Model Investigator (Haven Investigations Book 3)

by Lissa Kasey

  “You took care of her,” I said.

  “I tried to. And she took care of me. We were two peas in a pod. A lot like you and Britney.”

  Until his family had taken even that from him. How could I tell him? What if he already knew and just didn’t want to share it with me? My heart pounded and my lungs tightened.

  He put a hand to my chest, over my heart. “What is it, baby?”

  “I have to tell you something, and I don’t know how you’re going to react. I don’t want to hurt you, but I think it will. And if you already know, I think I may fall apart.”

  “You’re making no sense.” He pulled away long enough to flick on the bedside lamp.

  I winced at the light. He immediately began massaging my temple again.

  “I’d really like for you to go back to the doctor for your head. I’d feel better if we had more than one opinion on the headache thing. I really hate to see you in pain.”

  “Now you know how I feel,” I told him.

  “True enough.” He ran a gentle caress over my cheek, fingers pausing to trace my lips. “So what is it? Jolanda always says just spitting it out is better than stewing on bile.”

  I took a deep breath, braced myself, and then dropped the bomb. “You have a son.”

  He was silent for a minute, a handful of expressions crossing his face, most of them confusion. Then he chuckled. “I know your brother sent you to that expensive private school that insisted on teaching only abstinence, but I’m pretty sure you know it takes a boy and a girl to make a baby.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ve never been with a woman, Ollie. They’ve never appealed to me.” He ran his fingers over my face and into my hair, like he was trying to soothe me, but his expression said he was lost in some internal thought he wasn’t voicing.

  I swallowed back the lump in my throat. “When you were fifteen, you went to a college party with Sophia to meet a guy. You might have been dating him or just crushing on him. Sophia wasn’t sure. You were very careful back then with what you said. Even to her.”

  His touch paused. “I don’t—” He frowned. “I….” He seemed so confused.

  I grabbed his hand and kissed his palm.

  “I don’t remember, Ollie. I can sort of see his face, but everything else is a big blank.”

  “His name was Jonathan Riker.” Maybe they’d erased him from Kade’s brain somehow. Maybe his family had tried to rewrite a lot of his memories, or just wipe them away. I couldn’t imagine that was healthy.

  Again Kade’s face was a flicker of emotion, and then a wince of pain. “Now I’m getting a headache.”

  I reached over him and took my phone off the nightstand, unlocking it and navigating to the pictures I’d taken that morning of Micah. “At that party, that last night you were with Sophia, you had sex with her.”

  “No, Ollie. No. I wouldn’t…,” he denied.

  “She said you were both very drunk, but she was willing.” I turned the screen so he could see it. Micah looked so much like a young Kade. I couldn’t imagine anyone denying him.

  Kade sucked in a deep breath. He took the phone from me, flipped through the pictures, even zoomed in and out. “This can’t be….” I kept my body pressed to his and rubbed his back and shoulder. “Why wouldn’t she tell me? I don’t remember. Fuck.”

  He rolled himself backward, almost falling off the bed. He had to stop and sit on the edge to reach for his crutches. There was no way I was going to let him run away. I slid up and wrapped my arms around him from behind, resting my head on his shoulder but holding him fiercely. He trembled. “Ollie….”

  “Shh,” I whispered. “It’s okay.”

  “It’s not,” he insisted.

  “It is. She doesn’t hate you. She is happy you got out of town and away from your family. And she’s told Micah all about you. He’ll be graduating this year. She wants us to attend.”

  He grumbled several incoherent, garbled sounds, then said, “Fuck.”

  “He’s at school right now. She’s at work. Nothing you can do right this second,” I told him because I knew where his mind was going.

  “I need to see them.”

  “Later.” When he was calm and didn’t feel like he was going to come apart in my arms.

  “Ollie.” His voice was strained.

  I hugged him tighter.

  “What have I done?”

  “Survived.”

  Silence stretched long between us. Only the sound of the air conditioner whirring broke the tension. He was working so hard to hold himself together. I could feel it in the rigidity of his body.

