Model Bodyguard (Haven Investigations Book 2)

by Lissa Kasey

  Rush gave me a narrow look. “You protect the rock star. Let me worry about catching a killer.”

  “Before he makes another attempt at said rock star again, right?”

  Ollie and Jacob stumbled toward us. He was barely upright. Apparently he hadn’t decided to sleep nude, because he was in a pair of sweatpants and an oversized T-shirt. He also didn’t open his eyes.

  “Is he on something?” Rush asked.

  “We gave him something to help him sleep.” I pointed to the earphones, which Ollie had fashioned back over Jacob’s head. “So he could heal.” I wondered if there was a way to get him out of the house without anyone knowing we were taking him with us. The last thing we needed was another psycho breaking in to attack us. “Are you taking people down to the station?”

  “A handful, yes. There’s too many people and not enough cops,” Rush answered, looking me over like he was trying to tell what I was thinking.

  “Maybe you could put Jacob in the back of a car and have one of your guys drive him to our house?”

  “Pretend to take him to the station?”

  I nodded. “Only he never shows up there.”

  “And anyone who might need to go looking for him might just be our guy,” he said, following my train of thought.

  Exactly. It was a classic decoy bait and switch. Something probably more normal for the FBI or the US Marshals than regular cops, but sometimes we had to play by other rules. I’d use whatever resources I could to keep Ollie safe and still do my job for Jacob.

  “Let me radio up one of my guys. Make sure he gets his own private car.”

  I took Jacob’s weight from Ollie, surprised that he was so heavy. Jacob’s head lolled onto my shoulder, cheek resting uncomfortably against my collarbone. It was weird and awkward. Like we were cuddling. Only we weren’t, and the thought sort of rankled.

  Ollie picked up our bags, set them on top of Jacob’s roller, and waited. Silent. Brooding. Shit. I so needed to get him home before he fell apart again. Tired and stressed Ollie was never a happy one.

  Chapter Twenty

  IT WAS after ten by the time I pulled into the garage with Ollie. An unmarked car slid in behind us, and the two plainclothes cops got out to help me get Jacob inside. It was all very covert, but sneaking around the press had required it. The vultures had descended fast in a media blast that would have made any reality TV star proud. Kisten’s death was on every station, discussed on the radio, and the scrolling faces of newscasters voiced their concern. If Jacob’s fans were writing shit about him to keep him in the spotlight, Kisten’s death brought every past story back to life in a blaze of headlines scary enough to make anyone cringe. It was a good thing Jacob was passed out. I could only imagine how badly he’d be flipping out if he’d been awake.

  Ollie took our stuff inside, leaving Jacob’s roller by the downstairs couch, and disappearing upstairs with our bags. He returned less than a minute later with a stack of bedding. I took it from him and laid it out on the couch, directing the cops where to put Jacob. Apparently he hadn’t even roused in the car on the ride over. Lack of sleep, cannabis oil, or oil combined with whatever painkiller he was on, must have been enough to put him down for the count.

  I let the cops out, closed the garage, and armed the alarm.

  “I can’t find Newt,” Ollie said, sounding worried.

  “It’s a big house. I’m sure he’s here somewhere. In a closet or under a bed.” I turned the lights off on the lower floor and led Ollie up to his room. There was no sign of the cat on the way up. Odd, but knowing cats as I did, I was sure he had just found a nice cubby somewhere to nap.

  “What if he got out?” he reasoned. It was exhaustion and stress getting to him, playing out scenarios in his head that would make his imagination run wild.

  “How is he gonna get out? It’s not like we left the door open. He wasn’t near the garage when we went out or came in. Tomas came over to feed him, right? Send Tomas a message and ask where he last saw Newt.”

  Ollie danced from foot to foot with nervous energy. His lower lip took a beating from his teeth gnawing at it, and he began to text furiously with Tomas. “Tomas didn’t see him. He called for him, but he didn’t come.”

