Ivy and the Cop (Power Play) (4 page)

She realized, halfway down the path, that she’d left the flashlight.
It didn’t matter—she had made her way in the dark hundreds of times, although never quite at such a breakneck pace. She could make it to the house in less than thirty seconds, to a phone in under a minute. And then what?
I have no car.
That realization hit her just before she hit the ground, tripping over something on the path, her breath knocked out of her completely, her chest on fire.

Scrambling to her feet, tripping again, this time in her mother’s clunky, pink garden Crocs, a rock digging hard int
o the soft spot under her knee, Ivy moaned, refusing to look behind her, to think about the door on the other side of the barn, refusing to wonder if that, too, was open. Instead she kicked off her shoes and ran, holding her aching side as she reached the dewy grass of the front lawn, grabbing the rails of the wraparound farmhouse porch and pulling herself up the front stairs two at a time.

The lights of her family
house had never looked so bright or welcoming. Things were just as she’d left them, the TV still on, the remains of her junk food binge strewn about, her mother’s favorite cat, Oscar, the big, orange one who used to live in the barn but worked his way slowly into their house and their hearts, eating leftover popcorn out of the bowl on the coffee table.

Ivy ran for the phone, and instead of dialing 911 like she knew she should, like her father told her, she followed her intuition and hit “1” on speed dial, a function her parents never used, had never figured out, wondering if he’d changed his cell phone number in the two years she’d been away.

“Ivy?” It was him, his voice rich and warm and oh-so-Patrick. “Hey girl. I was hoping you’d call.”

“Help!” She could barely
gasp the word. The ache in her side was excruciating, never mind the stabbing pain in her knee, and she noticed for the first time as she gripped the phone that her fingernails were bleeding. “Someone’s in our barn!”

“What? Ivy, are you okay?”

“No!” She screamed it, the panic finally catching up with her. “Someone’s here! Please, Patrick, I need you! Come now!”

“Ivy, listen to me.” He was instantly alert, take-charge, and relief flooded through her. “
I’ll dispatch someone out to you, but I’m close, I’m on my way.”

“Don’t leave me!” She
clutched the cordless phone as if it was Patrick himself and she could cling to him.

“I’m not going anywhere, baby, I promise.” Just the sound of his voice made her feel better. “
Does your father still have a gun in the house?”

“I have no idea.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the kitchen door, every horror movie she’d ever seen playing in her head, expecting some crazy man with an axe to burst through at any moment.

“Okay, find a weapon.”

She scanned the room.
“A knife?”

“A baseball bat would be better.”

Ivy snorted, opening kitchen drawers. “Where am I going to find a baseball bat?”

“Something big and heavy you can swing.”

Her eyes lit up as she caught a glint of something in the corner. “A tire iron?”

“Good!
” Patrick agreed. “Take that into the bathroom.”

Ivy grabbed the
tire iron her father had used the day before last to change the tires on the truck they’d driven to Detroit. “The bathroom?”

“
Do it, Ivy,” he commanded, but she was already on her way down the hall. “Hang on.”

She heard him talking
as she shut herself in the bathroom, locking the door behind her, something about a ten-fourteen, urgent, requiring backup.

“Patrick, where are you?”
She moved away from the door, finding herself in the bathtub. She pulled the curtain, glancing up at the window above the tub. Could a killer fit through there? Or, if he came busting through the door—could she?

“
Five minutes, tops. Hang on, I’m coming.”

She closed her eyes,
tire iron gripped in one hand, the phone in the other, and whispered, “I’m so scared.”

“It’
s going to be okay,” he promised, his voice pained. “I’ll protect you.”

“
But you’re not here!” she wailed.

“I’m coming, Ivy. I’ll be there
! Now tell me what you saw.”

“I don’t know.”
She felt the tears coming, closing her throat, her chest. Swallowing, she tried to talk. “I… I went out to feed the horses…”

“At midnight?”
Patrick exclaimed.

“I forgot, okay?” She laughed through her tears, she couldn’t help herself.
He was just like her father! “I went out to feed the horses, and there was someone in the barn.”

“Did you see him? Can you describe him?”

“No, I heard him.” She shivered at the memory, the abject fear at the sound of him falling, that distinctly human grunt. “Up in the loft.”

“Are you sure it was a person?
” He sounded doubtful now. “It could have been a rat or—”

“It was a perso
n!” she insisted, hissing the words at him. “There’s someone in the barn and he’s coming to kill me!”

“
Okay, Ivy,” he soothed. “Listen to me—no matter what happens, I want you to stay in the bathroom. Do not open that door for anyone but me. Say yes if you understand.”

“
Yes,” she whispered, the thought of Patrick on the other side of the bathroom door flooding her with relief. “But don’t leave me.”

“I’
m pulling into your driveway,” he announced. “I’m going to have to secure the area.”

“Don’
t hang up,” she pleaded.

“
Ivy, I have to. Stay there. I’ll come for you.”

“No!”

“Listen!” His gruffness jolted her. “Tell me you’re going to stay there. Say yes.”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Okay.”

“Wait for me. I’ll come for you.”

The line went dead.

She sobbed, holding the phone to her chest, imagining him out there, gun and flashlight drawn, heading out to the barn, heading straight into danger. It was her worst nightmare come true, the man she loved walking toward his own possible death, while she waited silently, hoping and praying for his safety.

She couldn’
t live like that. She couldn’t stand it.

Ivy bolted. She had to go to him.

