Chapter 2 - THE EMPTY SPACE
Ivy watched Ryan Adler count the last hundred-dollar bill onto the folding table and decided the universe had developed an unpleasant sense of humor.
$2,400 sat beside a jar containing 3 paintbrushes, 2 pencils, and $17 in small bills from people who had bought postcards that morning.
Ryan looked at the money.
Then at her.
“There.”
Ivy folded her arms.
“You look very satisfied with yourself.”
“I completed a transaction.”
“That is exactly the kind of sentence a man says when he has never had to sell a painting beside a pigeon with boundary issues.”
As if summoned, a gray pigeon landed near Ryan’s shoe.
Marcus turned away to hide a smile.
Ryan looked down at the bird.
The bird looked back.
Ivy pointed at it.
“Careful. He owns most of the square.”
Ryan almost smiled again.
It changed his face more than she expected.
Not enough to make him safe.
Nothing could do that.
But enough to make him briefly look 38 instead of like a portrait of a dangerous man that had learned to breathe.
“Keep the paintings here until 4,” Ivy said. “Some of them need another coat of varnish on the edges.”
“I paid for them.”
“And if you put wet varnish against the leather seats of your expensive car, Marcus will blame me for the rest of his life.”
Marcus said, “I already like her.”
Ryan turned his head.
Marcus became professionally interested in a tree.
Ivy gathered the cash quickly and slipped it into the zippered pouch under her table. Ryan noticed where she put it. Of course he did. The man probably noticed changes in oxygen.
“You should not keep that much cash here.”
“It was your idea to make me have that much cash.”
“I can have someone take it to your bank.”
“No.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Ivy recognized the expression. It was the same one he had worn when she refused the black card. Ryan Adler clearly existed in a world where no usually meant somebody had misunderstood the question.
“No?”
“You really enjoy hearing that word, don’t you?”
“No one has accused me of that.”
“Then I’m bringing new experiences into your life.”
His phone vibrated.
He checked the screen.
Whatever he saw erased the almost-human expression from his face.
Marcus noticed too.
“Ethan?”
Ryan nodded once.
He looked toward Ivy’s paintings.
“I’ll send Leo at 4.”
“Send someone who understands that canvases are not pizza boxes.”
“Leo understands instructions.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Ryan held her gaze for another second, then stepped away.
The square seemed to breathe differently as soon as he moved.
People who had been pretending not to watch resumed normal conversations. Caroline Bell approached with her yellow flowers tucked in the crook of 1 arm. James finally stopped staring after the black car.
“Girl,” he said, “what did you just do?”
Ivy looked at the disappearing vehicle.
“Sold 8 paintings.”
“To Ryan Adler.”
“I noticed.”
James lowered his voice.
“You know what people say about him?”
“People say things about everyone.”
“They don’t usually lower their voices first.”
Ivy began stacking her empty display hooks.
She knew the stories.
Everybody in Savannah knew some version of them.
Adler Holdings owned warehouses, restaurants, private security firms, riverfront property, and enough quietly held companies that local reporters periodically drew complicated diagrams trying to explain where the money ended and the rumors began.
Ryan’s father, Gabriel Adler, had died 12 years earlier in a warehouse fire officially caused by an electrical fault.
Unofficially, the city had produced 15 different explanations before lunch.
Ryan had inherited the legitimate companies.
According to rumor, he inherited everything else too.
Ivy had grown up learning that rumors were often facts wearing cheap shoes.
But she also knew people enjoyed making powerful men larger than life because it allowed ordinary cruelty to look boring by comparison.
Ryan had been arrogant.
Controlling.
Suspicious.
And strangely careful with her paintings.
That did not make him good.
It made him complicated.
Ivy had made enough mistakes with complicated men to know that complexity was not the same thing as character.
Caroline stopped beside the portrait Ivy had painted of her the week before.
In the canvas, Caroline stood near the fountain holding yellow chrysanthemums. Ivy had made the flowers brighter than they were in real life because Caroline always carried them on Tuesdays, and some habits deserved to look important.
“You sold me,” Caroline said.
“I sold a painting of you.”
“Same thing at my age.”
Ivy smiled.
Caroline touched the bottom corner of the repaired wooden frame.
Her fingers stayed there a moment too long.
Ivy noticed.
“What?”
Caroline removed her hand.
“Nothing.”
“You made the face.”
“What face?”
“The one where you pretend your mouth forgot something your eyes are currently shouting.”
Caroline glanced toward the street where Ryan’s car had vanished.
Then back at the painting.
“How long have you had that frame?”
Ivy frowned.
“I don’t know. Years, maybe.”
“Was it your mother’s?”
The question landed more heavily than it should have.
