vacant street, then stepped off the sidewalk towards me.

“Tonk, are you there?”

The sound of my unique nickname Alek gave me pulled me away from the desire I had to drag her into the alleyway and bend her over. I cleared my throat. “Yeah. I will,” I said, then pressed the red button with my thumb and placed it in my lap as she made it to my rolled-down window.

“Are you stalking me now, too?” she asked with a smile that reached her eyes.

She propped her forearms on the door and fixed her chin on them.

Her arms touched my elbow, still resting on the door, but it didn’t bother me, which had me doing a double-take. There hasn’t been a person in this world that I have wanted to touch more than her, right at this very moment.

“If I was, do you think I’d admit it?”

She sighed as the smile grew on her face, then faltered. “Well, I only have room for one stalker in my life, anyway, and, unfortunately, the position is full.”

Ahh, yes. I wanted to cut the man’s eyes out of his sockets and listen to his scream as I did. There was only one person allowed to watch her, and that was me.

“Guess I’ll have to cut out the competition.”

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