  “Newt is a cat, not a dog. Cats rarely come when called,” I pointed out. “They are sort of aloof and arrogant. Like a lot of your ex-boyfriends.” I rubbed Ollie’s shoulders, feeling the tension thrumming through him. This wasn’t about Newt going MIA, this was about Ollie seeing another person dead and thinking it was suicide again. Only it wasn’t. But that wouldn’t stop his head from running away with him.

  He pulled away. “I’m going to jump in the shower.” He looked at his hands like maybe he could see blood on them. Only they were clean. He’d touched Kisten’s corpse just as I had, but we’d both cleaned up as much as we could in Jacob’s bathroom before leaving the estate. My clothes had been wet from the bathwater, stained pink through to the white undershirt. The spare clothes we’d brought with helped keep the press off our backs.

  I headed to the closet in his room to strip down to my jock and find something soft since my skin just hurt today. The tat and the stitches bothered me. Probably because I was tired. I wanted Ollie in my arms, his lips on my skin, his flesh pressed to mine. He may have been freaked out, wringing his hands, and gnawing his lip while I appeared calm, but I had more practice wearing the mask.

  It bothered me that Kisten had been gone a while and no one thought to check on him. Had he slowly bled to death? Could we have saved him if we’d stopped at the house before going to the hospital or even Ollie’s appointment? I had to let out a long breath. It wasn’t our fault. We couldn’t save everyone. We’d had no idea that Kisten might be in danger, had even thought him a suspect for a while. At least I had. Jacob and Ollie had refused that theory from the get-go.

  Why kill Kisten at all? The attacks had been aimed solely at Jacob prior to this. Had our presence made the situation worse? Or had Kisten known something?

  I dry washed my hands over my face. Agonizing over it wasn’t going to help anyone. Tomorrow, with fresh eyes, I’d look at the case again, the unnecessary death, threats, and slander, and reanalyze them. There was something I was missing, a connection I was sure would lay the whole thing out like a map. I needed to question people. The problem was I couldn’t do that while guarding Jacob at the same time. What it meant was stashing Jacob here with Ollie and sneaking out to interview Jacob’s nearest and dearest. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Ollie with Jacob, but what other options did I have? So long as no one knew where Jacob was, they were safe. Ollie’s address was private. He had a PO box linked to Haven, but only the government knew his home address. Even the press had never breathed a word about the Garden Park house. It would take a skilled investigator to find him—them. If I kept my earpiece in listening for trouble and had Will on standby, we’d be golden.

  I pulled up the internal cameras on my phone. Scanning the house for movement, Newt, or Jacob. Jacob hadn’t moved from the couch. There was still no sign of Newt. The stillness of the house was a little unnerving. We’d only had the cat, what, two days? Already he’d become a welcome presence. Expected. Okay, I was worried about the cat as well, but knew we could spend hours searching only for him to show up when he wanted to.

  The external cameras showed the streets mostly clear. No unfamiliar vehicles within range, but the cameras only showed so much. If someone was down the block or parked under a tree, I’d not see them. The Marines had taught me to be prepared, have alternate options, and always be ready to react, but even I couldn’t plan for every scenario.

  The shower turned on in Ollie’s bathroom. I heard him moving things around and the glass surround door close. He left the bathroom door open partially. I’d learned months ago he hated having a barrier like a door between us. The rare times I went to bed downstairs, he left the door to his bedroom open instead of locked up tight like it was now. That bothered me only because that door was a
second line of defense for him. If someone got through downstairs, they’d have to get through his upstairs door too. I liked knowing there was one more obstacle to prevent someone from hurting him.

  The memories of finding him lying bloody and barely breathing on the floor of the bathroom attached to my bedroom were far too vivid some days. His hair hid the tiny scar where they’d had to drill into his skull to relieve the pressure on his brain. In the house, I’d installed the cameras and a security system, upgraded all the doors and locks, and coerced him into martial arts self-defense training. All to protect him.

  Ollie felt perfectly safe at home. It was me who was paranoid for his safety. I checked the door to his bedroom, ensuring it was closed and locked. The door for Newt’s entry was shut and untampered with. He was as physically safe as I could make him.