Ivy looked at the wood.
The frame was old oak, darker at the corners where someone had sanded away several layers of paint. She had found it 4 months earlier in one of the boxes from her mother’s storage unit.
Lena Sanders had died 9 years ago, leaving behind clothing Ivy could not bring herself to donate, 17 sketchbooks, too many unpaid bills, and enough half-used art supplies to make grief feel practical.
Ivy had spent years opening those boxes slowly.
One every few months.
Sometimes none for a year.
“I think so,” she said.
Caroline’s face changed.
Very little.
But Ivy painted faces.
Very little was enough.
“What?” Ivy asked again.
Caroline forced a smile.
“Nothing, baby.”
“That’s twice. Third nothing costs $20.”
Caroline squeezed her arm.
“Just be careful with old things. People assume age makes them harmless.”
Then she walked toward the church on Bull Street before Ivy could stop her.
James had heard enough to become curious.
“What was that?”
“I have no idea.”
“That woman has known you since you were 10.”
“Exactly. If she wanted me to understand her, she’d have spoken in complete sentences.”
By 3:40, the afternoon heat had softened the square.
Ivy had sold 6 postcards, 2 small sketches, and a painted wooden magnet to a tourist who insisted it looked like her sister.
At 3:52, she began packing Ryan’s 8 paintings.
James helped wrap the larger ones in brown paper.
At 3:58, a delivery truck blocked the eastern curb.
At 4:01, Leo arrived alone in a black SUV.
At 4:03, Ivy realized there were only 7 paintings.
She counted again.
James stopped tying string.
“What?”
“The Caroline.”
He looked toward the display.
The hook where Caroline’s portrait had hung was empty.
Ivy checked behind the table.
Under the tarp.
Beside the tree.
Behind the stack of frames.
Nothing.
Her stomach tightened.
“Did you move it?”
“No.”
“James.”
“I didn’t touch it.”
Leo’s entire posture changed.
The relaxed man who had spent 30 seconds teasing Marcus over the phone disappeared.
“When did you last see it?”
Ivy tried to think.
2:45, definitely.
A tourist had asked whether Caroline was her grandmother.
3:10, probably.
She had moved the portrait farther into the shade.
Then a group of college students had crowded around the postcards.
A delivery man had asked directions.
Someone had dropped a bottle near the fountain.
The square had done what public spaces did.
It had become full of moments nobody thought mattered until one of them did.
Leo reached inside his jacket for his phone.
Ivy saw the movement.
“Don’t call him yet.”
Leo looked at her as if she had asked him not to tell gravity something had fallen.
“Ms. Sanders—”
“Ivy.”
“Ivy, Mr. Adler purchased that painting.”
“I know. I was there. Traumatic experience.”
“A piece of his property is missing.”
“It was stolen from me.”
“That distinction will not improve his mood.”
James muttered, “I like this one too.”
Ivy crouched near the table.
The pouch containing Ryan’s money was still secured underneath.
Her backpack remained zipped.
Her phone was where she had left it.
Nothing else had been touched.
Whoever took the portrait had wanted the portrait.
Not money.
Not convenience.
Not a random canvas.
That felt worse.
She stood and looked at the empty hook.
Something white was tucked behind it.
A folded rectangle of paper.
Ivy stared.
Leo saw it at the same time.
“Don’t touch it.”
She touched it.
Leo closed his eyes briefly.
“I understand Marcus now.”
Ivy unfolded the note.
There were 2 lines typed in black ink.
YOUR MOTHER HID IT WHERE RICH MEN NEVER LOOK.
ASK RYAN ADLER WHY HIS FATHER PAID HER IN CASH.
For several seconds, Ivy heard nothing.
Not the traffic.
Not the fountain.
Not James asking what it said.
She saw her mother’s kitchen instead.
Cheap yellow curtains.
A chipped blue mug.
Lena’s hands stained with charcoal as she sorted bills into envelopes and pretended everything was fine.
They had never had enough cash for anything.
Not rent.
Not school clothes.
Not the dentist Ivy needed at 14.
If Gabriel Adler had paid her mother in cash, it had not made them rich.
So what had it bought?
Leo took the note carefully from her hand.
His jaw tightened.
This time he did not ask permission before calling Ryan.
He said only 7 words.
“We have a problem involving Gabriel Adler.”
Ryan arrived in 9 minutes.
The silver sedan arrived in 8.
Ivy saw it across the street just before Ryan’s SUV turned into the square.
It was parked beneath a live oak half a block away.
Dark windows.
Georgia plates.
Engine running.
She would not have noticed it if Ryan had not mentioned being followed that morning.
The moment she focused on it, the sedan pulled away.
“Leo.”
He turned.
