Chapter 14 Haven
Haven
He deserved it.
I’ve been thinking it every day since the Rain Dance, so it was bound to come out.
Was I planning to tell a cop?
Hell no.
But nothing has gone my way in this interview, so no surprise there.
Thatcher flinches. Guess he didn’t expect me to support Kai’s decision to beat up Ezra.
He’s obviously never met a Riversider before.
We look after our own.
“What did Ezra do to deserve it, Miss Lee?”
“He’s a jerk,” I say, sitting forward in my seat. “It should be Ezra behind bars, not Kai. If anyone would hurt Melissa, it’s him.”
Thatcher is staring at me with such a carefully neutral face that my heart pounds.
I can’t believe I just said all of that to a fucking cop.
I’m such a fucking narc.
“If he hadn’t been all broken up and shit, of course,” I say through an unsteady laugh, plucking my hands free and trying to wave away the accusation I just flung Ezra’s way. “I mean, good luck sneaking out of a hospital in his condition, right?”
Deputy Thatcher’s chest rises as he takes a long, slow breath. “Kai didn’t tell you his brother was released last week?”
My heart just cannonballed into my stomach.
“No,” I mumble.
“What makes you think Ezra would want to hurt Melissa?”
For fuck’s sake.
“I didn’t say he wanted to.”
“I believe you were very clear, Miss Lee.”
I turn toward the mirror, then jerk my gaze away when I remember there’s probably someone back there watching.
“Ezra’s always been mean to Kai. What happened at the party was just…” I struggle to think of the right words, biting the inside of my lip. “Sibling rivalry.”
“I’d say it’s more than that.”
“That’s your opinion.” I tack on a begrudging, “Sir,” that feels more condescending than anything else.
Thatcher sighs like I’ve got him beat. At least, that’s what he wants me to think. Because he switches gears so fast, my head reels.
“Other than the incident at the Rain Dance, have you ever known Mr. Jordan to resort to violence?”
My green-eyed boy in the woods Kai?
No.
But this new college-frat-boy Kai?
Yes.
“I’m not sure how you’re not getting this, but he wouldn’t hurt Melissa.” I try not to sound like a total bitch, but knowing the deputy is doing this on purpose to get a rise out of me—well, it’s getting a fucking rise out of me.
“You sound so very certain again, Miss Lee.”
“Because I am. I know Kai.”
“Even though you can’t account for his whereabouts? Even though Miss Parker named him specifically as her attacker?”
It feels like I can’t get enough air in my lungs. “She’s still saying that?” I whisper.
“Still?” Thatcher repeats.
I shrug. “She was so out of it. Looked like she was on something. I thought by now she’d have realized she made a mistake.” I shrug, then hesitate when something Kai said to me on Friday night resurfaces.
“What is it, Miss Lee?”
I open my mouth, looking away as I try to gather up my thoughts. Being a snitch is so much harder than it’s made out to be.
“She, uh…you know she takes drugs, right?”
Thatcher doesn’t bat an eye. “Seems everyone in this place does.”
“No, I mean, like…she…uh…went to rehab for coke.” God, I have to force out the words and even then, they get stuck in my throat.
Thatcher studies me for a moment with that unreadable-as-fuck face of his, then drops his chin and writes in his notebook. He takes a while before he looks up again, and I spend the entire time trying to read his handwriting upside down.
It must be in code. There’s nothing legible about that scrawl.
“So you’re saying the only reason Melissa named Kai is because she was under the influence of cocaine?”
I swallow. I’ve spent way too much time around meth heads, but coke? My only reference is when Kai and Bastian snorted some off my ass after the Rain Dance. I wasn’t really in a state to make notes.
“I…I’m not an expert,” I say, fingers splaying away from my biceps for a brief second. “But I’m sure she was on something. It must have confused her.”
“Like what, Miss Lee?”
“For fuck’s sake, I don’t know!” I slap my hand onto the table, rattling the voice recorder.
Thatcher barely glances at it.
I force my voice down a few decibels. “You should know. You tested her for drugs, right?”
Thatcher says nothing.
I smooth my hair away from my face and sit on my hands. “Did you speak to her again? Like, after she calmed down? You should. She’ll tell you she made a mistake. She’s still in the hospital, right? Go down there and ask her.”
“I’ll be sure to follow up on that for you, Miss Lee.”
Our cat-and-mouse game seems to wear him out. He props an elbow on the table and rubs at the frown forming between his brows. For a second, he’s just a man, not a cop.
Exhausted, frustrated, just doing his best.
I almost feel sorry for him…if I wasn’t like ninety percent sure he’s a better actor than some guys in Hollywood.
“Please confirm for the record whether you had relations with Kai before or after the fight about his mom.”