His cruiser was parked in the driveway, the lights dark, so she ran for the barn. She was still carrying the tire iron and the phone when she reached it. The door was wide open, the lights on, but there was no sign of Patrick. No sign of anyone.

Now what?
The horses were spooked, restless in their stalls. Someone had been there. Was still there? She glanced up to the loft. Did she dare?

The ladder required two hands, so she left the phone on the barn floor and tucked the tire iron into the back of her jeans, climbing as quietly as she could to the top, peering over the edge.

“Patrick?” She used a stage-whisper voice, nearly screaming when his head appeared over one of the hay stacks.

“I told you to stay in the house!”
he snapped.

Another head popped up, this one fair and much smaller.
Relief flooded Ivy’s whole body. There was no escaped convict, no crazy serial killer, not even a burglar. Just a little tow-headed twelve-year-old boy.

“Brian?”

Patrick frowned, looking between her and the youngster. “You know him?”

“
He slept over at the Forresters the other night when I was babysitting,” she explained, coming toward them. Brian’s gaze skipped from her to the cop. “What are you doing here, sweetie?”

The boy mumbled,
“I wanted to see your horses.”

“How did you get here?”
Ivy pulled the tire iron out of the back of her pants, setting it quietly aside before squatting down next to Patrick in front of the boy.

“I
walked.”

Ivy and Patrick exchanged looks. She wasn’t sure where Brian lived, but the Forresters lived on the other side of town. It was a good ten miles.

“Your Mom and Dad are going to be very worried about you,” Ivy said, glancing at the bed he’d made in the corner with an old pillow and blanket. How long had he been up here?

Brian
didn’t say anything.

“What happened here, fella?”
Patrick asked, pushing aside the boy’s hair to reveal a purple mark on his forehead. “Did someone hit you?”

“He sa
id he fell out of his bunk bed,” Ivy offered. She’d already gone over this with him the other night. Patrick gave her a sharp look over the boy’s head and she stuck her tongue out at him.

“Is that what
really happened?” Patrick asked. Brian shrugged one shoulder, glancing up at Ivy. Patrick nudged him with his knee, getting his attention again. “Hey, you can tell me. It’s okay.”

“My stepdad,” the boy confessed, his mumble even more pronounced.
“He drinks.”

Patrick nodded knowingly.
“Was he drinking when you left home?”

“Yeah.”
Brian’s voice was a whisper now and he wouldn’t look at them, drawing circles in the hay dust on the loft floor.

Patrick leaned over and whispered, “Stay with him,” to Ivy before standing up and telling Brian, “Listen, Buddy, I’ll be right back, okay?”

He didn’t look up, just nodding as Patrick headed for the ladder. Ivy tried talking to him while Patrick was gone, but the boy had clammed up completely, and when Patrick returned, this time with the backup officers who had responded to his call, Brian was practically catatonic.

“It’s gonna be okay.
” Patrick put a hand on the boy’s shoulder, and everyone was surprised when Brian put his arms around his waist, squeezing hard. Ivy met Patrick’s eyes over the boy’s head, feeling her heart swell to bursting in her chest when Patrick hugged the boy back.

“What’s going to happen to him?”
Ivy asked once all the police cars except Patrick’s had vacated the driveway.

“Foster care.” Patrick sat at the kitchen table, still in uniform, rubbing his tired eyes. “
Hopefully somewhere stable.”

“I thought for sure
it was that guy in my barn.” She sat beside him at the table, feeling him shift his weight at the touch of her knee against his. “The escaped convict.”

“We caught him.”
He glanced up at her.

“You did?
” Her jaw dropped. “I didn’t see anything on TV.”

“It was on the eleven o’clock news.”

Figures. She’d been in the middle of watching the finale of
Buffy
and shoveling down popcorn.

“So you knew it wasn’t the crazy guy!”
she exclaimed, hitting him hard on the shoulder.

“I didn’t know who it was!” Patrick protested, rubbing
the spot where she’d hit him. “Could have been anyone. I almost wish it had been a bad guy…”

She met his eyes, feeling his sadness and her own for poor little Brian. She’d already said a hundred times—and Patrick had dismissed her assertion at least as many—that she should have known, should have done something for him the other night while she was babysitting.

“And
you
, Missy…” Patrick sat back in his chair, crossing his arms over his broad chest. “I told you to stay in the house.”

“
I know. I’m sorry.” She traced the edge of one of her mother’s placemats on the table, unable to meet his eyes. “I couldn’t stand not knowing if you were safe.”

He had her in his arms in an instant, and she didn’t resist him.
“I wanted
you
safe.”

“Protect and serve,” she whispered
against his chest, settled firmly in his lap.

“It’s what I do.
” He sounded so sad, even more sad than he’d been about Brian. “It’s who I am.”

“I know.”
She lifted her face to meet his eyes, tracing the line of his lips with her finger. “And I love you.”

“Ivy…”
He shook his head, that sad look never leaving his eyes.

“No, listen,” she insisted. “
You
listen. I was terrified tonight. Beyond terrified. I thought I might die. I thought
you
might die.”

“No.” His arms tightened around her. “I wouldn’t have let anything happen to you.”

“Shhh!” She covered his mouth with her hand. “Tonight, when you hung up and I thought… anything could happen to you, to me…
I suddenly realized what was truly important, what was worth living for. You, Patrick.
You
. Me and you.”

Slowly, she let her hand drop to her lap, waiting for his response, breath held.

“Do you mean it?” He swallowed, blinking fast, and she thought, just for a moment, there might be tears in his eyes.