Page 77 of Corrupting Ivy

I clenched my teeth.

“I’m certain we covered all that there is to know. And I told you before, he’s not my father.”

He cleared his throat. “Sorry. We wanted to talk to you about Doug.”

“Who’s Doug?” Jake asked.

I ignored him. Just another one of those things I’d have to explain on the way home.

“What about him?”

“Well, we did as you asked—spoke to his other family—and his ex-wife seems to think he came here for your birthday party.”

“Yes, because my delusional mother, who forgot she even had a son sometimes, threw birthday parties all the time while we lived in squalor. I’d say your information is incorrect.”

The men shifted their posture with unease as I looked them both square in the eyes, one after the other.

Agent Reynolds cleared his throat. “They said he came here for your birthday.” He took a tiny notepad from his inner suit jacket pocket with the FBI insignia carved on it and flipped to a page with clean handwriting. “More specifically, your fifteenth birthday.”

I inhaled deeply, then flicked my tongue against my teeth before exhaling. “Well, I can guarantee you he didn’t show up. She would have kicked him out if he had.”

A lie, of course. He had come. And once he’d reacquainted his dick with Ma and his fist with my face, I encouraged him to remain for three more days, introducing him to my weapon of choice properly.

“So, sometime between his five-hour trip from Dallas to Cavil, he gets...” Agent Mons frowns and lifts his shoulder in a crooked shrug, “let’s say... lost while on his way to your, not birthday party. Then, twenty years later, he emerges at the place he was searching for, only to be discovered dead and buried among victims of a serial killer.”

“That’s quite the story. You should make that into a comic book,” Jake said from beside me.

My mouth kicked up in a lopsided smile.

“It isn’t a story. This is the truth, and it’s extremely odd to me,” said Agent Reynolds.

I licked my lips with the tip of my tongue. “Gentlemen, I’m not sure what you want me to say to you. At the time, I was a child. Anything might have happened to that deadbeat.”

“Well, it seems something happened to him and in the town you lived in.”

I clenched my teeth so hard that my jaw muscles ached. “It appears that you’re attempting to accuse me of something, Agent Mons. So why don’t you just say it, and then we can put all doubts aside, shall we?”

He grinned and nodded. “Alright. I believe you had a role in his demise. Perhaps you and your sick mother.” He sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not sure yet. Who can say? What I do know is that you’re connected in some way.”

I returned his smile.

That’s the thing. My fifteen-year-old self and the man I am now are very similar. We were both outstanding at what we did. If he thought he’d find evidence to implicate me in Doug’s disappearance or death, he’d be wrong.

These two FBI agents were grasping at straws in a case that shouldn’t have included them in the first place. They have turned it over to the state.

“Agents. I think this is where I give you my lawyer’s contact information, and anything else you have to say to me needs to go through her first.” I reached into my wallet and handed him a random lawyer card.

Seeing as I lived in the world where laws didn’t matter, I made sure I had a handful of criminal attorneys on retainer for that time where my crimes drifted into view.

“Pulling the ‘lawyer’ card makes you look guilty,” said Agent Mons.

“And you know better than to say that. I have the right to remain silent, and that doesn’t reflect guilt in the court of law. So I suggest you find something else to bring to the table.” I pulled the gear lever into reverse. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a business to run.”

“Don’t leave town,” Mons hollered over my closing window.

I finished closing the window and backed out of my space, heading straight for Ivy’s apartment two minutes down the road.

“What the hell was that all about?”

---