  I could imagine him under the spray, letting the water flow over him with his eyes closed. He was so beautiful. I could enter the bathroom at any time and coax him into slow lovemaking. But what he’d demanded today hadn’t been slow or gentle. He’d wanted rough and fast, devouring sex. Now he’d be overtired and easy to push to tears. We both needed sleep. I was on edge and he’d mirror my mood if I wasn’t careful.

  I put on a fresh jock, deciding against adding sleep pants or a T-shirt, and rubbed some lotion into the new tattoo. On top of the small dresser inside Ollie’s closet, the little crate of toys sat. I almost laughed. Should have known he wouldn’t put them back. He was notorious for never putting anything back in the same place. I picked up the unopened box inside as the sound of the shower let me know that Ollie was taking his time to wash away his day. There were easier ways to replace the memory, I just wasn’t sure if I was ready for this one yet.

  I popped the seal on the box and pulled out the sleeve, insertion rod, and instructions. A sex toy with a booklet of instructions. Shit. Instead I opened my tablet, surfed to the page the toy had come from, and watched the short video on how it worked, which left me hard and wondering if I could actually do it. I bookmarked the video, put the toys away in the bedside drawer, and folded the blankets down on the bed. My loaded Sig was in the drawer on my side of the bed, and I put Ollie’s Taser at the front of his, just in case.

  When Ollie stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later in nothing but a pair of his cotton Euro shorts, I knew he was beyond tired. Couldn’t even be bothered to dig sexy undies out of the drawer tired. He’d sponged most of the water out of his hair and brushed it back, leaving his face bare and almost hawkish with its sharp angles. He was pale. Barely on his feet.

  I put an arm around his waist and led him to bed, before clicking off the light and crawling in beside him. “You okay, baby?” I had to ask.

  “Tired,” was all he said, grumbling it into the pillow he made of my shoulder.

  I kissed his forehead, wrapped my arms around him, and pulled him close. At that moment it didn’t matter that we had his ex-boyfriend downstairs, or that someone had just died. We had each other. And that worked just fine for both of us.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  SOMEONE SCREAMED.

  I reacted before I realized I was doing it—racing down the stairs, gun in hand, ignoring the pain shooting up my leg and planting itself in my hip. The scream hadn’t been Ollie’s. He was right behind me—Taser clutched in his grip, taking the stairs two at a time. It was a surprise we didn’t stumble or go sliding down instead of just thundering toward the sound.

  We reached the first-floor landing, and I held a hand out to keep Ollie back. There was no other shriek than the one that had woken us. I hoped if someone had murdered Jacob, it’d been fast, because the man’s scream was like one of those creepy goats on YouTube. Had anyone ever mashed one of his music videos with screaming goats? I was sure it would have been epic. So long as no one was killing him in my living room right now.

  I eased around the corner, swinging the gun and searching for movement. Jacob was illuminated in the light of the downstairs bathroom, huddled on his knees. Was he hurt? Was someone in the house? The half bath was small enough that with the light on, there was no way anyone could hide. The entire room was visible from this angle. The living room appeared to be clear, and the wide-open kitchen/dining area also dark, but empty.

  I patted Ollie’s shoulder, pointing him toward Jacob as I began to sweep every corner and cubby on the first floor. There was no sign of entry anywhere. The windows were secure, doors closed and locked. The place was like Fort Knox. Had someone gone upstairs? I glanced up the main stairs to the second-floor landing. Nothing but darkness. Deep, stretching shadows cast across the second-floor landing that almost seemed to widen as I watched for movement. My gut churned with the idea that someone could be hiding in wait, gun trained on us.

  “Kade,” Ollie called, none too quietly either.

  I glanced back at him but didn’t want to take my eyes away from the second floor. “Yeah, babe?” I trained my gun upward, fearing someone putting Ollie in their sights.

  “He saw something in the vent.”

  I blinked and let that process through my slowly waking brain. “In the vent?” Not an intruder in the house. Which made sense since the alarm hadn’t gone off.

  “The floor vent,” Ollie clarified. He leaned over said vent in the bathroom, presenting his shapely backside to the room. Jacob huddled in the corner beside the door, breathing heavily, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off Ollie’s ass.

