by Lissa Kasey
“I told them. When Kade vanished, I panicked. I knew I was pregnant. Knew who the father was. At first they accused me of lying. Then they tried to pay for an abortion. Then when I told them I wanted the baby, they tried to buy it from me. Like throwing money at me would solve their problem. If I’d known what was in store for me those first few years, I might have taken the money. I’d never give up Micah, but life was hard. He was three before they acknowledged him. It was chance that one of them had come into the diner. I was working and they let me keep Micah off in one of the booths. The older siblings came in as they often did, like a gang ready to be belligerent and demanding. Everyone in town knew who they were.”
“They saw Micah?”
“He was running around that day. Sort of at the age where he just didn’t want to sit still and color or play. He ran right into one of them. The oldest brother, I think. A week later Kade’s father showed up demanding tests and threatening defamation lawsuits. I was so scared. I found a lawyer through one of those women’s shelters. She helped me confirm custody. Proved I was a capable parent. Then again they threw money at me.” She sighed as I turned to a picture of Micah sitting beside one of those mall Santas. He had a huge grin on his face, with several teeth missing. “At first it seemed like a godsend. Extra cash to help with the bills. I could feed my kid without starving myself for the first time in years. But with it always comes the threats.”
“What sort of threats?”
“To take him from me.” She ran her fingers over what had to be a recent picture of Micah. Senior pictures, I realized, since he was dressed nice and posing in a highly softened photo. It wasn’t the typical cattle line photo used in most yearbooks, but I certainly could have done better. “They can. Look at how they treated Kade for years. He’d come home on leave, had a tiny apartment on the other side of town just to avoid his family. The police would follow him around, or his siblings would. He never had any peace. I’d tried to see him once, only to be met with lawyers and the threat of lawsuits.” She glanced at the door. “They are always watching. I’m sure I’ll hear about letting you in. Micah’s older now. He knows how they are. I haven’t hidden any of it from him.”
“He knows Kade is his father?”
“Oh yes. I wanted him to know his dad was a hero not a deadbeat. He can’t talk about Kade to anyone in town, another lawsuit they’ve brought against us, but he knows.”
“Why don’t you move? Find a city they don’t have control of?”
“With what? I don’t even have a GED. I have been a waitress for fifteen years. The tiny bit of money they give me goes to feed us. I don’t dare ask them for more. Micah gets enough crap from people around town because of me.” Sophia frowned. “Because of them. All I can hope is that he’ll get a good scholarship and escape to another city. Even if it will hurt for him to leave me behind. I know that would be better for him. He’s a smart kid. Keeps his head down and works hard. He’ll get away from all this.”
I took her hands in mine. “Can I help you?”
She gave me a wary look. “Why?” she asked. “No. I’ll be in enough trouble just for talking to you, I’m sure.”
“It just makes no sense.”
“What?”
“If they were so adamant about him not being gay… you had his child…. Fuck.” I groaned. “Sorry. I’m just so confused. I would have thought they’d embrace the fact you had his child.”
“I don’t think it has anything to do with him being gay. I think they always just hated Kade for being Kade. Somehow he couldn’t help but embarrass them. He always got good grades. Played sports when they let him, was never allowed to be involved in clubs at school. He was a good kid. He got in trouble a lot in school because his siblings would blame him for stuff they did.” She closed her eyes and seemed to be envisioning the boy she knew. “I don’t know why they hate him so much. I knew him before the first time they put him in the hospital. He was easygoing with a fast smile. I sat with him when he came home. He had no hair. They’d done some sort of electroshock thing on him. There were burns on his skull.” She flinched at the memory. “He snuck out to see me even though he knew it would get him in trouble. When I touched him, he just cried. Wouldn’t tell me what they did. And that smiling little boy I once knew was gone. He also didn’t fight back anymore. Just took whatever got thrown at him. I hated that. Seeing him so broken.”
