Chapter 14 Haven #2
“You weren’t there, Miss Lee.” Thatcher meshes his fingers again, cradling that damn notebook of his. “You walked away. Looked to me like you didn’t want to be associated with Mr. Jordan. Like you were avoiding him.”
“I had to take a walk.”
“So while campus security is arresting your boyfriend for kidnapping and assault, the thing you really need is a walk?”
When he says it like that, it sounds insane. Damning.
Which it is.
“I was upset.”
“You didn’t look all that upset to me.”
“I was in shock.”
“Were you upset or in shock, Miss Lee?”
“Both. I—Both!”
“So you didn’t go into the woods to make sure Kai hadn’t left any evidence behind when he released Melissa?”
A headache thumps behind my eyes. “Now you think I’m involved in this bullshit? You said I wasn’t a suspect!”
“No, you’re right. My apologies.” Thatcher raises his hands, wrists balanced on the desk. “Why would you clean up a crime scene for Kai when you’re intentionally withholding crucial information for his alibi?”
Alarm bells start going off inside my head.
Crucial information?
Alibi?
Crime scene?
I keep telling this guy that I don’t know where Kai went. That he never came home. How is that—
“It’s because you’re waiting for me to ask, isn’t it?” Thatcher looks so fucking pleased with himself, my mouth goes bitter. I drag my Styrofoam cup closer and sip at the lukewarm coffee inside. “Makes it look less contrived, correct?”
I say nothing, because holy fuck, I’ve never been this out of my depth in my life. The coffee is helping with the nausea, so I just keep sipping it, waiting.
“Fine, Miss Lee.” He sounds a little grumpier now, those smug lines beside his eyes fading. “What time did Mr. Jordan come back to the Airbnb on Saturday morning?”
“He didn’t—“ I stop talking.
There’s a wolfish gleam in Thatcher’s eyes.
It’s another fucking trap.
He’s testing me…or maybe he’s testing Kai.
Did…did Kai tell the deputy that he came back to the Airbnb yesterday morning, hoping I’d back him up if I was asked about it?
Because if he was there with me, he couldn’t have been with Melissa. Maybe Thatcher figured out the exact time Melissa was dropped off in the woods.
Or Thatcher’s lying and trying to catch me in a lie.
God. What the hell am I supposed to do? Lie for Kai, and hope it’s not another trap? Or stick to the truth and hope it’s not my testimony putting Kai away for a couple of years?
“It’s not a trick question, Miss Lee. Mr. Jordan informed me he stopped at the Airbnb that morning to check on you. All I need to know is what time he—“
Fuck this.
I rush to my feet, arms crossed, glaring at him.
“Are you arresting me?” I snap.
“Like I said when we sat down, Miss Lee, you’re not—“
“Then I’d like to leave. Because while I’m sure you’d just love to spend another hour asking me these stupid questions and twisting my answers to suit your whatever—“ the word escapes me, so I just wave toward his notebook “—I’ve got midterms I need to study for.”
Thatcher watches me for a long moment. “You’re his only alibi, Miss Lee.”
Fuck this guy. And fuck his traps. I clench my jaw, shaking my head as I stare him down.
Not today, Lucifer.
He closes his notebook and stands. “As I said at the start of the interview, you are free to leave at any time.”
I tilt my chin, lips pursed as I head for the door. His voice stops me before I can step into the hall.
“I appreciate you taking time away from your studies to answer my questions, Miss Lee.”
I wish I could keep my back turned, but I’m compelled to turn and face him.
He’s wearing that faint smile. Just polite enough to make me uneasy. Just polite enough to give me hope.
“Would you—” My voice cracks. I clear my throat before trying again. “Would you get a message to Kai? I need to tell him—”
“No.”
“Please. Just tell him I love him. That I’m trying to help—“
“I think he knows exactly how much you love him, Miss Lee. Don’t you?” Thatcher’s smile finally reaches his eyes.
Fuck.
He gestures down the hallway, dismissing me.
I grab my tote bag and walk away on legs that feel like they might give out at any second.
The hallway stretches forever. Endless beige tiles and fluorescents and the smell of disinfectant.
I don’t see Kai again.
Good. I don’t deserve to.
If anything, I just made his situation worse.
I take out my phone as soon as I’m on the sidewalk outside the station, quickly scanning my notifications. Nothing from Bastian yet, thank God.
I stayed up most of the night wondering when he was going to call me. What he’d be expecting from me this time.
Another quickie somewhere?
Or another nail in Kai’s coffin?
I’m tempted to call him and just get it over with, but Thatcher’s interrogation has left me drained. I don’t have anything left to fight with.
Pretty soon, I won’t have anything left to fight for.
I order an Uber back to the Airbnb, still smiling grimly when the driver stops a few feet away.
“So, what were you in for?” the driver asks, flashing me a grin when I look up at him in shock.
It’s a joke. I should act like a human and laugh.
But I’m not in the fucking mood for people with enough joy left to joke with strangers.
