by Lissa Kasey
“I saw pictures,” she said.
“But did you actually look up any of the stories? Hell, Ollie had cast me out of his life and I still read about the attack on him in a dozen different magazines. TMZ even showed highlights from Donovan’s trial,” Jacob told her. He set the tablet in front of her. “Feel free to look it up. I’m sure there’s plenty about what happened to me as well. I’ve been avoiding the media and all their bullshit. My label promises they are keeping the stories as clean and factual as possible.” He shivered. “My sister’s husband was blackmailing me for money and sex,” he admitted quietly. It was the first time I’d heard him acknowledge it out loud. Maybe he’d done so in therapy, but never anywhere I could hear. I hoped it meant he was healing.
“Who told you he beat me? Was there an article somewhere about that?” If so I was totally going to sue them for slander.
Jacob nodded at me like he agreed with my unspoken statement. “If so, Ty is going to sue them back to the Stone Age.”
“We never pay attention to the media gossip. It’s all spin. My dad told me about the abuse,” Ashlyn said quietly.
“Your dad said he beat me,” I clarified.
“Yes.”
“And what did he tell you about all those times Kade was put in conversion therapy?” I prompted.
“He was depressed and acting out.” She looked at me. “He really was. There was stuff happening. Other kids at school who’d get beat up, or—” She sighed. “—a few incidents with local pets going missing, then turning up tortured and murdered. A girl was attacked….”
Jacob snorted. “Can’t see Kade doing shit like that. He’s only into boys, and you should meet their cat.” He pointed at me. Said cat was actually curled up on a blanket four feet behind me. Jacob waved at Newt. “You see that ball of fluff? That’s Kade and Ollie’s cat. It’s like their fucking kid. You should see their house. It’s a giant cat playland with shelves and special doors everywhere.”
“Whatever you think Kade did,” I began, “I can’t see him hurting anyone. Maybe a schoolyard fight, but hurting animals or purposely going after other kids?” The last thing she implied I wouldn’t even acknowledge. Kade could never, would never…. “You know he had to go through a full mental exam several times in the military.” I pulled up his record, which I wasn’t supposed to have as all of it was triple classified, but his many reviews were glowing. Not a single one brought up a complaint. He’d been the perfect soldier, just as he’d often reminded me had been his goal. “Shouldn’t there be a note or a comment somewhere in all these reviews if he’s mentally unwell enough to be hurting people? Questionable actions? Police records and reports?”
“He was at war. Killing people is what soldiers do.”
“If you think he enjoyed that, you’d be wrong.”
She glared at me, and I stared back. I took off the hat because it was driving me nuts.
“Please. I just want to bring him home,” I begged her.
“I told you I don’t have any power over that.” She scrolled through his records. “I never understood, you know.”
“Understood what?”
“When we were kids, he was always nice to me.” She paused and frowned. “Then the first time he left, he came back quiet, reserved. Wouldn’t play with me anymore. Wouldn’t really talk to any of us anymore. He’d just go into his room and hide. At least until Dad got pissed and took his bedroom door off.”
Jacob’s eyes widened and met mine. “Why?”
“He’d barricade himself in. Shoved whatever he could against the door so no one could enter his room. Dad even had people come in to nail down the furniture and put bars on his windows. He snuck out of mine once, begging me not to tell, and I wouldn’t have, but one of the servants told. He was put back in therapy again.”
“Because he was acting out?” Jacob asked, incredulous. “And how old was he?”
“I don’t know. Eleven, I think.”
I gripped the table, needing so badly to save Kade from his past. “What if he was sneaking out to meet a boy?” I reasoned to Jacob.
“Certainly makes sense, seeing as how the first conversion therapy began when he was eleven.”
“How can you be sure it was conversion therapy? It’s just names of places, doctors, and dates,” Ashlyn said. “Sure, some of these places might have had those services, but that doesn’t mean he was there for that. Maybe they were trying to convert his behavior. Like it was a code or something for stopping him from acting out.”