  “At what cost?” he asked a moment later.

  “Your sanity, I think.”

  He snorted, which always made me laugh because I was pretty sure he never did that before dating me. “Not sure I’m sane most days.”

  “We’re all mad here,” I reminded him. “Come lay down and nap with me. We’ll meet up with Sophia and Micah later.”

  He reached back and cupped my cheek in his palm and turned his head to kiss me. “I’m so lost, Ollie.”

  “That’s okay,” I assured him. “So am I.”

  “The blind leading the blind, right?”

  “I’ll follow you anywhere,” I promised.

  Chapter Nineteen

  KADE SLEPT restlessly. But even with him flopping around beside me, I still slept hard. His jarring only brought me to the edge of wakefulness before I’d be swallowed up again. Nap-time dreams were always so much weirder than nighttime ones.

  It was the brush of lips over my cheek that woke me. My eyes fluttered open to stare at Kade. He’d turned the lamp on, but at least the light no longer hurt. He traced my eyebrows with his fingers and seemed to be memorizing my face.

  “Hi,” I told him.

  “Hi,” he said back. “We should eat.”

  “I could eat,” I said.

  He smiled. “Best news I’ve had all day.”

  “I know the perfect place.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded. With luck, Sophia would still be at the diner. And I knew Micah bussed tables after school most days while waiting for his mom to finish work. It was probably a bad idea to be so open about Kade seeing them after Sophia had made it clear how badly his family wanted to keep them a dirty little secret. But I couldn’t deny Kade this opportunity to fix something his family had stolen from him. He had a kid. An almost full-grown kid who he’d missed the chance to see grow up. I knew, for a man like Kade, just the thought had to be devastating.

  “How’d you get here anyway?” I asked as we made our way to my Bug. Fitting his crutches and both of us in it was a bit of a trick.

  “Like most people when they travel, I flew. Tomas drove me to the airport and I took a cab to the location your phone gave me last night. I figured it had to be your hotel since it’s unlikely you’d sleep in your car.” He glared at the back seat. “This thing would only be comfortable for a three-year-old to sleep in.”

  I drove us to the diner, his left hand gripped in my right. God, he was beautiful. “You should head home after this. I can drop you off at the airport.”

  He narrowed his eyes like he was onto me. “Not a chance.”

  I groaned. “It’s not safe for you, Kade. Hell, it’s probably not safe for me. I had a cop waiting for me outside of Sophia’s house, claiming someone had reported my car stolen.”

  “What the fuck?” he demanded as I pulled into the lot of the diner.

  “You know I was prepared. I had all my paperwork in order. He let me go. Had to. The car is mine. I’ve been detained by the police enough to know how to act around them.” The last was said to ease a bit of the tension, but it didn’t work.

  He was grumbling incoherently again. Something about fucking blood relatives and crazy people. I smiled and got out of the car to free his crutches. He was already out and standing beside the open passenger door by the time I’d unraveled the puzzle of small car plus long crutches to hand them
to him. He was getting good at balancing on one leg. I handed him the crutches, which he took and moved away from the door so I could shut it.

  He glared at the diner. “I hated this place as a kid.”

  “Why?”

  “It was my brothers’ haunt. They’d come here with all their friends and harass the staff. The food was okay. But I swear people would clear out when any of us entered, like they do in Westerns when the gunslinger enters a saloon.”

  “You expecting to clear the place again?”

  “Guess we’ll find out.”

  I opened the door for him and let him enter before following after him. Inside, the diner was a cute and clean little replay on the old ’50s style. Tables, booths, and chairs were a mix of gleaming aluminum and red vinyl. The giant counter area curved along the center with a gleaming white top. The three waitresses on duty were dressed like Sophia had been, in little cheerleader-type skirts and fitted polos. They all had frilly aprons over the uniform to hold notepads, pens, and straws.