“Second-degree murder,” I deadpan.
He laughs.
I don’t.
When I sit forward, grabbing the side of his headrest to hold myself steady, he flashes me some wary side-eye.
“Want to know how I did it?” I whisper. “It’s good. So good, they’ll never figure it was me.”
The driver’s smile dies. “Lady, I—”
“Relax.” I sit back. “I’m just kidding.”
We drive in silence.
He asks no more questions, and for that, I tip him extra. Not like it’s my money.
The Airbnb is exactly how I left it this morning. Except for the handful of leaves that blow in through the door when I open it. Kai’s jersey—the one I wore under my hoodie yesterday—lies crumpled on the floor where I threw it.
It still smells like sex and Bastian.
I toss it in the machine with a bunch of other clothes and probably way too much laundry detergent. A leaf crunches under my boots, and that sends me into an irrational fury that has me snatching the broom out of the closet and sweeping the entire Airbnb.
Well, most of it.
I stop when a violent sweep under the bed pulls a leaf and the grocery list into the open.
Except…it’s not the grocery list.
It’s a note.
From Kai.
I sink down onto the edge of the bed to read it.
Hi!!!
Went to get breakfast!
Be back soon!
- K
Fuck.
Thatcher hadn’t been lying or setting me up.
Kai had come back.
A sob hits me so fast that if I hadn’t already been sitting, I’d be collapsing on the floor.
This is all my fault.
I sicked Bastian on Kai, and now Kai could go to jail because of me.
“Fuck you!” I yell, shoving off the bed and rushing over to my tote bag. Bastian’s phone is so slick, I fumble it as I take it out.
I don’t bother with a DM.
His phone rings, and rings, and rings before going to voicemail. I briefly consider leaving one, but something tells me that’s not a good idea. In fact, I just realized that calling Bastian was a bad fucking idea.
What if they take my phone and see I tried to call him?
I’m studying, that’s all. He said I could call him if I had questions. Just a student calling her professor. On a Sunday. Right after being interrogated.
The damage is already done. The call is logged on a server in some secure government facility.
I call again.
“Morning, sweet girl.”
How fucking dare he sound so fucking sexy when I’m this fucking mad at him?
“Make it stop,” I whisper-shout into the phone.
“Make what stop?”
“You know what. I get it, okay?” I raise my voice to a nasal whine. “You’re fucking God. You can do anything with the snap of a fucking finger.” My voice drops to a growl. “Now undo it.”
“God, you say?” His dark chuckle makes my nipples harden. “That would make you, what…my obedient supplicant?”
“I’ll be whatever the fuck you want me to be,” I grate out. “Just get him out of there.”
“Whom out of where, sweet girl?”
This motherfuck—
“What do you want?” I’m trying to hold back the tears, but I’m so tired, so frustrated, so fucking angry, they keep slipping past my defenses. “Please, Bastian. He doesn’t deserve this. I fucked up, okay? If you want to punish someone, punish me.”
The phone digs into my knuckles at Bastian’s throaty laugh. “From the sounds of it, I couldn’t be punishing you any harder.”
He’s right, of course.
Again.
Fucking always.
“Is this all just a game to you?” I bluster out, half sobbing, half laughing like a fucking lunatic.
“I like it when my pets fight,” he says. “But only when I watch.” He sounds dreamy now.
He’s probably done a ton of coke already this weekend and finished off a bottle of his most expensive bourbon. I’d say it’s because framing someone for a crime is thirsty work, but this is probably just a regular weekend for Bastian fucking Rooke.
“Just stop with the drama and the mind games, okay? What. Do. You. Want?”
“You.”
I roll my lips between my teeth. “I’m with Kai now,” I murmur.
“I don’t see the problem.”
“The problem is, I’m with him, so I can’t be with you.” It’s like talking to a fucking brick wall.
“No, sweet girl, I don’t think you understand.”
“Then please dumb it down for me, Professor.”
He exhales slowly in my ear. I can picture him lounging back on his sofa, a tumbler propped on his knee, smirking like the arrogant, evil psycho that he is.
“I want both of you.”
I scoff. “Kai will never—”
“Then you’ll have to persuade him, sweet girl.”
“That’s—“ I squeeze my eyes shut. “I can’t promise anything.”
“You’ll have to. My part of the deal has already been delivered.”
I laugh. “I said I’d try, that’s it!”
“I know you will, girl. Just like I know he’ll cave, because he loves you, and he’ll do anything to keep you.” Bastian sighs.
When I say nothing, because—what the fuck?—Bastian gives me another happy sigh. “Why don’t you Uber yourself into town and go buy something pretty for him on my credit card? I bet if you wear it when he comes home tomorrow, he’ll hardly need any convincing at all.”
The pressure behind my eyes is suddenly gone.
I blink back tears, sniffing hard. “They’re releasing him?”
Instead of answering my question, Bastian hums softly.
“Young love is so pathetic.”