“What?” I couldn’t have heard that right, but the blush suddenly working its way up my neck thinks I did.
“Did you have sex with Kai on Friday night?”
My cheeks are on fire. “Uh…we…yeah…Kinda.”
“Kinda?” Thatcher’s eyebrow twitches.
“You serious?” I whisper, ducking my head closer.
“It’s a straightforward question, Miss Lee. Did you or did you not—“
“Yes. We…slept together.” I swallow, clear my throat, take a sip of coffee because nothing is helping. But the cup pauses halfway back to the table. “Well…kind of.”
Thatcher looks away, crossing his arms over his chest. When he looks back at me, it’s with the air of someone whose social battery is at one percent. “Could you explain what ‘kind of’ means?”
“We, uh…fooled around. But, not like, sex sex.” I clear my throat again, take another sip of coffee.
Fuck, it’s hot in here.
“That’s not how Mr. Jordan described it.” Thatcher tilts his head, leaning in, forearms on the table. “You realize if this goes to trial, you’ll be testifying under oath, Miss Lee?”
“Do you want me to like tell you every little detail?” I mutter. “Why? What the hell does it have to do with anything?”
Thatcher glances down. “How physical was it?”
“Ph—” I cut off. “Like…we were just…rolling around like…” I blow out a haggard breath because Thatcher’s giving me fucking nothing. “God, I don’t know! He fingered me—“
“Did he give you those marks on your neck?”
I slowly close my mouth.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
“It’s…we…” I desperately want to rub my face, or pinch my lip, but I keep my hands jammed under my ass. “We kind of play-fight sometimes.”
“Play fight,” Thatcher repeats dryly.
“Like, you know. Play fight.” I shrug, making fists with my hands and wagging them in the air. “He kinda…holds me down.” I bite my lip.
“By your throat.”
I duck my head closer to the voice recorder so it’ll pick up everything I say. “Yes. By my throat. But it’s just for fun.”
“You enjoy being strangled?”
“Well, no, not—he doesn’t actually, like, strangle me.” I widen my eyes, laughing softly. “Come on, Deputy. You know what I mean.”
From the state of his face, he was born in a nunnery and sits down to pee. But I saw him with Melissa that one day after Kai wrecked our room. He knows all about sex. He’s just trying to rattle me.
It’s fucking working.
When he says nothing, just keeps staring at me, I blurt out, “You can check him. He won’t have her DNA on him. Just mine.”
“And you’d consent to a DNA test to prove it, of course,” Thatcher deadpans.
As he says it, everything clicks into place.
The hiss Kai made when I scratched him. It was hard enough to leave a mark…but for how long? What if he still had scratches on him yesterday morning when they arrested him? If he did, the police would assume—
“I scratched him!”
“Excuse me?” Thatcher says, even though he doesn’t sound the slightest bit confused.
“When we were…physical. I—I scratched Kai. Like, a lot. All over his back and arms and stuff.”
That gets an arched eyebrow that makes me instantly regret saying anything.
“How convenient.”
Wait…what?
I blink, shaking my head. “What are you saying?”
“I’m going to give it to you straight, Miss Lee.”
It’s not the way he says it—although that makes me uneasy as fuck. It’s the look in his eyes as he counts off points on his propped-up hand. I watch each finger uncurl with dread settling heavier and heavier in my already queasy stomach.
God. He almost looks sorry for me.
“Kai was in the vicinity where Melissa was found. He resisted arrest. He has no alibi for the hours preceding Melissa’s arrival on campus. She names him—only him—as the perpetrator.”
“Come on! She was so doped up—” I start, but Thatcher just carries on like I didn’t speak at all.
“And he was carrying a weapon on him.”
“A weapon? What kind of weapon?”
“Weapons aren’t allowed on school property.”
“Yeah, I—” I swallow. “I know that.”
“Does he?”
“Look, I don’t know why he—that doesn’t mean he hurt Melissa.”
“Doesn’t it? Are you one hundred percent certain all the defensive marks we found on him came from you?”
All of them?
My heart is hammering so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. Pressure builds at the base of my skull.
“If you were in my shoes, Miss Lee, how would this look to you?”
Bad.
Really fucking bad.
But Kai didn’t do it. I know he didn’t…
…Because I know exactly who did.
And I can’t say a fucking word.
I lift my hand, my fingers going to my throat. I can still feel Bastian’s heat on my skin. Can still hear his voice in my ear, calling me depraved. Telling me I’m his pretty little slut.
My face warms up. Sweat prickles in my cleavage and the small of my back.
“What I can’t understand, Miss Lee, is why, if you’re so adamant about Kai’s innocence, you weren’t at his side to defend him.”
I blink, my mind taking a second to process the words. The cop stares at me from across the dented metal table like he can read every filthy thought in my mind.
“What?” I whisper.