  I lowered the gun and made my way to them, nudging Ollie aside. Then I crouched down and peered down into the vent. The house was old, but not that old. The vents were modern, small. Too small for a person to fit into. Did we have mice? I’d not seen any signs of them when I’d been working on the remodeling, and it was something I knew how to identify. No droppings, no holes in the wall, no frayed wires. I’d added new insulation and drywall to the entire first floor, repairing or replacing old outlets as I went. There wasn’t much of the old bones of the house I hadn’t seen. We should not have critters of any kind. I was tempted to reach down into the vent, only an irrational fear of something grabbing or biting my hand kept me from doing so. Plus it was a good way to cut yourself on old metal.

  Ollie dropped a towel onto my ass. I flinched, couldn’t help it, too much adrenaline flowing. Too much focus on the vent, and not enough on my boyfriend and the rock star who lingered behind me. Who apparently I was mooning.

  “What did you see?” I glanced back to find Jacob had probably had a view of pretty much everything I had since I was still in nothing but the jock. The towel was only a hand towel so it wasn’t going to cover much. The idea that I was displaying my asshole for him a lot like a cat did when they got irritated was weird and completely unintentional. Thankfully Jacob looked much too tired to leer at me. Or maybe the scars really turned him off.

  “Like movement? Noise? Describe it?” I held the towel over my ass and felt like an idiot. Ollie of course was completely comfortable in his Euro shorts, but he was also more covered than he usually was. None of his boy bits were hanging out except his dusky-colored nipples, which made me want to tell him to cover them with his hands so Jacob wouldn’t see. But that was stupid, and I was tired so it would sound dumb and petty if I actually said it out loud.

  There was a clank and a thud not far from the vent I knelt beside. I frowned and peeled the cover off to stick my face in the opening and try to see down around the curve, which really was impossible without some kind of camera on a stick. Whatever was in there sounded bigger than a mouse, but I’d had all the lines under the house checked and sealed, there was no way for anything to get in them from outside the house. Couldn’t have been a raccoon or a rat. The contractors I’d hired had been highly recommended. I cursed at the idea that I’d have to crawl under the house and check myself.

  “Eep!” Ollie cried and stumbled back, falling on his ass in the living room. I had my gun up and moving, pointed in the direction of Ollie’s distress, only to see Newt crawling from the vent near the couch
all slow and stealthy-like. His yellow-green eyes glowed in the dark like a demon, reflecting the light from the bathroom, his black body nothing more than a sleek shadow. He tiptoed away as though he hadn’t just given us all a heart attack. He glanced around at us warily, expression more of a “What the fuck are you all staring at me for?” look.

  I flipped on the overhead light, clicked the safety on the gun, and cursed, “Fucking cat.” I looked over at Ollie. “Found Newt.”

  Ollie still sat on the floor, hand to his chest like he was trying to keep his heart from flying out. He panted like he’d just run a mile.

  “Ollie, grab him and put him in the kennel.”

  Ollie frowned at me, eyes going wide and lip trembling.

  “I’m not taking your cat away. But I’m going to have to seal up the vents without giving him the chance to climb back in them. Goddammit. Never saw that coming,” I grumbled.

  Newt tried to scurry away, but I lunged for him, caught him around the middle, and handed him to Ollie, who was finally getting up off the floor. Newt crawled onto Ollie’s shoulder, then jumped to one of his perches, where he promptly lay down and began grooming himself.

  “I think I just died,” Jacob whispered. “I think I’m dead. Shadows crawling out of vents….”

  “Still stoned is more like it,” I told him. “That shit Ollie gave you is powerful.” And Jacob’s pupils were huge. I made my way to the utility closet and dug out a couple of rolls of double-sided tape. Ollie hadn’t moved from his spot. His eyes kept flicking from Newt to me and back again. His hands balled into fists and released, stretching before turning to fists again.

  “I promise I’m not taking your cat away. Just going to make it a little harder for him to get where he’s not supposed to be.” I glared at the cat. Never in my life had I had a cat who crawled around the vents. “The heat’s on,” I told the cat, like he could somehow understand me. “Were you trying to cook yourself?”