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Ivy: Heading back now.
“Guess we better get going.” I stood and hooked my purse over my arm.
Ty stood tall next to me and scanned the faces around us. I linked hands with him and gave a squeeze. I wanted to continue to try to keep the rest of our time together light. I promised myself that next time he brought up his family I’d tread lightly. There was obviously a lot there. Lesson learned.
We walked together across the busy street toward the car when two women approached us. One of them looked familiar, and just as it clicked who she was, she held her phone up in my face.
“This is Dr. Ivy Knight.” Ben Oliver’s ex-wife stood in front of us. She turned to her friend as she spoke like a newscaster. I realized she was videotaping us. Ty immediately put himself in between us. She stepped back and raised her hands to show she wasn’t going to get physical. I didn’t trust her and frowned as she began to speak again. “Here we are, across the street from The Groove restaurant where she and her,” she paused to study us, “boyfriend just had lunch.”
“Stop this,” I said around Ty’s arm.
“Doctor Knight has yet to come forward with any information regarding her relationship with my ex-husband.”
“Mrs. Oliver,” I tried to move around Ty, but he wasn’t having it, “I legally can’t say anything.”
“Time to leave.” Ty’s cutthroat tone left no room for argument. “Move or get yourself charged for harassment, lady. Take your pick.”
Her face slipped, and I saw the raw emotion on her face. I felt her pain and could relate. She’d suffered a terrible loss, and because Ben had been on the run since it all happened, she couldn’t find peace.
“You know what happened to them, Dr. Knight,” her chest rose and fell as she tried to keep it together, “so why haven’t you gotten them justice?”
“I will,” I promised, “just as soon as I can. I’m so sorry. I feel the same way, I can’t wait for it to be over. We just have to trust the police will find him soon.”
“The police are useless,” she cried in frustration as her friend pulled her aside. Ty wrapped an arm around me and used his body to shield me from her as we hurried toward the car. I heard her say a few more words, but we didn’t stop.
“Are you okay?” He studied me.
“Yes.” I covered my face and sucked in a deep breath. “Physically, I’m fine. Mentally, I haven’t been fine since the night he attacked me in my office.” I looked quickly at him as I realized what I’d just said. “I’ve never been so careless with my secrets.” I wanted to cry.
“Luckily for you, they’re not going anywhere.” He pulled me close and kissed my forehead. “I’m not letting anything hurt you,” he promised, and I believed him. I looked back at the two women who still stood on the side of the street as we drove away. I agreed with her that more needed to be done to find her ex-husband, and soon, for all our sakes.
Once security checked both sets of our identification, we were allowed entrance into Army Headquarters. I felt myself relax as we stepped into the elevator. This was the one place I knew for sure Ben Oliver would never set foot. Since 9/11, security had been tightened up considerably at all military bases.
When the metallic doors opened, we were met with a set of angry, stressed-out eyes.
“You two need to follow me.” Frank didn’t waste any time as he whirled around and headed straight back down the hall. He entered an office, and we followed.
Ugh, now what?
He closed the door and motioned for us to take a seat. He had a laptop on the desk and spun it around to face us as he hit play. I felt my blood run cold. There was Mrs. Oliver and her friend on the street talking into the camera about how they’d spotted me having lunch. She called it round two for confronting me. The caption on the bottom said Justice for My Parents.
“Apparently, your entire encounter today was recorded live by that woman. This is bad, Ivy. The other woman even said they had more people uploading it, so it’ll go viral. She mentioned the previous time when Mrs. Oliver slapped you outside your home and directed them to that video as well.” Frank shook his head. “My aide says this damn TikTok page thing is open, which means—”
“There’s a very good chance Ben is watching.” I finished his thought, and I felt Ty stiffen.
“Exactly.” Frank nodded. “I went over both videos a few times to try to understand what she thinks she’s doing. Other than the slap, I don’t think she’s looking to hurt you. I think she just can’t understand why you haven’t come forward yet with what you know about her parents. She obviously doesn’t get how this works. He hasn’t even been caught, let alone charged.” He glanced at Ty.
“I know nothing, just what Cole shared,” Ty confirmed to Frank, and I appreciated that he didn’t share my slip-ups in the few weak moments we’d had together. Though Frank would understand, I prided myself on my ability to keep confidences, especially when it came to my clients.
“The first video apparently has over two million hits.” Frank rubbed his forehead. “She’s getting a lot of attention. I hate to do this to her. I can’t imagine all she’s been through, but we should involve the police and maybe get a cease-and-desist letter.”
I stood and paced the floor as Ty asked a few questions about the video. Frank let the video run out, and just as it ended, Mrs. Oliver’s words hit me hard.
“Wave hello to the world, Doctor.” You could see it trained on Ty and me as we hurried away.
Eric
I sipped my cool beer as I leaned back against the wall on the balcony outside my room. I watched Filippo below me in the driveway. He spoke to someone on his phone with an excited grin on his face. I hadn’t approached him on the topic since I heard he’d tried to get a seller to come in behind Chili that day the girl was handed over to me. Instead, I watched to see what he was up to. Everyone slipped up at some point if they had something to hide. I’d decided to give him some rope and now hoped I wouldn’t live to regret it. In this life, everyone was out for number one. I usually appreciated the wild-west-style laws here in the way the Cartels did business, but if you wanted to survive, you had to watch everyone very closely. I’d always said to be comfortable meant to be dead.
