CHAPTER THREE
KAI
Kai did not have a type.
That was what he had told Dez for years.
Pretty face. Confidence. Clean. Funny didn’t hurt. Smart enough to know when she was being lied to and bold enough to say so.
Everything else was flexible.
Except weight.
He had learned that rule the annoying way.
Three women over five years who were beautiful and big and spent the entire relationship waiting for him to change his mind about wanting them.
One questioned every glance he gave another woman.
One asked if he was embarrassed to take her somewhere formal.
One wanted reassurance every time she bought clothes.
The last one accused him of secretly preferring her thinner cousin because he said hello too warmly at a cookout.
Kai had patience for plenty.
He did not have patience to convince a grown woman she was fine every week.
So he’d made the rule.
Simple.
Then Nola came down the stairs in black leggings, white sneakers, and a cropped gray sweatshirt that stopped just above her navel like she had personally cut the rest off out of spite.
Kai looked once.
Then deliberately looked at her face.
She caught him anyway.
“Problem?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She grabbed a leather jacket from the chair and walked past him.
Dez was waiting in the truck.
The second Nola got into the back seat, Dez looked at Kai through the mirror with an expression that said everything he was smart enough not to say aloud.
Kai ignored him.
They reached the gas station in nine minutes.
The overnight cashier remembered Dre because Dre had asked to use the store phone.
“He bought water and stood over there,” the cashier said, pointing at the lottery display. “Kept looking outside.”
“Who picked him up?” Kai asked.
“Didn’t see. Had customers.”
“He leave on foot?”
“I think.”
Kai requested footage.
The cashier shook his head. “Manager gotta do that. Comes in at six.”
Kai took out his phone.
Nola leaned against the counter. “Please don’t threaten the cashier. He looks tired.”
“I’m calling the owner.”
The cashier blinked. “You know Mr. Patel?”
“Yeah.”
Kai did.
Six years earlier, Vaughn Recovery had towed one of Patel’s delivery vans after an insurance mess.
Kai had found the clerical error, released the van without storage fees, and helped Patel track down the finance company that had caused the wrongful repossession order.
They weren’t friends, but Patel answered his calls.
At 2:43 in the morning, he answered this one too.
Ten minutes later, the cashier was rewinding footage.
Nola gave Kai a sideways look.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s mine.”
“You don’t own words.”
“Find your own.”
Dez laughed from behind them.
On camera, Dre came in at 10:02.
Bought water.
Used the phone.
At 10:18, he walked out and headed east.
No one visibly picked him up.
Kai switched to exterior camera three.
Dre crossed the lot, passed two parked cars, and stopped near the alley beside a closed nail salon.
A dark sedan rolled into frame.
No front plate visible at the angle.
Dre opened the rear door and got in.
Nola stood straighter.
“Can you zoom?”
“Quality won’t hold,” Kai said.
Dez paused the video. “Tail light’s cracked on the right. Older Altima or Maxima maybe.”
“Save the clip.”
They did.
Outside, Nola called Dre again.
Voicemail.
She sent a text instead.
DRE, I’M NOT MAD. JUST TELL ME YOU’RE SAFE.
Kai watched her type it without comment.
“He’ll know that’s a lie,” he said when she put the phone away.
“I’m not mad yet.”
“You called him a stupid motherfucker upstairs.”
“That was affectionate.”
Dez laughed again.
They returned to Vaughn Recovery.
By four, Malik had restored the dropped hall-camera segment.
It hadn’t failed.
Someone had manually disabled the feed.
That required administrative access.
“From where?” Kai asked.
Malik rubbed his eyes. “Terminal in the manager office. Login was generic maintenance account.”
“Who has password?”
“Me, you, Rome, Dez, and both office managers.”
Rome stood near the door, arms folded. “So everybody.”
“No,” Kai said. “Six people ain’t everybody.”
He told Malik to preserve the logs and change every shared password before sunrise.
Then he pulled Dre’s access history.
Admin office: 9:13.
Side corridor: 9:14.
Loading dock: nothing.