“Click the link to either the place or the doctor.” Each one went to a now-closed facility or many a doctor who lost their license. We all sat in silence while she looked through link after link.
“But there are so many stories,” she said after a couple of minutes had passed.
“Stories,” I said. “Did you ever see Kade do anything that you’d have thought he should have been getting help for? Beating up another kid maybe? Hurting an animal?”
Of course she hadn’t. “But those things happened. They were in the paper. I remember us talking about them in school.”
“Events?” I picked up my own tablet from my bag beside the chair. “Do you have dates?” I knew which school most of Kade’s family had attended. He’d been yanked from it shortly before his first round of hospitalization. The chunks of time he’d missed would have been hard for anyone to catch up with, but somehow he’d return to school each time, as though nothing had happened. I googled the school name and the time Kade would have attended. “Fourth neighborhood pet found dead,” I read out loud. “That is so not Kade.” I read through the article, pulling up anything related.
“You see. He was doing things.”
I turned the screen to her, pointing out a date. “He was hospitalized at this point, and there were three more of these.” I couldn’t look at the gruesome pictures, but there had been no resolution to the case. The incidents just seemed to stop. Or maybe not stop. Maybe the sicko had just learned to better hide what he was doing. There was also a record of a kid slightly younger than Kade being beaten and inappropriately touched, which was code for molested, but there was no name.
“I’m a private investigator,” I reminded Ashlyn. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have looked into Kade before I began to work with him? Before we started dating or living together?”
“He was dating your brother,” she offered weakly. “And when he died, you.”
“He and Nathan were never a couple. Just best friends. Our house was someplace Kade could go between tours and find peace, home. He read me to sleep a lot when I was sick or if Nathan was out working on a case. I always felt safe with Kade.” Even now, years later, after going through hell when Nathan died, Kade was the guardian of my heart and soul. “I need him back.” I couldn’t help the tears that began to burn my eyes. “He was hurt, and I have to help him get better. I need to show him that it’s okay. No matter how bad his leg is now. I’ll help him. Even if that means going to those horrible rehab sessions that make him sweat and shake with pain.” I crushed the napkin that had come with my tea and tried to keep the panic from overwhelming me.
“I’m the broken one, Ashlyn. Anxiety, depression, anorexia. Those are my mental issues. Kade grounds me. Helps me deal with every single breakdown and still loves me. Please. I just want to bring him home.”
“I don’t have any control…,” she began.
“But you can tell us where he is so we can take control,” Jacob pointed out.
She stared at me a minute longer before finally saying, “He’s at the house. Third floor toward the back. It’s a special room Dad built for him.”
What the fuck?
She sucked in a deep breath. “It’s like a prison. I can’t spend more than a few minutes a day with him, but our father insists we each sit with him every day. Talk to him.” She looked away. “He’s not coherent. Always mumbling about Alice. I don’t even know who Alice is. Dad says she’s probably some girl he hurt.”
&
nbsp; “I’m Alice,” I told her. To his Mad Hatter.
She blinked at me.
“From Alice in Wonderland. We read that book together a lot. He has a Cheshire cat tattoo.” We’d discussed more than once the philosophical ideology behind Alice, but I wasn’t stupid. When it came to the bumbling child falling down a rabbit hole, it was me. Kade was there to point me in the right direction and prove me sane on occasion. With him at my side, we could slay the Jabberwocky.
“He’s heavily drugged, then?” Jacob asked her.
Ashlyn nodded.
“What about his leg? Has he been treated?” I insisted. How bad had the injury been?
“He lost most of the leg. Something about a major burn and then the bullet severing the nerves. I guess the only reason he didn’t bleed out was because the burn had cauterized his femoral artery.”
I had to squeeze my eyes shut and focus just on breathing as my head spun as a panic attack slammed into me. My lungs clenched like a vise tightening around my chest. He needed me, and I hadn’t been there. How much pain and hurt had he been through?
