Money to Burn

34

FROM THE DETENTION CENTER I WENT TO MY CAR, THEN DROVE TO Long Island, when a thought popped into my mind. I didn’t call first; I knew Olivia would tell me not to come. By the time I pulled into her driveway my thoughts had gelled, and I was so pumped with adrenaline that I nearly flew up the sidewalk to ring the doorbell. It was getting dark, and in the shadows I must have looked like some lunatic on a home invasion. But that wasn’t the reason Olivia left the screen door closed between us.

“I thought I made myself clear earlier,” she said.

“You definitely put on a nice show,” I said.

“A show?”

“You know exactly what I’m saying.”

She leaned closer to the screen and glanced at my feet. “Are you sure you’re allowed all the way out here with an ankle bracelet?”

“Very funny. I’m not wearing one. But I am curious to know who told you I was arrested. Was it…Ivy?”

Had I been wrong, the question would have been cruel, and I wasn’t sure where the courage-or audacity-to take that risk had come from. My need to know was overwhelming, but the gradual realization that Ivy could still be alive had moved from the analytical to the emotional, and I had reached the breaking point.

Olivia took a half step back, as if offended, but she must have seen something in my eyes or demeanor that cut through Act II of her performance. I didn’t know exactly what was in her head, but I sensed an opening.

“You pushed too hard, Olivia.”

Her silence said it all.

“It was so out of the blue,” I said, my voice shaking, “the way you suddenly turned against me and accused me of murdering Ivy. It was as if you were trying too hard to convince me, the FBI, and the rest of the world that Ivy really was dead. My gut told me that you were hiding something-or protecting someone. And now that I’ve pieced things together, I know that the ‘someone’ is Ivy.”

More silence. I kept talking.

“When I saw you in the back of the courtroom today, I thought you were helping Mallory. I don’t think that anymore.”

“It’s a public proceeding,” she said. “Anyone’s allowed to watch.”

“That’s true. And after those e-mails were made public, it must have been pretty frightening for you to realize that anyone could know about my four o’clock meeting with JBU.”

“Why would that frighten me?”

I gave her an assessing look. “Your performance is getting much weaker.”

She averted her eyes, so I kept talking-faster and faster-giving her no chance to deny any of it. “You knew that Ivy wasn’t keeping a minute-by-minute tab on my divorce. She had no way of knowing that those e-mails had come out in open court. And it was entirely possible that the people who had forced Ivy to disappear four years ago did have those e-mails and knew all about the four o’clock meeting. That was a risk you couldn’t take. You went to the Rink Bar. When Ivy got up and ran, and when that man ran after her, you did the only thing you could think of to protect your daughter: You created chaos by screaming ‘That man has a bomb!’”

Finally she answered: “Actually, it was ‘That man in the trench coat has a bomb.’”

Her words chilled me. “Where is she, Olivia?”

She shook her head. “There are things you are better off not knowing.”

I stepped closer to the screen door. “Olivia, please. Where is she?”

“She’s dead, Michael. That’s all you need to know. Ivy is dead.”

I suddenly couldn’t speak.

Her expression turned deadly serious. “Don’t come back here again, or I will call the police.”

The door closed, and I heard the chain lock rattle. Olivia switched off the porch light from inside the house, leaving me alone in the dark.