by Lissa Kasey
“And that took you months?” Kade demanded. “I finish most cheating-spouse cases in a day, a week, tops.”
“Madison thought you caught wind of us. Said you waved at him, saw him, so we were keeping cool. We thought we’d wait you out.”
“When was this?”
“I don’t know. Christmas? Right before? You went to some big party. Dad had a fit about that. Apparently had to pay a shitload to keep you out of the media. Within a few hours of the party, he was getting calls from people asking about you.”
“I changed my name for a reason.”
“Apparently that wasn’t enough,” I muttered. Kade kissed my cheek.
“So you thought it was a game to stalk our lives like some sort of paparazzi?”
“It was fun for a while. Then Dad brought you home after the accident, and the lawyer was so loud and adamant. Dad threatened to strip us all of everything if we said anything. Money, name, everything.”
“And all I’ve ever wanted was for you all to leave me alone.”
Skyler sighed.
“And when Ollie brought me home? Why were you following me then?”
“I wasn’t at first. Madison was. But he ran into your cop friend outside your house, like two days ago, and freaked. Told me to take the car and keep out of sight for a while. Then Oliver came down here and started stirring up trouble. All I could imagine was Dad dragging you back to that damn room again. Locking you away….”
“Not happening,” I stated. “Did you guys bother interviewing anyone? The people who he supposedly hurt? Or is the whole town making up lies?”
“We didn’t talk to any of them. At least I didn’t.”
“You’re a shitty investigator.”
“Why am I the target in all this?” Kade finally asked. “Because I’m gay?”
Skyler sighed. “For Dad, maybe. I don’t know. Peyton suggests otherwise. Madison agrees with her, though I’ve shown him enough that he’s backed off. He started this whole thing, following your cases, taking pictures of you with Oliver. He said even if you did stuff as a kid, either you weren’t doing it now or you were covering it up really well. He loved the chase, though, said he felt all secret agent–like, looking for crimes and signs of suspicious deeds.”
“What deeds?” Kade demanded. “Do you forget I spent most of my childhood locked in a facility that thought electroshock therapy was a way to cure my gayness? How is kissing another boy worth torture?”
Skyler was silent for a minute, and I was glad Kade had a tight grip on me, else I would have leapt at Skyler and beat him. I didn’t usually lead with violence, but Kade’s family treated him so badly it made me want to hurt them back.
“We didn’t know. Madi and I didn’t know about that. We thought it was for the animals.”
“He didn’t do those things,” I hissed at him, struggling to free myself from Kade’s arms. “I have lists. Most of those things happened when he was away at therapy.” The word was vile because it had been torture.
Kade’s grip on me tightened. “Stay with me, baby.”
“I just… he can’t… I don’t….” I couldn’t even form a single coherent thought with how frustrated and angry I was. My Kade was older, stronger, not so easily intimidated, but I could picture the young him, before they’d broken him and tortured him into running.
“Answers, baby. We’re trying to get answers.”
“So if Kade didn’t do most of these animal things ’cause he was in therapy, then that leaves one of you guys,” James pointed out. He’d been mostly silent but absorbing things, it seemed. Maybe Kade was training him to take over the investigation side of the business.
“Or anyone else in town,” Skyler stated.
“I have vague memories of one,” Kade said. “I think I was there. It’s a very disjointed memory, but I feel like someone made me watch, and I cried the whole time.”
“The white Yorkie?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
“You were barely eleven when that one happened. Do you remember who else was there?”
“Yes, no, sort of? Again disjointed. Voices, faces, the night sky, trees, the smell of fresh-cut grass….” He stopped, and I knew now why he hadn’t yet reached for the food.
“Stop,” I whispered. “Don’t think of it.”
He sucked in a long breath. “Being there would have made me an accomplice.”
“An unwilling one,” I told him.
“Maybe,” he allowed.
“There was also Tony. And Sophia’s rape,” Skyler pointed out.
