Model Investigator (Haven Investigations Book 3)

by Lissa Kasey

  Dead. The man who had very possibly been Kade’s first boyfriend was dead. Coincidence or something much worse? My gut hurt at the idea. “Do you remember ever hearing anyone talk about Nathan Petroskovic?” I had to ask even though I was terrified of the answer.

  “Who?”

  I shrugged, somewhat relieved. “No one. Never mind.” I shut down the tablet and rose. “Thank you again for your time.”

  “You should stay out of Carlsbad,” he warned me. “His family has clout. The mayor and half the police force are in their pocket. It’s the reason I moved outside the city. Would rather drive an hour to the nearest Walmart than continue to live under their shadow. There’s something off about them, and I don’t think Kade was the problem.”

  I nodded, having figured that out already. “I won’t be in town long. Just another day or so.” Kade would need me home even if I was still trying to put puzzle pieces together. It was better we talked than both shut down. I sighed to myself, realizing I’d been cruel and unfair, demanding to know about his past. At the time it seemed justified since Kade knew everything about me. He even knew some of my past boyfriends and the kinky things I’d done with them. All my secrets were out in the open. For a while I thought his should have been too. But that had been his family putting doubt in my head. Just like they’d done to everyone else who’d ever crossed Kade’s path in the past. I hated myself for falling into that trap. “Thanks again for meeting with me.”

  He nodded.

  I left with a lot on my mind. If my suitcase wasn’t back at the hotel, I might have just headed home. But I would head back toward Carlsbad, ask a few more questions, and then head home. I mentally ticked off the list of things that Kade couldn’t have done and the few that were unanswered. There was the fight with another boy. I wanted to talk to him, but he had yet to return my calls. The animal stuff, which again seemed so unlike Kade. That mystery had never been solved. There had been almost two-dozen unsolved animal murders, but only five that Kade hadn’t been institutionalized during. I planned to talk to those people and see if they could recall anything.

  Again Kade’s family’s treatment of him seemed so odd. I thought about my own family, the few years I remembered my mother and father. They’d been protective, but not like Nathan was. They often went out to parties, leaving me with the neighbors. As I got older, they’d leave me home alone, though Nathan would have had a fit if he’d known. He didn’t like leaving me home alone even after I’d turned sixteen. I never understood why. All the other kids could go out and come home late without supervision. Even Britney had a curfew of eleven, while mine had been nine, and I could only go out if Nathan knew with whom and to where.

  Kade had lived like a criminal with an ankle monitor. People everywhere watching his every step. No wonder he wanted to get the hell out of Dodge and never come back.

  I sat in my car and pulled up everything I could find about the death of Jonathan Riker. He was a handsome kid, typical jock, but his smile seemed genuine enough. At the time, there had been a news report about the accident in the paper. It showed Jonathan’s senior picture beside that of a mangled car.

  The article mentioned that the crash was being investigated, as the car had hit a guardrail at about seventy miles per hour, flipping over the rail and landing into oncoming traffic. It was the sort of crash that movies found exciting but in real life just meant a really horrible death. The writer of the piece included a statement I found interesting:

  “Jon was loved by so many, and he’ll be missed,” Peyton Almantey told the reporter. “We’re all just heartbroken by this loss.”

  Odd that Kade’s sister had given a statement, and she sounded more scripted than heartbroken. There was a blurry picture of her in a cheerleader’s uniform down toward the bottom of the article. The caption read, Peyton Almantey, Jonathan Riker’s girlfriend. So he’d been dating Kade only to turn around and date Kade’s sister? Or maybe everyone was wrong and he hadn’t been seeing Kade at all. He was a couple years older than Kade, so maybe he’d been just a friend? Or maybe nothing at all if he was dating Peyton.

  I tried to find pictures of the other siblings but came up blank. Only Ashlyn, who went by Ashlyn Manning, was featured anywhere. Her pictures were glamorous like any model should be, but again nothing outside of professional photos appeared anywhere. It was like the whole fucking family were ghosts. It was a digital world. People got caught on film all the time. The fact that there were no hits on any of their personal lives was more than just odd; it was eerie. The older two brothers worked for their dad, running companies that ran companies and trading investor stocks like candy. Peyton seemed to be professionally married to a football player—apparently she had a type—who got traded around a lot to different teams. Kade’s youngest brother Xander was working on his PhD in some sort of advanced molecular science. He had some interesting theories on climate change, but again no pictures, not even professionally, for him.

  I scratched my head, feeling like the puzzle just kept growing.

  Knowing what I did now, about Kade’s best friend, his child, and the entire city of people who’d followed him with condemning eyes, I was more determined than ever to prove Kade innocent. There was the chance that his family had killed Nathan because Kade had been involved with him. That was something else I wanted to dig into. It would be easier if I could actually speak to his siblings. Ashlyn had advised against it. She had left town and was back in New York. I called her on the Bluetooth linkup in the car on the way back to my hotel to fill her in.

  “So no rape,” she asked for the fourth time.

  “No. You knew about his kid, though?”

  “Sure. It’s the most talked about taboo in the family. They look so much alike, don’t you think?”

  “Why does no one else have kids?”

