Chapter 24
24
I woke up alone in my bed. It was my bed, I recognized my yellow sheets. I didn’t want to get up. I was scared to. I needed to think. Had yesterday really happened? I rolled over and saw a note on the pillow where I was pretty sure Kai had slept. The note was written on a paper towel. I grinned.
Marlowe –
Gone back to the hotel. I’m checking out, just like you suggested. I’ll be back with my gear after I stop off at Onyx and the Sheriff’s office.
I love you,
Kai
I vaguely remembered telling him to get his shit and move in already. Thank God I did; saved me from having to work up the courage to tell him to do it today.
I rolled over to my side to get out of bed and found that Kai had even put my phone in my charger.
Now I had to keep him.
I looked at my phone and saw that Sue had already texted me twice this morning. Time to put my best friend out of her misery.
I pushed in her number.
“It’s about damned time you answered your phone! I was about to get on a plane.”
“As if, Little Pixie, like your husband would allow you to come out for a visit without him.”
“You’re right, he wouldn’t. Therefore, I would have back-up when I held you down on the floor and beat the information from you.”
I shuddered. Not the best image at the moment.
“How about we stop with that line of teasing for the moment, until we’re caught up?”
“Marlowe?” Sue’s voice was quiet. “Has something happened since yesterday morning’s text?”
God, she knew me well. She could pick up on just my tone that fast that something wasn’t right. I loved this woman.
“A ton of good stuff. Some scary stuff. But mostly good,” I rushed to assure her.
“Okay.” She drew the word out so it was five syllables. “Tell me the ‘not good’ and scary stuff first.”
“What makes you think there is ‘not good’ stuff, too?”
“Not good goes hand-in-hand with scary, so fess up.”
“We made love!”
“You and Kai, not me and you, right? Just for clarification. I teach English, so it’s important that we get this conversation started off correctly.”
I laughed. “Yes, me and Kai. Or is it Kai and I? Whatever, we made love. I said we had sex, but he said we made love!”
I heard her gasp.
“He said that? The muscularly, soldierly, kind of grim guy?”
“The grim part was early on. I’ve seen him grin and smile and even chuckle now. And Sue, you should hear him laugh. He has the best laugh.”
“Did he laugh when you made love?”
I paused.
“He did.” I thought some more. “Was that bad? I didn’t think it was bad at the time. We were both laughing. So I thought?—”
“Stop already, I was teasing. Yes, laughter is good, and I’m going to hunt down Denny Rasmussen and kick his ass…again.”
That made me laugh, too. “Okay, let me tell you more. The scary stuff is I was almost kidnapped, but that wasn’t as scary as almost being driven off the road over a cliff. That had been much scarier, but apparently chloroform is really bad for you. I’m still preferring the botched kidnapping, plus that way Chaos didn’t get hurt and?—”
“STOP!”
“What?”
“STOP ALREADY!”
I thought over what I had just said. “I hadn’t told you about being almost run off the road, had I?” My tone was meek.
“No. No, you haven’t. You think you might want to back up just a minute and start over?”
I heard muttering in the background.
“You made me wake up Angie with my yelling. Steve is going to expect free babysitting from you in the future.”
“Okay. Done deal.”
“Okay, you’re driving along with Chaos as your co-pilot, and then what?” Sue asked.
“A truck rear ends me. You would have thought that would have been the end of it, but we were on this big downhill road with a cliff on one side and a rock wall on the other. The truck keeps trying to push me off over the cliff. Luckily, I got away, but Chaos is hurt.”
I cross my fingers that I’ve said enough to satisfy her. Kai didn’t let me get away with that tiny amount of detail. Oh no, he insisted on a blow by excruciating blow of what had happened. He got grumpier by the second. Come to think of it, he was probably over at the sheriff’s office wanting to know where that truck and driver were at this very minute.
“How bad was Chaos hurt?” Sue asked.
“Really bad. She needed surgery. She has to stay at the vet for another four or five days. I’m cooking her food and bringing it over. While my Jeep is impounded, Kai is chauffeuring me around and taking me over to the vet’s so I can love on Chaos.”
“Ohhh.”
Yeah, that scored Kai some points.
“Now tell me about the chloroform,” Sue demanded.
“Don’t you want to know about Greek God sex? Actually, he’s more Highland Warrior sex.”
“Woman, I have my own Highland Warrior…who happens to be within earshot, so we can dispense with that part of today’s story time. Instead, get on with the kidnapping.”
“What kidnapping?” Steve rumbled in the background.
“Somebody tried to kidnap Marlowe,” Sue said.
“Put the phone on speaker,” Steve demanded.
“Hey, Marlowe,” Steve greeted me.
“Hey, Steve.”
“Now talk.” That was Sue.
“The kidnapping was a big bust. I was waiting by Kai’s truck for him to come and meet me. It was a guy in a white panel van. No kidding, it was a for-real white panel van. Anyway, he pulls up, opens the door, and tries to pull me in.”
“And what, you’re just standing there, waiting like the Christmas goose or something?” Sue wanted to know.
“Actually, I was texting you.”
“Figures,” Steve mumbled.
“He puts a rag with chloroform over my mouth, and I start to pass out. The next thing I remember is seeing this guy on the pavement with Kai straddling him and beating the bejesus out of him.”
“Good man,” Steve muttered. “I like him already.”
“So, this happened to you within two days?” Sue asked for clarification. “Do you know why?”
“Yeah. It turns out Cindy Thompson’s dad, the state senator, wanted all copies of the video that she made. She must have told her dad that I sent one to my phone.”
“How’d you find that out?”
“Before turning the kidnapper over to the sheriff, Kai decided to have a little chat with him and get some answers.”
“I’m really, really liking this guy,” Steve reiterated. “So, what does he do for a living?”
“He’s retired military.”
“Why’d he retire in Jasper Creek?”
“That’s the problem. I’m not sure that he has.”
“What do you mean, you’re not sure? Where does he live?” Steve continued with his questioning. Apparently, Sue hadn’t been keeping him up to date.
“Kai was only here to look up his long-lost brother. They only made contact a little bit ago.”
“But he’s been there long enough for you to fall in love with him?” Steve asked. He was starting to sound grumpy.
“Yeah, he’s been here for five weeks.”
“I’m not catching on here, Marlowe. If he’s been there for five weeks, where’s he been living?”
“In a hotel, but I told him last night to come live here with me. But I don’t know if that’ll work, because his dad just sent a server to evict me.”
“What!” Sue shouted.
I heard Angie whimper.
“I’m tapping out,” Steve said. “But Sue, you better have answers to make sense of all of this after I get Baby Girl her breakfast.”
“I will,” Sue promised her husband.
“I’ll make this quick,” I promised Sue. “I got an eviction notice from Arthur Beaumont. That is Beau Beaumont’s dad who has been gone from Jasper Creek for twenty years. According to what the sheriff found out, he must have the deed to the house, but that can’t be right, since Mrs. Beaumont, his wife, and Beau Beaumont, her son, had to have been making all the mortgage payments, so it belonged to them.”
“So is Arthur Beaumont also Kai’s dad?”
“Yes. Kai has been asking his friends up in Alaska about where he might be. So far nobody knows anything.”
“Do you have to leave your house?”
“Not according to Kai or the sheriff, so I’m staying put.”
There was a long pause.
“Marlowe, I’ve known you for ten years now. Back to our university days.”
I braced. “I know.”
“I’ve known you through the Denny years.”
“I know.”
“This has got to be the scariest, craziest most, screwed-up shit I’ve ever heard.”
“I know.”
“But you know something?” Sue asked.
“What?”
“I’ve never heard you sound happier.”