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He nodded and checked his phone again.
“Mr. Hill, I understand your concerns because of the band and your fame, but she sent a message telling you she was leaving, so we can’t file a missing person’s report. I will circulate your wife’s details to the other officers on duty as a favor, but it’s clear that she chose to leave. There’s no sign of foul play. You’ve even told us that Mr. Tate and her argued. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Perhaps she was afraid.”
Ethan lunged towards the officer, and I only just managed to step in between them both, securing my hands around Ethan’s chest, glaring at him in a silent warning to behave.
“I can assure you that my wife isn’t afraid of either of us, and I don’t really like your tone, officer. She’s been gone nearly thirty-six hours and I’m in one of the biggest bands in the world. You can’t tell me not to worry.”
“Sir, like I said. You have a message telling you it was her choice to leave. There is nothing else we can do. I’m sorry. I’ll see myself out.”
The first day after Ivy left, she didn’t text or phone, didn’t use her bank cards, or reach out to anyone we knew. Ethan and I stayed up all night, sitting in silence together, staring at the front door, waiting for her to step back through it. At 10 am the next morning, we called the police to report her missing. The officer had been polite, but of no help at all. Ethan was unraveling in front of me and I needed to be the strong one for all of us. So, I made a call.
“Matt, it’s Gray. I need your help. It’s Ivy. She’s missing. Do you think Thomas Lanton could help? I’m happy to pay him outside of what he’s doing for the Gods. I need someone looking for her because the police think we hurt her or she’s left us of her own accord, but she wouldn’t do that.”
“Let me ask him. Why don’t I come over and you can tell me what’s going on? I’ll be there in a couple of hours.” Matt's level-headed calmness echoed out of the phone and I let out a sigh before I hung up.
“We’ll find her, Ethan.”
My husband didn’t say a word. Instead, he burst into loud sobs, sinking to the floor. Sitting down next to him, I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight while he fractured into a million pieces.
Another sleepless night, and there was still no word from Ivy. Our messages went unread, her phone went straight to voicemail until we’d left so many messages that we got themailbox fullnotification. Thomas Lanton was an ex-SAS fixer who ran a huge organization that specialized in chasing and catching monsters. Matt knew him from before he came to work for us and hired him to help with Tanner’s stalker. Thomas couldn’t meet with us in person but he'd called last night and gone over what we knew. Ivy had left with nothing but her phone, the bank card she kept with it for emergencies, and the clothes she was in. She hadn’t been in contact, hadn’t spent any money, drawn out any cash, or contacted any of our friends for help.
She’d vanished.
This morning, my brothers, Frankie and Addi, arrived with coffee and pastries.
“Eat, both of you, please. You look like crap and Ivy needs you to be in a fit state to find her,” Addi begged.
My phone rang and Thomas’ name flashed onto the screen.
“Thomas?” I answered, putting it on speakerphone.
“Gray, I need to ask you both a question, and I don’t want you to get angry. Okay?”
My eyes flashed to Ethan’s as he gripped the table, his knuckles turning as white as his face had gone.
“Kay.”
“What kind of state was Ivy in when she left?”
“State? What do you mean, state?”
“You’re not going to like this question, Grayson, but would she have hurt herself?”
Ethan’s face crumbled at what Thomas was suggesting. Fear stabbed me in my chest, hard, but I pushed it down because Ethan was too far gone to be able to have this conversation. “Thomas, Ethan, and her had an argument about him agreeing to manage the band without talking to her. She was hurt. In her message she said it made her question everything, and that she needed some space. She wasn’t in a place to want to hurt herself. She would never…”
“You did,” Thomas replied matter of factly.
Fuck, this man was something else.
Frankie moved to stand next to me as if she could sense how hard this conversation was for me. “I did. After months of feeling like I had no way out. She had one argument.One.”
“She wouldn’t,” Ethan whispered. “She wouldn’t do that to us. Why are you asking us this, Thomas?”
We heard Thomas sigh. “Ivy’s phone has been switched off since she sent you that message, so I had my team triangulate where she was when the message was sent. I found it. It’s some green space about a mile and a half away from your house.”
My throat went dry, and I reached to grab Ethan’s hand as Frankie wrapped herself into my side.
“It’s a lake, Gray. I had a couple of my team go down at first light to see if she was injured or if there was any sign of her. They found a phone near the edge of the lake, sitting on a bench as if she’d chosen to leave it there. They also found this.”