“Who’s Tony?” Kade asked again. We both knew the rape was bullshit. “How was I involved with him? I’ve seen a handful of pictures of him on my phone in Ollie’s research, but I’ve got nothing up here.” He tapped his forehead. “Not even a flutter.” He looked at me.
“You were lovers. He was your first, I think,” Skyler said. “Makes sense, since he seems your type.”
Kade frowned. “My type?”
“Fem. Like Oliver.”
Kade laughed. “Oliver is my type, and that has nothing to do with him being more physically feminine than a lot of men. I had a decade to cultivate my obsession with Ollie. Prior to that all my hookups were military men.”
I didn’t want to hear about any of his hookups. “You were dating the football player. Sophia said so. I’d believe her over your brothers,” I told him. Though there was the article from Jonathan’s accident that said Peyton was dating him. Again, maybe that was after? Since Kade would have enlisted by then, maybe Jonathan was bi and just wanted someone with the Almantey name.
“Do you have a picture of the football player in your list?” Kade pulled up his phone.
“Yes, Riker.”
He scrolled through the list until he found the name and clicked on it. He stared for a minute, and then his eyes widened. “First kiss, wow. Would have liked to remember that before now.”
I growled at him. He was mine, and I wasn’t sharing him with some ghost of a first boyfriend.
“Still yours, babe.” Kade held his phone up to show the picture to Skyler. “Know this guy?”
“Yeah, he played football with Madison. He and Peyton dated for a while. Dad didn’t like him much. His family had money, so I never understood why Dad hated him.”
Kade put the phone down and scrolled through a couple other pictures, then flipped back to the few I had of Tony. Tony was a bit of a nerd. If he was gender-fluid like me, he’d grown into it, because in all the pictures he wore baggy band T-shirts and jeans. His hair was a dark brown, cut short on the side and slightly long on the top like every other average guy in America. Nothing about him said feminine to me, but maybe he had to hide it back then? High school was nothing if not a torture test to prepare an individual for the worst in life.
“I’ve got nothing from him.” Kade showed the phone again to Skyler. “Tony, right? The same Tony you say I had a thing with? Before or after the football player?”
“I didn’t know you and Jon had a thing,” Skyler said.
“Even though he played ball with Madison?”
“He and Madison were best friends.”
“And you guys had no idea he was gay? Or bi I guess if he was dating Peyton. Was that before or after me? Never mind, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.” Kade put the phone down and rubbed my cheek. I could almost see the memories in his eyes. Things were coming back to him. In pieces maybe, but at least his past was no longer blank.
“I don’t think Tony and I were anything. But we’ll ask him later,” Kade said.
“Hospital says he’s beat up bad but going to be okay. Ollie and Micah saved his life,” James spoke up. He wasn’t shy at all about digging into the food. “He’ll be in the hospital for a while. Sounds like he’s coherent enough to allow visitors, though.”
So that was what took James so long. Not only escorting Sophia and Micah out of town but getting food and checking on Tony. I narrowed my eyes at Kade, who just gave me a t
iny peck on the cheek.
“So you all think I’m some kind of psycho, or is there another reason for all this?” Kade asked Skyler again.
“Madison said he thought it was because you’re not really Dad’s.”
And there was the bomb I’d been fearing since Kade told me about the photograph of his family. I’d called Ty earlier about seeing if he could order some paternity-type tests. We had Kade’s information already, since it had been used to prove Micah was his. How hard would it be to prove Kade was really an Almantey or not? And if he wasn’t, couldn’t we just cut them completely out of his life like the cancerous growth they were?
Kade was surprisingly not fazed at all. Maybe that was where his brain had been all morning, when he wasn’t deviously telling James to investigate for me. “That’s an easy enough theory to test. But if I’m not really part of the family, why keep dragging me back?”
“Because you were raised as one of us, given our name, and you know how Dad feels about the family name,” Skyler said.