And now he wouldn’t share those memories with me either. God. What had they done to him?
“My existence is an embarrassment to his family. Micah is an embarrassment to them. He’s their only grandchild so far, at least that I know of, and they treat him like he’s a piece of trash not worthy to be spit on.”
Their only grandchild? But Kade was the middle kid, and thirty-four. His siblings should have kids by now. Maybe not as old as Micah obviously was, but still. And if he was the only one, why not treat him better? Treasure him? “Is Micah gay?”
She laughed. “No. But I understand your thinking. They don’t like him because he is mine. And maybe because he’s Kade’s.”
“So Kade never raped you,” I clarified again.
“No.”
“And he probably doesn’t know Micah exists.”
“That I don’t know. But you know him, right? Does he seem like the kind of guy to just abandon his kid?”
“No.” And he didn’t. Kade was fiercely loyal and protective. “You’ve never tried to tell him?”
“How?” she asked. “File for child support? I was already getting that from his parents. And every time I tried to see him or get his number from someone, they blocked me. There were nights right after he was born that Micah would just cry and cry. I thought about getting in my car and going to find Kade. By then he was in the military and very quickly deployed. I was alone, and he was on the run. I wasn’t going to pull him back from that. He got out. He deserved to get out.”
What she didn’t understand was that Kade lived well. Not just his management of money, though that helped. He lived well in his skin. He was self-assured most days and took care of others because his heart was just that big. If he’d known, he would have moved heaven and earth to help her, at least to support her in raising Micah. There wasn’t a second that passed in which I didn’t believe that. Kade hid a lot from me, but a child? Why come to our house on leave, then? Was that why he read to me all the time? I was a replacement for the son his family wouldn’t let him have?
“No,” I said more to myself than her. “He doesn’t know. But he should.”
“Please be careful. I don’t want them to take Micah from me.”
I squeezed her hands. “I have a really good lawyer friend.”
“They have an army of them.”
And I knew that too. It had taken Ty two months to free Kade, and then only because we’d gotten help from Kade’s little sister. My heart ached. “Can I give you my number? If you need anything, please text or call. If there is an emergency just text me 911 and I’ll be here as fast as I can. I have a friend who’s a cop. And a lot of very famous friends who can make a lot of noise if something is amiss.”
“Why would you do that? You don’t know us at all.”
“I know Kade,” I told her. Maybe not his past, but his heart. Sure I needed to know shit about him that he was dragging his feet to share, but this was huge, and had the potential to gut him. It wasn’t what I’d planned to find on this trip. This was beyond personal demons or proving he wasn’t a monster so his family couldn’t steal him from me again. “He’ll be devastated to find out he has a son whom he’s missed seeing grow up.”
Sophia looked away. “I should go to work.”
I opened my wallet to take money out, but she waved me away.
“Don’t. Don’t be like them.”
“I don’t want to throw money at you to go away. I just want to help.” It might have taken Kade some time to become the man he was now, but he’d have helped them as soon as he knew, whether he had been capable
or not.
She leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Then love Kade. Make him happy. Keep him away from his horrible family. Take care of my friend.” She sighed. “I still miss him. Hearing his laugh and the goofy way he’d always go on and on about some book. He was a romantic. I thought he was dumb for believing love could save him. He kept reaching for it only to be slapped down. I thought if he just stopped, maybe they’d leave him alone. But in the end, he left everything. Even me.”
“Escaped,” I whispered to her. There was so much in my head. It was early, but my mind swam with it. In two hours I had an appointment to meet with a retired cop outside of town. He’d worked on most of the cases Kade had been blamed for, and I wanted his opinion now more than ever. Looking at Sophia I knew I’d just added more questions to the list. “Promise you’ll call if you need help.”
“Sure.” She looked away a minute, then back with a small smile. “Maybe you can bring Kade to Micah’s graduation this summer?”
“Yes,” I promised her without hesitation.
She got up, taking my hand. I let her walk me to the door.