  Kade saw Sophia before I did, and she saw him. She froze, eyes going wide, mouth dropping open. The entire diner seemed to tense with expectation. Then she rushed his way, wrapped her arms around him, and hugged Kade so tightly he teetered on his crutches. I eased up behind them, putting a hand on his lower back to steady him. He sank into her embrace. She sobbed, and he buried his face in her hair.

  I looked up to see Micah. He stood with an empty basin in hand, a waist apron over jeans and a T-shirt. His expression was guarded, and around the edges, slightly worried. The similarities floored me. They’d never met, and yet their expressions were identical. Kade finally looked up, his eyes meeting Micah’s. I heard his breath catch.

  “It’s okay,” I whispered to him.

  Sophia must have heard me because she turned in his arms to see Micah. She held out a hand to him. Micah hesitated but finally took her hand. She let Kade go to hug Micah. “It’s your dad,” she told Micah. “It’s really him.”

  Now a foot apart, the two of them stared at each other. They were equal in height, though Kade was filled out more than his lanky teen son. He had always complained that without his beard, he looked twelve, and I could see that in Micah’s clean-shaven face. The youth and innocence that I didn’t think either of them had anymore. And I could see the war of emotion in their eyes. Micah may have heard his mother speak good things, but a lifetime without a father and stuck in a town that hated his existence had likely created some animosity.

  I stepped up and held out my hand to Micah. “I’m Oliver Petroskovic.”

  “My boyfriend,” Kade interrupted before I could finish the introduction, as if daring his son to protest.

  I gave Micah a smile. He shook my hand but didn’t let go of his mom or take another step toward Kade. “Maybe we can sit down and talk?” I inquired. “We can wait until your shifts are done if need be.”

  Sophia sprang into action. She turned toward the counter and all the staring staff and customers. “What are you all staring at? Never seen a boy meet his father for the first time? His father the Marine, a hero.” There was a tense silence. “That’s right. Kade Almantey, son of the Almantey family, is the father of my child.” She threw a look to a large man behind the counter. “Hank. Micah and I are taking a break.” She then flounced to a booth off in the corner. It took the rest of us a few extra seconds to follow. Kade moved first, slowly, but with a smile. I nodded at Micah.

  “Lily, can you bring the boys some menus?” Sophia asked another of the waitresses as we passed.

  “Sure, Sophie.”

  Kade slid into the booth on the side that gave him a view of most of the diner and the door. I sat next to him and balanced his crutches on the edge of the seat, beside me. Sophia motioned for Micah to sit. He grudgingly took the inner seat of the booth across from Kade, his mother moving in beside him to block him in. The other waitress dropped off some menus and glasses of water.

  Sophia reached across the table to touch Kade’s hands. He took hers in his and squeezed. “It’s been so long,” he whispered.

  She gave him a smile and glanced at Micah. “Too long.”

  “You never tried to tell me? Did I miss something…?” Again his thoughts and words were jumbled like he didn’t know how to voice all the questions in his head. “I don’t even remember….”

  “I think we were drugged,” she said suddenly. She glanced at Micah, then back to Kade. “That night. I vaguely remember getting a new glass of whatever. And then feeling sick afterward. You helped me to a room to lay down. I don’t think it was just the alcohol. Skyler, Madison, and Peyton were at the party. I remember one of them standing over us. Not all of them. Not sure who. It’s still a sort of fuzzy memory.”

  Kade shook his head and rubbed his temple. “I don’t even remember the party. Or….” He glanced at me.

  “Jonathan,” I prodded.

  He winced, like the name actually hurt him. And maybe it did. “Were he and I…?”

  “A couple? I think so. You didn’t talk about it. You didn’t talk about anything much after the first time your parents sent you for therapy.”

  “I never would have left if I’d known.”

  “And where would either of us be now?” she pointed out. “I’ve seen pictures of you and Ollie together. You look so happy.” She glanced down as though seeing through the table to his lost leg. “You’re okay?”

  He nodded. “Still healing.”

  Physically and emotionally, I thought.

  “I know you were in the Marine Corps for a long time.”