“Breathe, Ollie. Please. Jesus fucking Christ. Adrian, do something!” Jacob shouted at Duke. I could only wheeze, sucking in air as though breathing through a straw someone kept pinching closed. I saw stars and thought for sure I was going to pass out.
Someone lifted me out of the chair, and suddenly I was curled up on the blanket where we’d left Newt. Away from the windows, people, and light. Newt snuffled at my face, licking my nose. A heaving swell of air poured into my lungs as the vise loosened. My eyes stung with tears, and the sparkles were back at the edge of my vision. Both sides this time.
Newt sat on my chest, bathing my face with his kisses while I cried. Jacob sat on the floor beside me, fingers running through my hair. Comforting words fell from his lips, only I couldn’t make sense of them. Duke stood beside Ashlyn, who was near the door, speaking to her earnestly. I wanted to beg her not to leave but barely had the strength to lift my head.
“This one was a doozy,” Jacob said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you have a panic attack that bad before. God, Ollie, you were turning blue.”
It wasn’t common, but it hadn’t been the first time. “After Nathan died,” I told him.
“Yeah? How often?”
In the beginning almost daily. I shut my eyes. Newt shoved his wet nose against my neck and purred. “Too often,” I admitted.
“How often since you and Kade started dating?”
“Almost never. Once or twice in the beginning, but he always seemed to know when it was coming. Even before I did.” I needed him back so badly. But Ashlyn was gone, and my head began to pound again. “Headache’s coming back.”
“It’s the stress. Let’s get you back to the hotel.” Jacob helped me to my feet.
“What about Ashlyn? What if they move Kade?” The panic was rising again.
“She’s promised not to say anything to her family. In fact, our guys are following her to the airport so she can fly home. They are going to keep an eye out and make sure no one is watching her. She doesn’t want to be involved anymore,” Duke told me. He led us out the back door, thanking the staff of the shop as we went. “I’ve already sent the recording on your phone to Ty, and once I detach Jacob’s camera, I should be able to upload the video/audio as added proof.”
“We have our probable cause, O. Let Ty do his part.” We headed back to the hotel with Newt draped around my shoulders and Jacob stroking the back of my hand. I was half-asleep before they got me inside. “Rest, O. You need it. You’re still healing.”
I would have protested since I’d slept more than twelve hours the night before, but I just curled up around Newt and slept, dreaming of Kade.
Chapter Five
VOICES PULLED me out of that odd sort of waking sleep sometime later. The headache had never fully dropped, for which I was thankful, but the hotel room was dark. It took only a few seconds for my sleep-frazzled brain to recognize Ty’s voice.
I bolted upright in bed, earning an indignant meow from Newt. Tomas sat on the end of the bed and gave me wide eyes. Had he told Ty?
“The raid is taking place right now,” Ty said softly. He was sitting at the small table with Jacob and Duke.
I jumped out of bed, scrambling for clothes, as I’d somehow been stripped down to my undies again. “I’ll be ready to go in a minute.”
“Ollie, you can’t. You’re not a cop,” Tomas reminded me.
“Kade needs me.”
“Yes,” Ty agreed. “But he’s going to need you standing by, ready to meet him at the hospital. I’m insisting on a full scan when we get him. I need to know what they’ve done to him so I can write up the proper lawsuits.”
“Please,” I begged Ty.
“O.” Jacob got up and crossed the room to fold his arms around me, pulling me into a hug. “Let them do their job. Ty’s got good people going in. They will document everything.”
“Will is with the local PD and a joint force from up in LA. Couple dozen cops over all,” Ty said. “They can’t claim that none of them can truly identify Kade, since Will is there just for that. Kade’s family will never get a chance at him again. The attorney general was entertaining the thought of criminal charges like kidnapping and torture.”
A horrified sound escaped me. Jacob squeezed me tighter.
“The drugs, Ollie. Imprisonment, drugging him, and telling him God knows what. That’s torture. Not whatever horrors you’re thinking of. His sister seemed to think he’d been physically treated to the best medical ability.” Ty reached out and squeezed my hand.
“His leg…,” I murmured.
