20. Kaylor
20
KAYLOR
J ust fabulous.
My godfather was sending me to a shrink.
Me and my big mouth.
So much for quick thinking. Now I was stuck going to therapy, something I had nothing against, in theory. My mental health was important. But no amount of talking to a stranger would fix what was wrong with me, because the only cure for what ailed me was finding out what really happened to my parents. If they were murdered, then knowing who did it was how I started to heal.
While Donovan made the call to a therapist, I took advantage of my time alone. I needed to speak to the detective assigned to my parents’ case. I should have reached out sooner.
Guilt nipped at me as I pulled out the card I’d been keeping tucked beneath my mattress, hidden away like a secret. I ran my thumb over the raised letters.
Then I dialed.
Riiing. Riiing. Riiing.
I tapped my finger against the side of my phone, a trembling in the pit of my stomach.
Come on. Pick up.
Voicemail.
Of course, she wasn’t just sitting at her desk waiting for me to call. My parents weren’t her only case, but that didn’t make my disappointment any easier to swallow.
I left a quick message. Gave her my new number in case she didn’t have it.
And then?
The waiting game.
Something I sucked at.
By the end of the day, I was close to calling again and leaving another message—one that made it crystal clear how important this was. Urgency pressed into me, my nerves thrumming.
I paced my bedroom.
Why did it feel so impossible to sit still?
She didn’t return my call.
Not that night.
Not the next day.
Not the day after that.
When nearly a week had passed, I was done waiting and decided that if I didn’t hear from her by Saturday, I was going down to the station myself, but on Friday after school, my phone rang with an unknown number. I answered immediately.
“Kaylor.” The detective’s voice came through the line. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for some time. I’m happy you finally called.”
My pulse kicked up. “I would’ve called sooner if I’d known you were trying to reach me.”
“I’d like you to come to the station,” she continued. “There are some questions I need to ask. And I’ll answer any you have as best as possible, without jeopardizing the investigation.”
“So, you’re still investigating?”
“Yes.”
A beat of silence.
“You said you’ve been trying to reach me,” I pointed out, my grip tightening on the phone. “But I haven’t had any calls or messages.”
She hesitated before she carefully said, “Your godfather hasn’t made it easy for us to speak.”
My stomach dropped.
She sighed. “I understand he’s looking out for you. That he wants what’s best. But if I’m going to do my job—if I’m going to get you closure—I need to ask questions. And they might not be easy ones.”
“I can handle it.”
“I think you can, too. You strike me as someone stronger than people give you credit for,” she said. “Can you come to the station on Saturday?”
I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. I’ll find a way to make it happen.”
“If something happens,” the cadence of her tone altered, barely perceptible but there, “this is my personal cell. Call me. Anytime.”
I swallowed hard. “Okay,” I assured, but my mind was already racing. Donovan had kept her from me. From this investigation. Why?
My godfather had alluded the person or persons responsible for my parents’ death might still be out there, possibly looking for me. I was the last loose end that needed to be tied up in this case. I was the one who lived. The only one who saw them.
I was a liability.
If they could kill my parents in cold blood, what would stop them from hunting me down and finishing the job, leaving no stone unturned?
I’d thought Donovan’s protection had been extreme, but now I wondered… What if it wasn’t enough? I could be shot at any time.
I could walk out the front doors of Public, and bang, hit in the head by a bullet.
Morbid and frightening as hell, but the speck of possibility was there.
And it scared me.
More than I’d been before I made the call to Detective Reyes. Something in her voice sent prickles of alarm in my chest.
Getting out of the house and to the police station was luckily my biggest obstacle this week, which meant it wouldn’t be easy, and I had three Corvos and a bodyguard to contend with.
The excitement over Raven Night faded by midweek. By Friday, no one talked about what happened in the cellar, but they sure as hell hadn’t forgotten the damn kiss. It haunted me at every turn. Whispers followed me through the halls. Stares lingered too long.
When Saturday rolled around, I was itching for a distraction.