  “Who says they don’t? My dad probably just paid them off. Skyler and Madison are married, but they are also players. Peyton has a ton of boy toys, but I’m pretty sure she got her tubes tied so she wouldn’t get pregnant and be expected to ruin her figure. Those three wouldn’t know how to be faithful if it hit them like a Mack Truck. But daddy seems to be good at covering up stuff, maybe even babies.”

  And that was somehow more acceptable than Kade being gay?

  “They never seem to be in the news.” I’d set up algorithms to search all the outlets I could find. Local and national. There had been no hits.

  “Dad has an army of publicists working full-time to keep stuff out of the press.”

  Of course. Which was why I’d had to fight tooth and nail to get anything about Kade’s abduction published. Best dressed society pages aside, Kade was almost never in the news. I had thought the suppression was Ty’s doing, since my appearance in tabloids and shady articles had mostly vanished. But pictures of Kade and I together were rarely published. Even during Donovan’s trial, there was little mention of Kade. That was beginning to make sense now.

  “Xander’s so buried in his work, I don’t think he notices other people exist. He’s the ultimate nerd. And me, well, I have a career to manage, so no babies for me, at least not for a while. Then there’s the ‘having to meet the right one and get him approved through my family’ thing. The idea makes me shudder.”

  I had to agree. “So are the marriages arranged?”

  “All except Peyton. But she landed a guy who makes several million a year, so she doesn’t need dad’s business ties to keep in the lifestyle. He’s been making noise about Xander, but Xander is a pro at putting him off due to whatever new research project he’s working on.”

  Maybe that was part of the greater issue here. If Kade was gay, his dad would have a harder time marrying him off to make a business deal. I jotted down another half-dozen notes and more questions. “Was there ever someone planned for Kade?”

  “You’d have to ask my dad. If he had one he never shared.”

  He’d likely slam the door in my face if I tried to talk to him. Or worse, have me arrested a
nd charged with some jacked-up crap that would leave me in jail for years. I sighed. More questions that needed answering.

  But one big thing had been bothering me a lot about all of this. “Where is your mom? How does she feel about all this? Why do I only have information about your dad and your siblings?”

  She was silent for a minute, then said, “Mom is in a mental institution up in LA.”

  “What?”

  “She’s been there a while. Ten years or so? It’s why I never questioned that Kade needed help. It was bound to come out in one of us.”

  “Why is she there? What did she do?”

  “She’s always been off. Would go into tantrums and stuff when we were kids. Dad hired in-home care for her because she’d go into rages all the time. He moved her to a facility after she went at Skyler with a knife. Sliced open his arm. He had to get, like, forty stitches. I was home for that one. Well not at home at the time, but in town. It was over the Christmas holiday that year.”

  “Did she ever say why she attacked him?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t seen her since before she came at him.”

  “You never visit her?” That just seemed so odd to me—the way this family just threw each other away. But Jacob’s family had done the same thing. They used each other until there was nothing left to gain. I couldn’t imagine living like that. Nathan’s death still burned like a hot poker shoved into my heart most days, and he’d been gone a year and a half. As angry as he made me sometimes, I still loved him and would give just about anything to get him back. Maybe it wasn’t them who were so different. Maybe it was just me.

  “Dad says it’s not good for her. She gets riled up anytime anyone goes in to see her. We were never close.”

  What I wouldn’t pay to be a fly on her wall.

  “After the way Kade acted, all incoherent and babbling, I don’t think I could handle that from my mom.”

  “But Kade was drugged,” I pointed out, “heavily, with mind-altering stuff like they use in the military for brainwashing. I can show you copies of his blood work.”

  There was a moment of silence across the line, then, “I don’t want to know.”

  I sighed. “Burying your head in the sand isn’t going to help anyone. Especially not Kade. Do you care about him at all?”

  “Of course I do!” She was indignant.

  “How about the three of us sit down in a week or so and you can ask him stuff face-to-face? By then I should have enough time to talk to the remaining few on this list your dad is touting as the ‘Evils of Kade,’ and be able to eliminate most of it. Like the rape, I’m thinking most of this is just a spin of the truth to make it look bad.”

  “But why? Why make Kade look like a monster?” She asked the question that had been churning in my head since the moment she’d sent me the list.

  The simplest answer was control. Powerful men liked to have control of everything, especially their children. Bad behavior reflected back on the parent, so stomping all individuality out was often the key. I’d learned that from investigating the rich. “That’s what I’m here to find out.”

  She let out a long breath. “Okay. In a week, you, me, and Kade. Maybe you guys can convince Xander to come out of the lab too.”

  I smiled, thrilled she was giving him a chance. Family was important. I wished I had more of it.

  “I want my brother back. It’s been years. What I wouldn’t give for a family member who acted like it wasn’t a burden to have a family.”

  “Kade would be happy to have you in his life.” And I knew he would. He was a man who loved fiercely and took care of those he considered his family. Right now that distinction was saved mostly for the family of his heart rather than his blood family, but I knew he had room for his baby sister.