  “Until I was injured by an IED. Been out just over a year and a half.” He glanced down at the leg. “My right leg was damaged pretty bad from the bomb, but almost two months ago, Ollie and I were in an accident that finished off what remained of that leg.” It was a sore spot with him. Not so much physically, but mentally. He was prepared for rejection for a thousand reasons. His leg, his battered and scarred body, his crazy family, his years serving his country, even his mixed heritage. I knew it all bothered him at times. He just hid those fears better than most.

  I reached out and took one of his hands. Sophia let me.

  “You need to eat,” Kade whispered to me. I just nodded and glanced down at the menu. “Can you catch me up?” Kade asked Sophia and Micah. “Fill me in on everything?”

  The bell above the door jingled, and two cops walked in. One of them was the cop who’d bothered me earlier in the day. I didn’t for a minute think it was a coincidence. Kade didn’t more than glance their way. He was so focused on Sophia and Micah. But they headed toward our table like they were on a mission. I braced myself, fumbled to pull my phone out of my pocket, and squeezed Kade’s hand. Now he looked up.

  The cops sauntered up to the table, hands on their belts as though they were peacocks displaying all their weapons like feathers.

  “Can we help you, Officers?” I asked politely.

  They didn’t even look at me. Their eyes were all over Kade.

  “We’ve had some reports of someone disturbing the peace, only to come to find a black sheep back harassing the locals,” the cop who’d bothered me earlier said.

  Kade’s expression completely shut down.

  “We’re not bothering anyone,” I told him. “We’re just sitting down to have an early dinner with family.” I motioned to Sophia and Micah, both of whom seemed to be sinking down in their seats and avoiding looking up at the cops. Obviously they too were used to being harassed.

  “These boys bothering you, Sophie?” The cop put his hands on the table and leaned over her, looming and intimidating. “I’d be more than happy to take out the trash.”

  I held up my phone and began recording.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” the other cop asked me.

  “Recording the police harassing an innocent civilian. Bet I can have this clip viral in less than an hour.”

  The first cop drew back, towering over me now. “I’ll show you harassment, faggot.�
� He cracked his knuckles, but I kept filming.

  “We have done nothing wrong,” I told them. Everyone else seemed to have their jaw wired shut, both at our table and throughout the diner. Even Kade was oddly quiet, still beside me, like he was hoping he could sink through the floor. “We’re sitting at a table in a public diner, about to have dinner. I don’t see how that’s bothering anyone.”

  “Put the phone away,” the first cop demanded.

  “Tell me why you’re here harassing us,” I said, not putting the phone down. “We’re just sitting down for a meal. Kade just got to town and has been with me the entire time. He hasn’t bothered anyone.”

  “The good people of Carlsbad don’t want you here,” said cop two.

  “Pretty sure we’re still in America and can travel wherever we want.”

  The first cop leaned over me, and I put the phone right in his face, recording his attempt at intimidation. “A little closer,” I told him. “I want to make sure I get your badge number on camera.”

  He yanked himself back and folded his arms across his chest. Both of them glared at us. “You better get out of town, Kade. For the safety of your boyfriend—” First cop’s eyes raked over me with disdain. “—and your spawn.” He glared at Micah.

  “Sounds like a threat to me,” I said. “Again, viral. Wonder how much bad press the Carlsbad PD will take before throwing your ass in the fire?”

  The second cop put his hand on the first cop’s arm. They shared a glance. First cop pointed at Kade. “I’m watching you.”

  Right, ’cause that was original. But they sauntered out, glaring at the other diners as they went, like silently prodding them to demand Kade’s arrest. No one said a word or would meet their eyes.

  Once the door to the diner closed and the cop car backed out of the lot, the entire place seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Conversation resumed in a low hum around us, though our table still seemed frozen. Kade, Sophia, and Micah all stared at the tabletop as though it were the most fascinating thing in the world.

  I saved the video and sent it to Ty with a short message about the harassment. He’d know what to do. Whether it was posting it to YouTube or just sending a very not-nice message to the police chief, he’d handle it to keep Kade safe.