“Call,” I reminded her, handing her my card. “Please.”
“I will. Will you tell him?”
“Yes.” Though I didn’t want to contemplate how I’d bring up that conversation.
“His family is dangerous.”
“I know.” Boy did I. I stepped out onto the steps and noticed there was a cop car behind my parked Bug, writing down the license plate and stalking around it. Shit.
The door slammed shut behind me abruptly and I knew Sophia was smart to hide. I made my way toward my car. Getting arrested here in Carlsbad was a bad idea, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and had the speed dial ready.
“Can I help you, Officer?” I called. At least he was in uniform, even if he was a hulking beast with a mostly shaved head and no neck. The decked-out squad behind him was legit enough, but I wondered if he was in the pocket of the most powerful family in the area.
“This your car?”
“Yes, sir.” Nathan had taught me to be polite to the police. More flies with honey than vinegar, or so the saying went. Will had told me to keep my mouth shut as I had a tendency to insert my foot into it at the worst time. Kade was all about slow movement and keep the hands showing when it came to the police. As a soldier he knew he could come across as threatening, even without trying. I didn’t have that option, but wasn’t going to tempt fate. So I kept my hands out of my pockets, in plain sight, and tried to be as demure as possible.
“We got a call about a stolen car matching this description. Plate and all.”
For a minute I thought maybe Kade had called it in, trying to teach me a lesson. But that wasn’t really Kade’s way. He never tried to hurt anyone in a roundabout way. If he was mad, he usually just said so. Which was why him leaving without saying goodbye yesterday morning had stung. I needed to talk to him.
“Car is mine. I’ve got the license and registration information in the glove box and a copy on my tablet.” I held up the device I had in my hand. “Who reported it stolen?”
The look he gave me was enough to know he wasn’t about to share. “Put your hands on top of the car.”
I sighed, hating this dance of the alpha male, but did as told. He patted me down, took the tablet, my phone, and the keys. He even put me in the back seat of his squad while he searched through the glove box and called in records. I said nothing and moved as little as possible. There was no need to make him think I was resisting him at all. Police brutality was a problem in California, and I would do my best to not be a statistic.
Finally, he opened the door to the squad and waved for me to get out. He handed the keys, phone, and the tablet back. “Everything checks out.”
Of course it did. The car was mine. Instead of giving him a snide remark about wasted time, no matter how much I wanted to say it, instead I asked, “Am I free to go?”
He stared at me a moment longer. “For now.”
And there was no missing the warning in his tone. I nodded and got in my car, taking extra care to check my mirrors and adjust my seat belt before driving away. I could feel his eyes boring into me the entire time.
Chapter Seventeen
THE SECOND meeting was at a truck stop almost an hour outside town. After the confrontation with the cop, the idea of going so far worried me. Except the stop was busy, packed with trucks and pedestrian traffic, as apparently it had the only sandwich shop in miles. I knew the ex-cop as soon as I stepped into the restaurant. It was the way his eyes scanned the dining area, and his gray hair was still buzzed short.
“Detective Franklin?” I asked as I approached him. He stood with a courtesy I didn’t often see to shake my hand and gesture me toward the empty seat at his table. “Thank you for seeing me,” I told him after we both sat down.
“You had a lot of good questions when you called.”
I’d called him in the car on the way down yesterday with the hands-free, hoping for some answers before hitting town. “Kade’s family recently took him hostage, drugged him, and lied about having him. I want to make sure that doesn’t happen again.” I pulled out my tablet and opened to the long list of things Kade had supposedly done to warrant such anger from his family.
“His sister gave me a list of things his family is claiming Kade did. I was hoping you could give me your opinion on some of them.” I didn’t mention that Kade didn’t have a record. He’d never been charged with a crime, not even as a youth. If he had been, it’d been expunged, though even that sometimes could leave a paper trail that hinted of more.
