Page 46 of Recovering Ivy

“Everything alright?” I inquired.

“No.” He walked in and sat in one of the office chairs Rena had positioned in front of her desk.

“Was the report okay?”

“It was fine.” I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. He simply watched me.

“Then what’s the problem? Have you changed your mind about me working here?”

“No. I like having you here.” His forehead wrinkled when he answered, and his brows pinched together like he was uncomfortable with the admission.

“I’m struggling with what to do with Forester. I have enough intel to turn him over to the DEA and let him be their problem.”

“But?”

“I called the detective who handled your sister’s case. They ruled it an overdose and are not willing to reopen the case. Which means if I hand Forester to the DEA it’s over. He’ll get away with killing your sister.”

He cared.

I couldn’t fucking believe my ears. He believed me and cared that Forester had killed my sister. She may have died of an overdose, but it wasn’t self-inflicted or accidental. Forester had administered the dose to get rid of her. I knew he did.

“What do you want to do?”

“I want to nail the son-of-a-bitch for preying on the weak and killing Joanna. But the longer he’s free to move around, there’s a chance he’ll run or go to ground completely and we’ll lose him altogether. This isn’t the Middle East where I have more latitude to maneuver. There are laws. While I can bend them, there is only so far before they break. Now there’s the added complication of your mother.”

“Have you found her?”

“No. She’s a ghost. She left Forester’s house and we haven’t been able to track her since. I don’t have cameras on his street, an oversight on my part that has been rectified.”

It sounded like he was spending more money and using resources that could be better spent somewhere else. Like for his paying clients.

“Maybe she went home to Florida. Listen, I appreciate all you’ve done and what you’re willing to do, but maybe you should just hand him over to the DEA. I don’t want to take time away from your clients that pay the bills. I saw today how many hours the team has put into Forester. Now that Techwatch isn’t paying, you should turn him in. He’ll have to answer to the corporate charges and for the drugs. That’s something, right?”

“Do not start, Ivy,” he warned.

“I’m not. Just… something is better than nothing. I don’t want to cost you…”

“Woman!”

“Woman?” I huffed. “Don’t woman me, Zane. I’m being realistic here. You’re running a business, not a charity.”

“Charity? What the fuck?”

What was his problem now? It seemed I pissed the man off more than I did anything else.

“An investigation into Joey’s death is going to cost a mint. I don’t want those resources used when you have a long list of people willing to pay you large amounts of money to work for them. It’s stupid. I know he killed her; that should be enough for me. The fact the DEA is going to find drugs will put him behind bars. That’s all I wanted - him in prison.”

“No, it’s not,” Zane said and stood. “You didn’t want him in prison. You wanted him to pay for taking your sister’s life. And that is exactly what’s going to happen.”

I wanted to disagree and yell at him for once again telling me how I felt, but he was right. I wanted Forester to pay for killing Joey.

“Come on. We have to stop by the grocery store before we go home,” he said.

Home.

He had called his penthouse home with regard to the two of us going there multiple times. Each time he said it, I got butterflies in my stomach. It meant nothing, it was a turn of phrase, but stupidly I liked hearing it. I’d never really had a home. When I was younger, we moved a lot. When the eviction notice inevitably came, we’d leave and find another shithole place to stay awhile before it started all over again. I’ve never known stability and permanency. Hell, even when I left my mother’s house I still moved around; I’d never felt settled anywhere – until Zane. I felt protected and relaxed in his home. Maybe it was because it was high above the city. I was untouchable way up there. Maybe it was because I knew he was there and he’d never allow anything to breach his walls. Maybe I was simply fooling myself into believing I was feeling things I wasn’t.

“You ready?” He brought my attention back to him.