Page 59 of Ace of Shadows
“My name is Ivy Meyer. My father w-was Camden Meyer. I need to speak to Oliver right now.”
“I’m sorry, but Oliver is?—”
“Now! It’s an emergency!”
A soft sigh brushes down the line, then her voice comes back. “Please hold.”
She keeps me on hold for two minutes, two long minutes where Moira’s revelation worms around my mind without pause. I wasn’t always around, but my parents always seemed happy and very much in love.
How could I have missed this?
“Ivy?” Oliver’s voice, broken from smoking six packs a day for twenty years, croaks down the line.
“Oliver, were my parents getting a divorce?”
“Ivy, you know I can’t discuss something like that with you.”
“No, you listen to me and you listen good. My father isdead, okay? He’s dead. He was murdered and my mom is in thehospital in a coma trying to claw her way back to life and I am alone, okay? I have nothing and I have no one so until I can speak to Mom face to face, you tell me. You tell me right now. Did dad start divorce proceedings? Did he? Were they splitting up?”
“Ivy—”
“Tell me!” I yell, sending a few birds scattering for safety in the sky. “Tell me the truth! Were they getting divorced?”
“I don’t see how this information will help you,” Oliver replies. “As you just said, your father is dead so any proceedings died with him.”
A cold spot blooms in the middle of my chest and starts to grow, unfurling with each passing second. “Proceedings?” I gasp, tears finally escaping down my cheeks. “So it’s true?”
With each passing second of silence, the coldness within my chest spreads down to my gut and out to my limbs.
“Yes,” Oliver sighs. “I was your father’s attorney on the matter.”
“When?” I ask hoarsely.
“A couple of months ago. He was going to serve your mother papers just before your accident, and then… well, you understand.”
My phone slips away from my ear and Oliver’s voice turns into a waspish buzz as the device falls. It doesn’t hit the ground, though, as Ruslan is right there to catch it.
I stare hard at nothing as Oliver’s confirmation settles like a weight in my mind. The cold inside me consumes my body and ashiver darts down my spine, spending a flush of goosebumps up and down my arms and legs.
My stomach churns.
“Ivy?” Moira’s weepy voice rises up behind me, but I ignore her. Turning, I face Ruslan who watches me with a quiet intensity.
“Can you take me home?” I ask quietly.
Ruslan nods. “Of course.”
His arm comes across my shoulders and he leads me away from Moira’s pleas for forgiveness. I can’t think about that now. I can’t think about her.
Dad was having an affair. He was about to break Mom’s heart but didn’t because of the plane crash. As surreal as all of that is, only one piece of info sticks out in my mind as Ruslan leads me to the car.
Affair or not, why on earth would he need a passport with a different name for a divorce?
What else was he hiding?
19
RUSLAN
