Above all Else

by Sophia R Heart

  "Well, his uncle works for the FBI. I thought we’d take this information outside of town – where it seems like half of the cops are crooked – and to the big guns. This is exactly the kind of thing they wouldn’t want getting out. He'd be just the right person to have on our side because he’d ensure that every cop on that list was investigated and get this finished once and for all."

  "I sense a ‘but’ here," Phoenix said, pushing his glasses further up his nose. I’d learned that he only really wore them when he’d spent too long in front of one of his many computers and his head ached.

  "I don't know if Max can be trusted," Kellan admitted. "His name might not have been on the flash drive, but I don't know where his loyalties lie. Cops work so closely together, they’re almost like family. What if somebody he considers a brother is on the list? Would he try and protect them? I need you to get into the police databases, Nix. Look at Max’s shifts and whether he works closely with anyone on that list. The less he's worked with the crooked cops, and the less contact he's had with them, the more confident I'll feel approaching him with this shit storm."

  “And what about Archie Chambers?” I asked. “You haven’t mentioned him in a while. Are you still tracking him?”

  “It’s not a priority anymore. I think Cosa Nostra are more likely to be behind your dad’s disappearance. They knew your Dad had the flash drive, and they wanted it back. I doubt Chambers had anything to do with it. He wasn’t on the list, and he hasn’t been spotted again since that night at the club. Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to put the fucker back behind bars, but our safety is the immediate concern. There are so many people on the list, and chances are that they know what we look like and have been asked to keep a look out. I let Buck, the bondsman, know I was stepping back from the case this morning, and he’s finding someone else to take it. It’s not like I would have been able to do a thorough job anyway, while also trying to lay low.”

  My stomach felt heavy. “Things would have been so much easier if I’d never taken the flash drive. They wouldn’t be after us now.” And I would never have found out about Dad.

  “Maybe.” Kellan shrugged. “But we’d have been stumbling around in the dark without it. The information on the flash drive at least gives us an idea of what’s going on.”

  "Well, you're both welcome here for as long as you need. Having company makes a nice change to my usual routine. I love it,” Phoenix said, smiling encouragingly at us. Bless him. I thanked him before excusing myself. I had someone I needed to text.

  Kellan went with Phoenix into his den to see if it was possible for Phoenix to get into police records. He’d never tried, but he was optimistic that he could do it without anyone being none the wiser.

  I wasn’t sure about what I should do about Axel. What if he wasn’t in danger? Did I really want to involve him in this cluster-fuck? But if there was even the slightest chance that the crime ring would go after them then he needed to get away.

  Entering the guest bedroom, I shut the door firmly behind me. There were a number of empty plastic bags on the bed that I’d dumped there this morning, reminding me that I needed to check on the laundry. I hadn’t bought much, very conscious that I was spending Kellan’s money.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed, spinning my cell phone in my hands. Whatever Phoenix had done to it, it still looked exactly the same and all my pictures and contacts were still inside. My screensaver was a picture of Axel and me at our high school graduation, smiling at the camera. It had been a tough day for me – not having Mom there. He’d gone out of his way to make me laugh.

  Making up my mind, I texted him. It was always better to be safe than sorry. I’d rather be overcautious and have him safe. I’d regret it forever if I never said anything and he got hurt.

  Axel? Remembering I had a new number, I added, It's April.

  It was two minutes later that I got a Skype request instead of a text back. His face appeared on the screen, tight with concern.

  "Where the hell are you, April? You haven't answered any of my texts or calls!” His voice was hoarse from disuse. “I called your house phone, and your uncle, Luke, picked up. Imagine my surprise, my fucking terror, when he tells me that your house was broken into, and you and Kellan are nowhere to be found after his apartment was also broken into. I rushed home this morning, and your back window is all bordered up and the place is deserted! I’ve been going out of my mind. What the hell’s going on?" His voice got increasingly louder as he spoke, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with him being unable to monitor his volume. He was upset, and he had every right to be.

  My stomach dropped, seeing on his face just how worried he’d been. I hadn't thought for a second that he’d ever find out about the break-in. He was over an hour away at college. I’d never dreamed he’d learn about last night either, otherwise I would have made sure to contact him, knowing how worried he’d be.

  I put the phone down, leaning it against the digital clock on the night stand so I could sign. ‘I'm sorry, Axel. So sorry. It's... it's a long story,’ I told him, wondering how I was going to come out with it all. There was just so much that had happened since I’d last seen him. I was also infuriated at the thought of Luke being in my house. My inability to do anything about it was even more frustrating. ‘I’m fine, though. Physically speaking, everything is exactly where it’s supposed to be.’ I smiled weakly.

  “Where are you? What happened the other night? Please tell me you weren’t home when the thieves broke in.”

  ‘We’re with a friend of Kellan’s. We’re safe. Please don’t worry.’ I tried to reassure him. His eyes traced my face as though trying to measure the truth behind my words. Bracing myself, I told him everything and how we’d ended up at Phoenix's house. It was a relief to let everything out, though it hurt to mention Dad. I hated to think of Axel ever thinking badly about Dad.

