Howard Wallace, P.I._Shadow of a Pug by Casey Lyall

Author:Casey Lyall
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter Fifteen

Marvin offered to take me home, but I had one more stop on my list. He dropped me off in front of Ivy’s place.

“See you tomorrow,” Miles called out, and I slammed the door to cut him off.

“Door!” Marvin shouted.

“Sorry, Marv.” I waved as he peeled away from the curb. Then I paced the sidewalk for a few minutes, debating what to say to Ivy. Deep in the pit of my stomach sparked a small seed of doubt. What she did on her own time wasn’t really any of my business.

But lying about it?

If we were partners, there was no room for lies between us. That was part of the deal. Squaring my shoulders, I marched up to her front door and knocked on the wood.

No answer.

I took another crack at the door, and it swung inward. Ivy stood there, wild-haired and red-faced, in head-to-toe flannel. “You trying to break the door down?” She leaned an elbow on the doorframe, leveling a look at me.

I stepped through the door and scraped my boots on the mat. “How was Drama Club?”

“Fine,” she said. “How was—don’t-you-dare-spit-when-I-say-it—Stoverton?”

“I don’t know if I’d call it a dead end, but it didn’t crack the case either.” I unzipped my coat and let my bag fall to the floor. Ivy’s house was roasting. “We met Jake, the other captain.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Me, Carl, Leyla, and Miles,” I said. “Well, Leyla didn’t meet him. She was off doing—I have no idea what.”

“Tight crew you’re running there.”

“I did the best I could under partnerless circumstances. What’d you do in Drama Club today?”

“Why’d you let Miles go with you to Stoverton?”

This game could go on forever, and after today I wasn’t in the mood for running in circles—or for any kind of running, for that matter.

“Miles came along because he was familiar with the school, he wanted to help, and he was actually there to do so.” I ticked off my answers on one hand.

“So, Miles comes back around and you’re suddenly falling all over yourself to include him? What happened to ‘he is evil and we do not speak his name’?”

“It’s just for the case, Ivy.” I ground out the words. “Tell me about Drama Club.”

“Why the sudden interest?” She played with the ends of her hair, separating the curls. “I’ve been going for months, and you usually pretend it doesn’t exist.”

“I saw you leave.” It came out in a blurt.

The clock by the door ticked off the seconds it took for Ivy to process that. “You followed me?”

“No,” I said. “I was looking for you where you were supposed to be and found you bailing instead.”

“I didn’t feel well, okay?” She scrubbed a hand over her face. “I thought you’d already left. I wouldn’t have been any help anyway, so I went home. End of story.”

Except it wasn’t. The scene with Mrs. Pamuk played through my brain, twisting over until it fit with a click that didn’t sit well at all. One that involved the worst kind of betrayal.

“What

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