“I changed my name. For that very reason. I’m not one of you, even if I ever was.” Kade sighed and shifted me in his arms.
“What about your mom?” I asked Skyler, turning just enough to see him. “Why did she attack you?”
Kade froze around me. “What?”
“That was a misunderstanding,” Skyler said.
“A misunderstanding that she found out you were blaming Kade for everything?”
“Mom’s not well.”
“Like Kade’s not well?” I demanded. “She’s been in a psych ward for ten years. For what? Why did she come at you with a knife?” Skyler’s expression was mostly neutral, which made me angry.
“I asked her straight out. That’s why she attacked me. I asked if Kade was Dad’s.” He paused for a minute. “There were rumors of a rape—”
“No,” I interrupted him. “You don’t get to pin any of that on Kade. How he was conceived, even if it wasn’t on par, is not his fault.” He made me so angry.
“I thought if Mom would confirm or deny, at least I could put the rumors to rest. I even caught her at a time when she was alone, which was rare. Dad always had servants, doctors, and therapists around her. As a kid, it drove me nuts. She wouldn’t look at any of us, touch us, hug us. So the rumor made sense to me. In my young brain—remember this was ten years ago—I needed a reason for her to be so cold to us.”
“I don’t remember her at all,” Kade said. “Just a picture really. The few flashes I have of her, she’s like a doll, untouchable, unyielding, and perfect.”
Skyler flashed us his left forearm, which had a long scar running the length of it. “This was her answer to me.”
I turned back to Kade and hugged him tight. “Your family has an obsession with accusing people of rape.”
Kade kissed my cheek. “Sophie said we’d talk about it when you and I got back to San Francisco. She said she’s a bit embarrassed, but is willing to see if she can jog my memory.”
“Did you hear that?” I asked Skyler, not bothering to look at him. “Kade didn’t rape Sophia. I don’t know who told you he did, but she says it didn’t happen that way.”
“He was all over her that night. I thought it was odd. They were both acting drunk, but I think we were all drunk.” Again Skyler went silent, thinking, it seemed.
Kade rubbed my back. “James, see him out please. I’m done.”
But I still had questions.
“No,” Kade whispered to me, obviously feeling me tense in his arms. “You’re my family now. Sophie and Micah are my family. Britney and Will and that new baby they have coming are my family. Hell, Newt is my family now. They—” He waved a hand at Skyler. “—are nothing to me.”
“Don’t you want to know?”
“What? If I’m really biologically part of the family? No. If I did crap when I was a kid, maybe. But we don’t need him, or any of them, to learn that.”
I rested my forehead on his shoulder, letting the anger drain out of me as James escorted Skyler out. When he returned, he said, “Do you want me to follow him?”
“No. If he still has something to prove, I’m sure we’ll run into him again. But he’s not our problem anymore. If he follows us home, then I’ll have Ty put a restraining order on him.” Kade squeezed me in a tight hug. “Eat, baby. We have people to question.”
I glanced up at him, trying to read the expression on his face, but it was neutral, and he was reaching for the food. “Tony?” I asked.
“And the owners of the Yorkie. If they are still around and don’t throw us out on the spot. James, eat.”
“Never knew Thai food was so good until Tomas sent me on an errand to get it for you guys. It smelled amazing, so I ordered some stuff, thinking what the hell. Been hooked ever since,” James said.
I blinked at him, letting the words sink in. Just how long had James actually been working at PHI?
Kade rubbed my hand. “You’re not eating. Stop thinking so hard.”
“Don’t ever leave me again.” I kissed him. He returned my kiss briefly.
“That’s the plan.”
“I came apart, Kade. When you were gone, I just broke into pieces.”
“Good thing I’m sticky enough to put all those pieces back together again.” Kade waggled his brows at me and nodded his head toward the bathroom. Fire burned through my cheeks, as I was sure James was watching us, judging us. But Kade gently held my face and gave me the barest of kisses before releasing me. “Eat.”