Front exit: nothing.
Employees could leave through three routes. Every one required badge access after eight p.m.
Dre never badged out.
Nola saw it too.
“So he didn’t leave carrying the box.”
Rome looked at her. “He could’ve followed somebody out.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Then why you saying it like that’s what happened?”
Rome’s mouth tightened.
Kai stepped in before the conversation turned stupid.
“Nola.”
She looked at him.
“He’s answering the question.”
“No, he’s filling in blanks with whatever makes Dre guilty.”
Rome pushed off the wall. “Your brother is on camera with our money. Excuse me if I ain’t giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“The box,” Nola corrected. “You didn’t see the money either.”
Rome looked at Kai like he expected him to shut her down.
Kai didn’t.
Because she was right.
“We verify first,” Kai said. “Nobody decides shit before we have it.”
Rome nodded, but not happily.
Dez’s eyes moved from Rome to Kai.
He had noticed that too.
Nola’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
Everyone went quiet.
She answered immediately. “Dre?”
A pause.
Then a man’s voice said, “Who this?”
Nola frowned. “You called me.”
“My bad. Wrong number.”
He hung up.
Kai held out his hand. “Phone.”
Nola clutched it. “Why?”
“Let Malik pull the number.”
“Ask.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
Kai was starting to understand why Dre had climbed out a window instead of waking her up.
“Can Malik see the number?”
Nola handed him the phone.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
Malik ran a quick lookup.
Prepaid line. Activated three days ago. No subscriber data.
They called it back.
Straight to voicemail.
Nola rubbed the inside of her wrist with her thumb.
First anxious habit Kai had seen from her.
It interested him more than it should have.
“Go home,” he said.
She looked up. “No.”
“You been up all night.”
“So have you.”
“I own this place.”
“And I own the idiot you’re looking for.”
“You don’t own him.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah. I do. That’s the problem.”
Her eyes sharpened.
Dez suddenly found the coffee machine fascinating.
Kai lowered his voice. “You’re not useful exhausted. Go sleep two hours. I’ll call when we have something.”
“And if you find Dre first?”
“You’ll know.”
“Before you touch him?”
Rome scoffed under his breath.
Nola heard it.
Kai did too.
“Rome, take Malik and pull every vehicle that entered or left from eight-thirty to ten-thirty. Match plates to employees, vendors, and visitors.”
Rome hesitated.
“Now.”
He left.
Kai looked back at Nola.
“If I find Dre, I’m not beating him before you get there.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“It’s the truth.”
“And after I get there?”
“Depends what he did.”
Nola stared at him.
Then looked at Dez. “Your friend always talk like he auditioning to be somebody’s final warning?”
Dez poured coffee. “Unfortunately, this is him relaxed.”
Kai should have been irritated.
Instead, he was looking at the small line between Nola’s eyebrows and wondering what it would take to make it disappear.
That annoyed him more.
He walked her toward the door.
At the threshold, she stopped.
“You really think Dre did it?”
Kai could have given her something soft.
She didn’t strike him as a woman who respected soft answers when the truth was ugly.
“I think he knows more than he’s telling. I think somebody disabled a camera and used an override he shouldn’t have had. I think he carried that box because somebody told him to or because he wanted it. I don’t know which yet.”
Nola nodded slowly.
“That’s fair.”
Then she glanced at his beard.
Kai pointed toward the parking lot. “Go home.”
She smiled.
“Touchy.”
He watched her walk to Dez’s SUV because her own car was still at home.
Crop sweatshirt. Black leggings. No hesitation in her step.
Dez stopped beside him.
“Don’t.”
Kai didn’t look at him. “Don’t what?”
“Whatever your brain thinking.”
“My brain thinking we got eighty-seven missing and an employee hiding.”
“Your eyes thinking something else.”
Kai finally looked at him.
Dez held up both hands. “I’m just saying.”
“Then stop.”
“You had one rule.”
Kai walked back inside.
Behind him, Dez called, “I supported that rule for years, too. Don’t get curious now.”
Kai gave him the finger without turning around.