  "I'm leaving right now. What’s this Phoenix guy’s address?" Axel said at once when I was done.

  I gave him instructions towards the road where Kellan’s car was parked, telling him that I’d meet him at the start of the trail as he’d never find the house by himself. “Bring a bag with some clothes,” I told him once he looked up from where he’d been scribbling down the instructions. He nodded, his face, with its pretty features, intense.

  “It might take me a few hours. I’ll have to go back to college to get my stuff.”

  ‘Okay,’ I signed. ‘And Axel?’

  “Yeah?” His face softened.

  ‘I’m... I’m sorry for involving you in all this.’

  “Don’t be stupid.” He shook his head, his eyes still soft. “I’ll be there as soon as I can.” With a reluctant goodbye, he ended the Skype chat.

  Talking to Axel had reminded me that there was someone else who I should have contacted. My boss. It was Monday, and I was supposed to be at work today. I could only imagine the amount of calls I’d missed from my boss, and was kind of glad that I wouldn’t be getting those voicemails.

  With a deep breath, I rang the office, hoping nobody would pick up and that I could just leave a voicemail. No such luck.

  “Hello. Alberton Sales Inc. Charles speaking. How can I help you?” Shit. It was my boss.

  “Hi, Charles. It’s April,” I said hesitantly.

  I was right to have been weary.

  * * *

  I hung up five minutes later, stunned.

  “It’s nothing personal, but you haven’t been a reliable employee as of late. I understand your circumstances – which is why I gave you so much leeway previously. However, failing to notify us of an absence, especially with how busy we are… I’m sorry, we’re going to have to let you go,” he’d said, barely letting me get a word in edgeways. There were other pleasantries about this not affecting the reference he would provide me, but I barely heard him as I ended the call.

  I hadn’t expected a pleasant conversion, but to fire me?

  I stomped
downstairs, still fuming. I’d looked forward to the day I could hand in my resignation with a big fat smile on my face. Having them force me out smarted.

  When I stepped back into the kitchen, I saw that Kellan and Phoenix had left the dishes on the kitchen table.

  Did I have to do everything around here?

  I picked them up and put them in the sink, probably more forcefully than I should have. The plates clattered, but thankfully didn’t break.

  I saw Kellan step into the kitchen, his eyebrow raised.

  “I got fired,” I said flatly in response to his questioning look.

  I knew that I hadn’t been the most reliable employee lately. With everything that had happened yesterday, work had been the last thing on my mind this morning. And I’d missed loads of days when Dad had first gone missing. But I was going through a really rubbish time at the moment. My boss knew that. He knew about Dad. The asshole. Getting fired was going to have a dire affect on my already strained finances.

  Kellan was adamant that we lay low for a while, but we’d have to return to our normal lives sooner or later. We couldn’t just up and disappear. My back window was still broken and boarded up. Kellan’s apartment had probably been closed off by the police. I’d need to find a new job – and Kellan needed to go back to his job. We couldn’t hide away forever.

  “That’s the least of our problems.” Kellan shrugged, going to the coffeemaker.

  “That’s easy for you to say! I can’t believe I was fired.” I needed this job – desperately – even if I hadn’t been sure when I would have been able to get back to it.

  “You were wasting your time there, anyway,” Kellan said dismissively.

  “Excuse me?” I said, indignant.

  “Telesales? Really, Princess? You could have done so much better. You could do so much better. Mario was always bragging about how well you did in school,” Kellan told me.

  “It’s not like I was planning on harassing people on the phone all day, every day, for the rest of my life. I was going to go to college. Lots of people take a year out.”

  “Then you have nothing to complain about if you were going to go to college anyway.”

  “That’s – that’s not the point! I need this job. There are too many bills–“

  “So, you’re what? Going to carry on working that shitty job, keep putting off college–“

  “Dad’s missing–“

  “–and it could be years before we find out anything. You can’t put your life on hold. You deserve better than that.”

  “Years?” I whispered, feeling cold.

  His hand reached out before falling to his side, helplessly. “I shouldn’t have said that. I just meant that we don’t what’s going to happen… or whether we’ll find out what happened.” He exhaled in frustration. “I’m making things worse, aren’t I?”

  “A little. Yeah.” I crossed my arms. It wasn’t like I hadn’t known that we might never learn the truth about what had happened, but it was like being hit in the face with a bucket full of ice cold water hearing it from Kellan.

  Kellan ran a hand through his hair. “You can just be so frustrating–“

  My mouth fell open. “I’m frustrating? You’re the one–“

  He kissed me. Kellan Reed kissed me. It came out of nowhere. One minute he was standing there, arguing with me, and the next his lips were on mine.

  My body reacted instinctively, my hands going into his hair as his arms went around me and pulled me closer to him. I melted into the kiss, into the scorching heat emanating off of him.

  His mouth moved against mine in a way that made my knees week. I felt my heart pounding in my chest, felt delirious with want and need. This was Kellan.

  Kellan…

  I broke the kiss, my heart still racing as I took a step back. “What… what was that?” I said, my words more breathless than I would have liked.