I settled myself comfortably against Kade’s side and reached for my plate again, ideas spinning through my head. Even as good as the food smelled, it just didn’t appeal to me, so I picked at it, only taking small bites. My stomach was a little wonky anyway. No need to force it.
What we needed was answers, but I needed Kade whole more than anything. I prayed that whatever we discovered didn’t break him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DESPITE MY protests, Kade insisted on reviewing the list again and reading the horrifying details of the few crimes that had been committed while he wasn’t locked away, being tortured. “The only one I have any recollection of is the Yorkie,” Kade said. He scrolled through the pictures of the others briefly, again all the smiling, happy pet pictures instead of any sort of gruesome police report. “Not even a flash of the others. Well, some memories, but none of them bad. I used to help walk them sometimes.” He laid out three more pictures of dogs. “These are familiar. If I think hard enough, I could probably give more detail, again, nothing bad.”
I thought that was a good thing. My head was pounding again, but since I wasn’t driving, I just put on my darkest pair of wraparound shades and took a couple Tylenol. If Kade could function missing a leg and with a memory that resembled swiss cheese, I could push through a headache and nausea.
James returned from loading our stuff into his SUV. Kade insisted that we would be leaving today, no matter what happened. And if my Bug wasn’t done by the time we were through questioning people, he’d pay them to have someone deliver it back home. I would have protested, but since he was giving in to letting me question people, it didn’t bother me much. I really did want to get home, check on Britney, pet Newt, and make sure Jacob wasn’t having rock-star sex all over my house.
“It was probably Madison,” I told Kade. We sat in the middle seat of the SUV together, and he clung to my hand while he gave James directions, not to any house, but to a school.
“Maybe,” Kade acknowledged.
I wondered if he was remembering things he didn’t share with me. His gaze was distant, wandering, even as we pulled up into a parking lot of a private high school, beside their football field. Kade opened his door and carefully climbed down to balance on his crutches. I scrambled out after him, and James made quick work of shutting down the vehicle to follow.
Kade moved with purpose, making his way quickly across the field, despite the soft ground, and to the bleachers. It was like the sort of thing you saw in
movies. The metal beams leading up to the seats. Garbage, soda cans, used condoms, and cigarette butts littered the ground. Kade stared like he was seeing another world.
“First kiss was right here,” he said softly. He let out a wistful sigh. “Jonathan was big, older, and I thought he was a god.” Kade looked back at me. “I don’t think he was interested in me at all. I was just another conquest to him. I was stupid. Young and stupid.”
I carefully wrapped an arm around his waist and kissed his cheek. “Young maybe, but not stupid. You don’t even want to know about my first kiss.” Which had led to Nathan finding out I was gay.
“I vaguely recall Jay. But I do recall Madison being with him on more than one occasion.” He seemed to be focusing on something, maybe an old memory or image. “There’s a half memory. Of Jay with Madison….”
I raised a brow. “You mean in the biblical sense?”
“Okay, this is going to sound really bad, and I don’t really know if this is reality, but I have a strong image in my head of coming back here and finding Jay leaning against one of these beams with Madison on his knees in front of him. I remember the strong feeling of betrayal, pain, and running away, and then another big blank.”
Oh. Well didn’t that change the dynamics of things? “Madison is gay?”
“I have no idea.” He took one more sweeping look of the area. “I have snippets of games played, cheering crowds, Jay… then Jay and Madison… and then blank.”
I rubbed his back, wishing I could ease some of the tension in him.
He turned back toward the lot. James leaned against the SUV as we returned. His eyes were silently questioning me and looking over Kade. I just gave him a small shake of my head, and he got back in the driver’s seat.
“Where to next, boss?” James asked as we got in.
“There’s a forest up the road. I’ll give you directions.” Kade’s expression shut down, and he stared out the window. His grip in mine tightened, and a sick feeling of dread welled up in my stomach. Forest….