I asked Poppy to take me on a few errands, sliding in a casual, “Oh, and we’ll just swing by the station real quick.” Afterward, maybe we could grab a drink and do something normal, and if she was up for it, maybe I’d finally introduce her to my other friends.
Guilt gnawed at me for how long I’d gone without seeing them.
It was crazy how time could stretch the space between people. The longer we were apart, the more distant we became. Maybe they’d moved on and assumed I had too. Maybe they figured I’d accepted my new reality.
And in some ways, I had, which only made the guilt worse.
Poppy and I were in her car, heading toward the station, my detail close behind. Raven Night was old news for everyone except Poppy. She hadn’t pressed me about what happened, giving me space, letting me breathe, but my avoidance had run out.
“I still can’t believe Kreed Corvo saved you,” she finally said, flipping her turn signal on.
I huffed. “And? I’m sure he had selfish motives in doing so. He doesn’t give a shit about me. He only cares about himself and his crew.”
“I mean, he’s never intervened before. Never. It makes you different. Now the entire school knows you’re under their protection.”
I thought about the kiss.
Then quickly shoved it away.
“I’m not,” I said, my jaw tight. “Besides, it’s them I need protection from. Who’s gonna save me from them?”
Poppy’s head swiveled left and right while she waited for the intersection to clear. Her two long deep red braids swung with the movements. “Yeah, I can’t help you there. I’m too baffled to think straight. All of Public is still in shock.”
“Poppy, this isn’t a joke. I have serious problems here.”
“You have no idea,” she said, shaking her head. “You’ve just made enemies with every Raven groupie, which, in case you haven’t noticed, is like half the school. Even the girls who like girls somehow have a thing for Kreed.”
I groaned. “You’ve made your point. I’m screwed.”
“Yup.” She pulled into the station’s parking lot. “Do you want me to come in with you?” she offered.
I smiled as I reached for the door latch. “Thanks, but this is something I need to do alone.” I hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t mind waiting? I can always call when I’m done?—”
“No way. I’m not leaving. I’ve got an entire season of Tokyo Ghoul to binge on my phone while I wait.”
“Seriously don’t know what I’d do without you,” I muttered, opening the door.
She grinned. “You’d be way more screwed.”
She had no idea.
I crossed two lanes of traffic to the Elmwood Police Department. The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as I entered, adding to the tension pressing into my ribs. After giving my name to the man behind the front desk, I was immediately directed to a room where I waited only a few minutes before Detective Reyes took the seat across from me, her gaze calm, alert, and not without compassion.
“Thank you for coming in.” She folded her hands on the table, and I noticed she wore a simple wedding band, and I couldn’t help but wonder about her family. “First, let me tell you we no longer believe your parents’ deaths were a random shooting.”
Everything inside me stilled.
“We have reason to believe it was premeditated murder.” She started with a simple question. “Kaylor, did you ever wonder where your father got his money?”
The question caught me off guard, and I blinked, confused. “What? No. He owned mechanic shops—several of them. That’s how he made his money.”
“That’s true.” Reyes offered a soft smile. “But did you know that at several of those shops, we recovered stolen vehicles? Expensive ones.”
A hollow feeling opened in my core. “What?” I breathed. “No. That—that can’t be right. Stolen vehicles?”
She nodded grimly. “The operations at those shops have been halted. They’re under investigation. We’ve linked them to a larger network of vehicle theft and trafficking.”
I shook my head vehemently. “No. There’s no way my father was involved in something like that. He wasn’t a criminal.”
Reyes’s gaze softened, but her tone stayed firm. “I’m not saying he was the mastermind, Kaylor. But the shops were under his name. That makes him liable.”
My fingers gripped the edge of the table, trying to steady my shaking hands. “You need to talk to his business partner. My dad trusted him to handle a lot of the operations. If something illegal was happening, he had to be involved.” I felt bad for throwing Rusty under the bus, but it was unfathomable that my dad knew.
Reyes tilted her head. “We’re looking into everyone connected to the shops, including his partner, but this isn’t an open-and-shut case. There’s a lot we still don’t know.”
Her words left me reeling. I couldn’t reconcile the man I knew—my father—with the accusations hanging in the air.