  He was panting, too, a storm brewing in his silver eyes as he looked at me. “April–“ He reached for me again.

  “I… we can’t.” I shook my head, reality catching up to me fast. “That can’t happen again.”

  “Why?” he asked, the storm in his eyes stilling.

  “It’s… too messy. We’re a disaster. We argue all the time. We rub each other up the wrong way–“

  “We–“

  “–and besides, Dad needs to be our priority. I don’t have anyone else to turn to about the flash drive. We… it would just complicate things. I need your help. I can’t lose you. I can’t hate you right now,” I told him, struggling to voice my thoughts. It wasn’t coming out right… It didn’t sound right…

  “You’re so sure that starting something with me would end up in you hating me?” His mouth was twisted in a bitter smile.

  “I… I can’t take the risk,” I said finally. And it was true. I needed Kellan too much. He was the only one in the world who understood exactly what I was going through and had the resources to help me find Dad. If we started something and it ended badly… it would be a disaster.

  Kellan took a deep breath. His eyes closed, hiding what he was thinking from me. “You’re right. I know you’re right.”

  I swallowed hard. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” he said with finality, turning his back to me.

  I left the kitchen quietly, wondering if I I’d just made the right decision.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  * * *

  - NOW -

  PHOENIX SHRUGGED INTO his jacket after volunteering to walk out to the main road with me.

  It had taken me more time than I wanted to admit to work up the nerve to go inside the computer room.

  I’d been hiding out in the guestroom for two hours – ever since I’d left the kitchen.

  Axel had texted however to say that he was about twenty minutes away, and knowing that I couldn’t put it off any longer, I’d gotten up to let Phoenix and Kellan know.

  I needn’t have bothered getting all worked up. Phoenix had immediately offered to walk out with me, while Kellan had merely shrugged at the news that Axel was coming and continued to stare at the computer screen in front of him. I hadn’t been able to tell what was so engrossing. The screen was filled with a jumble of letters and numbers that looked like complete gibberish to me.

  Phoenix had set up a computer program to hack into the police records, but wasn’t sure how long it would take for the program to crack the code. I hoped it would be soon. The quicker we got into those records, the quicker we’d be able to get in contact with Kellan’s friend – providing Phoenix’s program worked. I hoped sincerely that it did – and soon.

  I half believed that I’d dreamed the kiss. My heart sped up just thinking about the way his arms had pulled me close and kept me pressed tightly against him, enveloped by his warmth.

  It had seemed as though things had been shifting between us. Just small things, here and there, but I’d never foreseen this. I’d known Kellan for years, had nursed a crush on him for a good portion of that time, and I found it almost impossible to comprehend the fact that we’d kissed. That we’d actually taken that step.

  Things would never be the same between us again. Had I done the right thing by pulling away? I was tortured by uncertainty.

  Phoenix and I left the house and made our way down the narrow, overgrown pathway towards the main road, pushing branches out of our way.

  “I guess I really need to do something about all this shrubbery, huh?” Phoenix said sheepishly. He ducked under a branch, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he straightened. “I haven’t been out here for a while. I had no idea it was this bad.”

  “I could give you a hand,” I offered, detangling my shirt from a branch before moving forward. It might help me take my mind off things. “I have nothing but time over the next few days.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I clear all this out manually. I don’t have any power tools – just a couple of sheers. It gives me something to
do when I can’t stand to look at a computer screen any longer.”

  “So?” I glanced down at myself, aware that my new clothes were a little loose on me. “I may be a little on the skinny side right now, but I’m tough. I could cut down some branches. Easy.”

  “Okay.” He laughed. “Maybe we’ll get to it later.”

  “What made you want to live out here?” I asked him curiously after a few more steps. “I mean, your house is stunning, but it’s in the middle of nowhere. Sorry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to. I’m being nosey.” I made a face and ducked under a branch.

  Phoenix merely shrugged. “I guess I like the privacy and the seclusion.”

  “That sounds like something a serial killer would say,” I quipped.

  He laughed loudly at that, shaking his head. The unrestrained laughter was infectious and drew a small smile from me. “You are something else, April. Cheeky little thing. I hope you stick around.”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked in surprise.

  “I meant after this is all over. I don’t meet a lot of people or make a lot of friends working from home.”

  “Well, you’re stuck with me now,” I said, bumping my shoulder with his.

  He was silent for a moment before saying hesitantly, “April?”

  “Hmm?” I said absentmindedly, brushing off some leaves that had fallen onto my shoulder. Would Kellan be around after this? He was in my life because of Dad. Would he stick around if we never found him? The thought hurt. Kellan had been a part of my life for so long, I couldn’t imagine not having him around.

  Kellan wouldn’t abandon me, a part of me thought. He wouldn’t do that.

  I realized that Phoenix hadn’t answered, and turned to glance at him.

  “I–” He pulled his glasses off and wiped the lens with the bottom of his shirt. “I noticed one of my cupboards was slightly ajar. I’m guessing that you saw my meds while you were cooking.”

  “I didn’t mean to invade your privacy,” I said quickly. “I was just looking for ingredients, and I –”