The former detective took a sip of his coffee and accepted the tablet. He read through the list, scrolling the several pages before pushing it back to me. “I don’t think he did most of this shit. Only thing I ever caught him doing was setting off fireworks when he was thirteen. His brothers were there but ran when they saw me. I tried to bring him home to his folks, but they wanted me to charge him with reckless endangerment and vandalism.”
I gaped. “Are you serious?”
“Yeah. Thirteen and I ended up putting him in lockup for the night. Had to convince my sergeant to let him go. He was a good friend of the kid’s dad. When I wrote up the report that I’d seen the two other boys run off but had been able to identify them, he made me change it.”
“Change it how?”
“Remove them from the report. He said I must have ‘mis-seen’ as Kade was alone. He wanted to send Kade to juvie. I refused. Let him go with a warning. Bad enough the kid’s parents didn’t want him around no need to throw a kid that young into juvie for messing around with his brothers.”
I checked the date on that incident, and sure enough, it corresponded to another admission to “psychiatric care.” “That was the only thing you think he did?” I flipped through my notes of the few incidents I’d found that he’d been home when they happened. I narrowed the list down to those ten or twelve and handed it back to him. “What about those?”
Franklin looked it over. “Not likely. The kid rarely left the house without one of his siblings with him. Though they ditched him often enough. We were given orders at the precinct to pick him up if we ever saw him out alone. We never did. This stuff happened, normal kid bullshit, but I highly doubt it was him. Carlsbad is a small town trying to be big. There’s not a lot happening, and the kids get punchy. Do stupid shit. Kade was always, yes, sir, no, sir. Very respectful. Never met anyone’s eyes. He always stared at the ground and kept back like he was ready to run when someone lashed out at him. I saw enough abused kids back in the day to know that look. He and his siblings used to have a dog walking business. That was before this shit started.” He pointed at the handful of pet deaths there had been. “Kade was good with the animals. Though there were a couple that could have dragged him like he was a helium balloon without even trying. Shy kid. Saw him talking to one of the dogs more than once. My partner would sometimes have us follow him. It was stupid, but w
e didn’t have anything else to do.”
“You never saw him hurt any of the animals in his care?”
“Never. Not even jerk the leash when one of the bigger ones tried to run. Rarely saw his siblings with him, though. And they were supposed to do the job together. Was supposed to teach them responsibility or some shit. To me it looked like a game of how to manipulate their little brother into doing all the work while they reaped the rewards.”
“Were they paid?”
“Yeah, money went to their dad.”
“What about the rape?” I asked, throwing it out there, though I knew it had never officially been filed since Sophia had already told me that.
“What rape?” Franklin asked. “The boy was queer as a three-dollar bill. Knew that early on. Never heard anything about a rape. Can’t imagine he could have even if he’d been inclined. He was a skinny little thing back then. The few times he came back to town when he was older his family just about tarred and feathered him to run him out of town.”
So even the cops had known Kade was gay from a very young age. It made me wonder if the Marines had changed him that much since he didn’t have any of the politically accepted normatives that society expected from gay men. “There was a football player that Kade might have been seeing in his teens.” I’d forgotten to ask Sophia his name but now really wanted to talk to him. “Do you happen to know who that was?”
The detective sighed. “Jonathan Riker. He was killed in a car crash right before his graduation. There were rumors. And again we were told if we saw Kade with Jonathan we were to pick them both up. Never saw them together. The Riker family left town right after his death. Kade had already been gone a couple years when he died, I think. I ran into Kade once much later, and he was wearing dog tags. Was different. Still respectful and quiet, but not that abused little boy anymore. The family never said he’d enlisted, but I did ten years myself when I was young and know another of my kind when I see them,” he said. “Far as I know he never inquired about Jonathan and never had another boyfriend in town. But he’d only show up for a few weeks at a time. Buy a house, work on it a few weeks, and sell it. Then he stopped coming back at all. I guess there never really was much for him here.”