“It does give us a possible motive for the shooting,” she added.
“You think someone involved with the stolen cars killed them?”
“It’s an avenue we’re exploring,” she admitted.
I forced myself to swallow. “Do you have any suspects?”
“Not unless you remember anything new from that night.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying.
Nothing. Nada. Zilch.
Not a single new detail.
I pushed to my feet abruptly, grabbing my bag. “I have to go.”
Reyes didn’t stop me, but as I turned for the door, her voice followed. “If you remember anything—anything—call me, Kaylor.”
I needed to speak with my father’s best friend and lead mechanic, Rusty. I didn’t know what his actual name was. He’d always been Rusty to me and was like an uncle. If anyone could sort this out, it would be him. Should I leave it to the police? Probably. Would I? Probably not. I wanted Rusty to look me in the eye when he told me he knew nothing about boosted vehicles and that there was no way my dad would have been involved in such activity.
Outside, the brittle cold of January slapped me in the face, sharp and unforgiving.
My breath shook as I exhaled, drawing in the crisp winter air. While I’d been inside with the detective, fat snowflakes fell from the sky, encompassing me like a winter snow globe.
My mind spun with everything Reyes had said. The stolen vehicles. The halted operations. The implications. None of it made sense. My father couldn’t have been involved in something so—so criminal.
It was too much.
I shoved the emotions into a mental box and slammed the lid shut. I’d deal with it later.
“Kaylor.”
The voice stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see Kreed Corvo leaning against his SUV, his arms crossed. I immediately narrowed my eyes. Through the haze of snow, stood out—dark hair tousled like he’d run his fingers through it too many times, jaw set in that infuriating way that made it impossible to tell what he was thinking. His eyes were sharp, pinning me in place with a weight that stole the breath from my lungs. There was danger in the way he stood there, calm and still, like a predator watching its prey decide whether to run or fight. I immediately narrowed my gaze. “What are you doing here? Where’s Poppy?”
“She’s fine,” he said too casually. “I sent her home.”
I froze. “You what?”
“She didn’t mind.”
“I mind.” My suspicion flared. “You can’t just interfere in my life, Kreed. Send my friends away because you feel like it. What is this?”
He pushed off the car, closing the space between us. “Relax,” he murmured. “My father sent me to find you.”
My pulse hammered. “How did you even know I was here? Were you following me?” Had Evan given up my location? Speaking of my security, where was he?
“I don’t have that much time. Besides, that’s Evan’s job. I’m sure he’s parked somewhere close by.”
I scanned the parking lot for the familiar black car. “Then why didn’t your father have Evan take me home?”
We stood in the middle of the parking lot, surrounded by falling snow like something out of a romantic movie, but Kreed wasn’t the hero. He was more of the villain. “You’re acting awfully defensive, little raven. You got something to hide?”
Why hell were the villains always so damn good looking? To tempt us into the dark? “Do you? You don’t think it’s weird that you showed up out of the blue?”
“A bit of advice if you’re going to sneak around: turn the tracking off on your phone.” He smirked, placing a hand on the small of my back.
“Son of a—” I muttered under my breath, doing my best to pretend like my shudder was from the cold.
Kreed opened the passenger door. “Get in the car.”
I folded my arms. “I’d rather walk. Fuck you very much.”
His smirk deepened. “I’m starting to enjoy your mouth.”
“Enjoy this.” I flashed him my signature double middle fingers.
“Classy.” His voice was low. “You may not like that I’m here, but it doesn’t change the fact that you will be coming home with me.”
There was something in his tone. Something unreadable.
Something dangerous.
I hesitated, then exhaled sharply. “Fine. But only if we stop for coffee,” I negotiated, needing to steady my nerves.
Kreed’s smirk was slow, deliberate. “How about something a little stronger?”
I paused just inside the open car door. “What do you have in mind?”
“You’ll have to get in to find out.”
And I did.
He shut the door, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kreed being here wasn’t a coincidence. He knew something. And if I wanted answers, I’d have to figure out how to get them from him.