Ty shrugged. “He’s a tough bastard. That leg has been trouble since the bomb, maybe it’s a blessing.”
“Losing his leg is a blessing?” I was incredulous.
“Better than constant pain,” Ty pointed out. “He always said PT for the knee was the worst because it kept locking up. With a good prosthetic, he’ll be running marathons.” He looked me over. “Unless you don’t want….” He let the thought trail off at my glare.
“Fuck you for even thinking it.”
Now Tomas joined our hug, and I was sandwiched between him and Jacob. It was weird, like some sort of alternate universe. “Just sit down and wait with us,” Tomas whispered. “We want him back too.”
It was then that I noticed the tremor in his hands. A side effect of Donovan trying to electrocute Tomas for money. The shake intensified when he was stressed, anxious, or overly tired. He didn’t look tired but stressed and anxious, probably. I’d pretty much abandoned Haven Investigations to look for Kade, which meant that Tomas either kept the business going any way he could, or he was out of a job.
I went into nurture mode, turning to pull Tomas into my arms and comfort him. “I’m so sorry. I never should have put all this on you.” He let me stroke his hair and rock him in a comforting embrace. Tomas was almost a half foot shorter than me, though with his corkscrew curls askew, he didn’t seem that small. He was unsure of his bloodlines, part Guatemalan and maybe Caucasian, he thought, but he was toying with the idea of trying one of those DNA services to find out. Whatever he was, he was adorable, even with a half afro of chocolate brown curls. “Your hair is a mess,” I muttered.
He gave me a choked laugh. “You can fix it if you’d like.”
Jacob broke away from us and sat down beside Ty on the couch. Duke and two other guards were in the room with us. I buried my face in Tomas’s hair and tried to focus. Waiting had never been easy for me. Not even when on a stakeout, watching for a cheating spouse to do something stupid. Time always crept along painfully slow, and my mind raced a million miles per second. It was why Kade had taken over most of the fieldwork. He had this sort of Zen-like mindset when it came to waiting. And he could meditate anywhere. I wondered if his ease with meditation was what kept him so calm all the time.
Tomas curled up with me on the edge of the bed. Newt crawled up between us, begging
for attention. I stroked his ears, and Tomas slid a hand down his back, delivering a soft scratch at Newt’s hip bone, which left the cat humming with pleasure. “Five things,” Tomas whispered to me.
I nodded, focusing on Newt and the now. The silky feel of Newt’s fur, his chainsaw-like contented purr, the smell of Tomas’s shampoo, the sight of my friends sitting there waiting with me. I let my head rest on Tomas’s shoulder and just sucked in air. Waiting sucked.
“I have mints in my pocket if you need more,” Tomas whispered. But I was mostly okay. Not calm, but working on it.
Then a phone rang. My heart jolted, feeling like it was trying to leap from my chest. Tomas gripped my hand.
Ty got up and walked away from us to answer it, but every eye in the room was glued to him. He listened for a minute or two before saying, “Where?” then, “Okay. We’re on the way.”
I jumped to my feet, disrupting Newt and Tomas, as Ty stuffed his phone away. “Do they have him? Is he safe? How is he? When can I see him?”
Ty crossed the room and took my face in his hands. “Will has him. They are transporting him via ambulance to the local hospital.” I began to protest because Kade’s family invested a lot of money into every part of the city, including the hospital, but Ty held up his hand. “Will is not letting him out of his sight.”
“Our guards are with them too,” Duke spoke up, looking at the screen of his phone. “I had them watching the house just in case anyone tried to move Kade.”
“I need to see him,” I told Ty.
Ty ran his thumbs over my cheeks, brushing away tears I hadn’t realized had been falling. “Let’s go.”
I dressed at light speed, threw everything back into the bag, and coaxed Newt onto my shoulders. The whole process had probably taken less than two minutes. I didn’t bother running a comb through my hair or doing more than just throwing on a lightweight jumper and a pair of sandals. Kade liked this outfit. He always remarked at how much I teased him by wearing something so thin but difficult to get into.