She pointed.
“Silver car.”
He was already moving.
Too late.
The sedan disappeared around the corner.
Ryan stepped from the SUV while Marcus went after it in another vehicle.
Ryan did not greet her.
He took the note.
Read it once.
Then again.
His face became so still that Ivy understood why people feared him.
Rage would have been easier.
Rage moved.
This did not.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was behind the hook.”
“When did the painting disappear?”
“Somewhere between 3:10 and 4.”
“Who knew it belonged to me?”
“Everybody with eyes watched you buy it.”
Ryan’s gaze lifted.
“Ivy.”
“What?”
“Do not joke right now.”
“I’m not joking. You bought 8 paintings in the middle of Ellis Square. You’re not exactly subtle.”
He looked at Leo.
“Camera footage.”
“City cameras on 2 corners. Hotel has 3 exterior feeds. I’m getting them.”
Ryan looked back at the note.
Then at Ivy.
“Your mother’s full name.”
“Lena Marie Sanders.”
Something moved behind his eyes.
Not recognition.
A memory trying to become one.
He pulled out his phone.
“Ethan. Search my father’s private disbursements. 10 to 20 years back. Every payment to Lena Sanders. Cash withdrawals too.”
Ivy stepped closer.
“You knew?”
“No.”
“You hesitated.”
“I was thinking.”
“Men like you call lying thinking when lawyers are nearby.”
Ryan lowered the phone.
“Do you believe I stole the painting I bought from you so I could leave myself a note?”
“No.”
“Good.”
“I think somebody who knows your family also knows mine, and I don’t like being the only person who apparently missed the meeting.”
Ryan studied her.
For the first time, his control cracked enough for her to see something beneath it.
Concern.
Not for the painting.
For the name on the note.
“Where is Caroline Bell?” he asked.
Ivy’s irritation sharpened.
“Why?”
“She touched the frame this morning.”
Ivy stared at him.
“You noticed that?”
“I notice people who notice things.”
Ivy thought of Caroline asking whether the frame had belonged to Lena.
Be careful with old things.
Her chest tightened.
“She went toward Bull Street around noon.”
James spoke behind them.
“She always goes home by 2 on Tuesdays.”
Ivy took out her phone.
She called Caroline.
No answer.
She called again.
Straight to voicemail.
James frowned.
“That’s not like her.”
Ryan looked at Leo.
“Address.”
Leo was already searching.
Ivy pointed at Ryan.
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
The word arrived instantly.
Calm.
Final.
Ivy felt anger rise.
“That woman has known me since childhood.”
“Which is precisely why you are not walking into an unknown situation involving someone willing to steal from a public square in daylight.”
“You don’t get to order me around because you bought my paintings.”
“I’m not ordering an artist. I’m controlling a security problem.”
“I am the security problem.”
“No. You are standing too close to it.”
Ryan’s phone rang.
Ethan.
He answered.
Ivy watched his face while he listened.
The color did not leave it.
Ryan Adler was too disciplined for that.
But the silence around him became heavier.
“When?” he asked.
Another pause.
“How much?”
His eyes moved to Ivy.
She knew before he spoke that the answer had changed something.
Ryan ended the call.
For 2 seconds, no one said anything.
Then Ivy asked, “Well?”
Ryan folded the note once.
“My father paid Lena Sanders $5,000 in cash every month for 18 months.”
Ivy forgot how to breathe properly.
$90,000.
Her mother had spent those 18 months telling Ivy they could not afford to replace the broken air conditioner.
James whispered, “Lord.”
Ivy looked at Ryan.
“For what?”
“We don’t know.”
She laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Of course you don’t.”
Leo’s phone buzzed.
He read the message.
Then looked at Ryan.
“We have Caroline’s address.”
Ryan nodded.
Ivy reached for her bag.
Ryan caught her wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough to stop her.
The contact startled both of them.
His hand was warm.
Her pulse was not behaving professionally.
Ryan released her immediately.
“Stay here with James.”
Ivy looked at the empty hook where Caroline’s portrait had been.
Then at the typed note.
Then at the man whose dead father had secretly paid her dead mother enough money to change both their lives.
“No.”
Ryan’s jaw tightened.
Before he could answer, Leo’s phone rang again.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“Mr. Adler.”
Ryan turned.
Leo held the phone away from his ear.
“Patrol just reached Caroline Bell’s apartment.”
Ivy’s stomach dropped.
“And?” Ryan asked.
Leo looked at Ivy before answering.
“The door is open.”
He paused.
“The apartment has been torn apart.”
Ivy gripped the edge of the table.
“Where is Caroline?”
May you like
Leo’s face gave her the answer before his words did.
“She’s gone.”