  I pulled into the lot at the hotel, tired, headache once again pounding—I was getting used to functioning through them. “I gotta go,” I told Ashlyn. “I’ll check in with you again later. I need to do some more research.” Names and addresses mostly. And I’d have to find a schedule for the guy who was ignoring my calls. Likely, I’d have to corner him somewhere. But I would make sure I was armed with at least a Taser before I did so. Not everyone took well to intrusive, on-the-spot questioning. “I want to talk to this Tony guy that Kade supposedly beat up. And map out some of the pet owners.”

  “Good luck,” Ashlyn said.

  And I would probably need it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  THERE WAS no sign of the tan Malibu or the large man from this morning. The only other vehicle in the lot was a large dark SUV that sat off in the corner and appeared to be empty.

  I shoved the phone into the pocket of my shorts and made my way to the door. This little hotel was more like the one I’d used back home than the one Jacob had treated me to a week ago. The heat of the Southern California day beat down on me, and I suddenly thought a nap might be a good idea. My headache was only a minor throb, but if I slept now, maybe I’d stave off the worst of it.

  The green light on the keycard flashed as I inserted the card and pushed the door open. An icy chill from the hardworking air conditioner hit me, and I couldn’t help but sigh. I shut the door and leaned against it to wallow in the cool darkness. Yes, a nap sounded really good.

  “Do you have another headache?”

  The voice jolted me so hard I dropped the tablet and my keys. Then I reached for the light switch. The inside hall light illuminated the small room. Kade lay on the bed like he’d been napping, his crutches leaning against the nightstand. I couldn’t help the fluttering pulse of my heart as it beat frantically.

  He sat up and reached for his crutches, but I took the few steps to the bed and sank to my knees beside it, letting my head rest in his lap. He let out a long sigh as his fingers curled into my hair and began massaging my scalp. “I hate fighting with you.”

  I hated it too. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. Genuinely sorry for accusing him of things even if I’d never spoken them out loud. There was so much I needed to tell him, but my gut hurt at the thought of the pain it would cause him. And I worried. He shouldn’t be here. It wasn’t safe. What if his father took him again, locked him away somewhere that I couldn’t free him?

  He tugged me up. “Turn off the light and come cuddle with me. We’ll talk and rest a little.”

  I got up, went to the door, picked up my tablet and keys, then flicked the switch. Again the bedroom returned to the pitch darkness my aching head so seemed to love these days. Maybe I needed to get better blackout curtains at home. My room never got this dark.

  I set the stuff on the TV stand, which was only outlined by the tiny green glow of the cable box attached to it. Then I kicked off my shoes and crawled onto the bed. Kade pulled me against him, grumbled, then yanked my phone out of my pocket and put it on the nightstand. He molded himself to me, arms wrapping around me like an anchor. It shouldn’t have surprised me that tears began to crawl down my cheeks. I was so stupid.

  “Don’t hate me,” I begged.

  “Never.” He sighed again and tucked his cheek to mine. He rubbed away some of my tears with his thumb. “We’re both pretty stupid sometimes. I guess that means we’re perfect for each other.”

  I snorted and could feel his smile against my face.

  “Do you really want to hear about my past?” he asked after a minute of silence.

  Yes, but the need wasn’t as burning as it had been when I’d run from home in anger. “I want to know everything about you, even the bad stuff. You know all my bad stuff.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah ’cause there’s so much of it. Let me think…. You’re messy, you forget to eat, or sometimes just ignore your hunger, and you have a fetish for kinky sex. Am I missing anything?”

  “I’m a judgmental prick who is severely codependent.”

  “Nah. Only minorly codependent,” he said, his tone teasing. “You just have a bad habit of letting the alpha males in your life have their way. I’d call that nonconfrontational o
r passive-aggressive rather than codependent. And since you have been nice enough to let your ex-boyfriend hide out at your house, the judgmental thing is debatable. Sometimes you just let your brain run away with you. Usually when you stop and sort out all the voices you make the right call. It just might take you a little longer than some to force those hamsters of yours to a stop.”

  He knew me so well. I ran my fingers down his bare arm, loving the feel of the fuzz of his hair and the slightly bumpy mass of scars beneath his tattoo. I could almost trace the image even without seeing it. “I’m sorry,” I told him again.

  “Me too. I really should open up to you more. I’ve talked about it to Jolanda a million times. Sometimes I start to say something, and then it’s like a wire wraps around my jaw, and I just can’t do it.” He hesitated for a minute, then said, “Not all of it is coherent, and there are a lot of pieces missing in my memory. Sometimes I’m not sure what’s an actual memory or just something I saw or heard somewhere.”

  Knowing what I did now about his treatment at the conversion facility, it didn’t surprise me that he was missing chunks of his memory. Electroshock therapy had a lot of horrible side effects, which was why it was mostly banned.

  “I met with Sophia this morning,” I told him.

  He stiffened in my arms, and then the tension suddenly released. “Sophie? How is she? God, it feels like forever since I’ve seen her.”

  “Since you were fifteen.”

  “Yeah.”

  “She’s gorgeous.”

  “She was always pretty,” he remarked, though it was more a passing comment like a mountain was beautiful, or the sky vibrant. “A lot of guys would look at her. She wasn’t well-off, so not all of them treated her right.”