CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
KAI
“We need to talk.”
Kai was in his truck outside Vaughn Recovery.
“Did you tell Denise?”
Silence.
“Then no. We don’t need to talk.”
“You don’t understand.”
“You’re right.”
“Paris got herself into some financial trouble.”
Kai closed his eyes.
There it was.
“How is that your wife’s problem?”
“It ain’t.”
“Then tell your wife.”
“I’m handling it.”
“That’s the problem.”
Curtis cursed.
“She needs help with a condo deposit.”
Kai laughed once because he could not help it.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Say it.”
“You think the thirty-one-year-old woman you’re cheating with needs a married fifty-six-year-old man to help her buy a condo because she loves you?”
“Fuck you.”
“Maybe she does. I don’t know her. But if you hear yourself saying it out loud and don’t have questions, I can’t help you.”
“You don’t know what me and Denise been through.”
“I know Denise is still in it and Paris ain’t married to you.”
Curtis went quiet.
Kai softened nothing.
“Tell your wife today.”
“Or you’re gonna tell Nola?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“You already made yourself part of this.”
“No. You did that when you kissed another woman where I could see you.”
Curtis hung up.
Kai sat in the truck another minute before going inside.
He hated this secret.
Not because it was difficult to keep.
Because it was easy.
Kai had spent years learning to hold information. Business required it. Clients told him things that could wreck marriages, criminal cases, companies, friendships. Privacy was part of what people paid for.
But Nola was not a client.
That changed the weight of silence.
Inside, Malik had finished the device clones.
Rome’s phones contained nothing obvious.
No burner apps.
No deleted thread with Dre.
No photo of the lockbox.
Work laptop clean.
Personal phone showed a lot of gambling app use, two women he apparently lied to about each other, and a debt to a sportsbook that made Dez whistle.
“Thirty-eight grand?” Dez said.
Kai stared at the screen.
“That motive enough for you?”
“Motive ain’t proof.”
“Look at you stealing my lines.”
Kai didn’t smile.
Rome owed thirty-eight thousand dollars to an illegal betting operation, based on messages Malik recovered.
He had paid ten thousand two weeks earlier.
Source of that ten thousand was unclear.
“Bank?” Kai asked.
“Cash deposit,” Malik said. “He claimed it came from selling a bike.”
“Did he own a bike?”
“Yes. Title transfer shows sale around then for twelve-five.”
So even that had an explanation.
“What about device location Thursday night?”
“His personal phone was at Silo. Work phone too. Laptop at home.”
Dez leaned against the desk.
“If he did it, he planned around devices.”
“Or he didn’t do it.”
“Yup.”
Kai appreciated Dez never needing uncertainty to be comfortable.
A lot of men wanted answers more than they wanted truth.
Rome walked in at ten.
Kai gave the devices back.
“You clear?” Rome asked.
“Nothing ties the devices to Dre.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“Then ask a question I can answer.”
Rome looked at him.
“You find the money?”
“No.”
“Then what the fuck are we doing?”
“Working.”
Rome grabbed his phones.
“You know what? Do you.”
He walked out.
Dez waited until the door closed.
“He mad.”
“He got reason.”
“So do we.”
Kai nodded.
At 11:17, Nola called.
“Dre texted me.”
Kai stood.
“What did he say?”
“Not words. The phrase.”
They had created one when Nola was in college and Dre was thirteen. Their mother made them walk from a carnival parking lot to an overflow lot after dark, and Nola told him if he ever needed her without being able to explain, text blue socks.
He had thought it was stupid.
Apparently he remembered.
“Blue socks?”
“Yes.”
“From the burner?”
“New number.”
“Send it.”
She did.
“Did you answer?”
“I said where are you. Nothing.”
“Don’t send anything else.”
“Why?”
“If somebody has his phone, they may be testing whether it reaches you.”
Nola went quiet.
“Okay.”
“Where are you?”
“Home. Mani’s here.”
“Stay there.”
“Kai.”
“For now. Not forever. For now.”
She exhaled.
“Fine.”
“I’m coming.”
Kai gave the number to Malik and walked out.
Halfway to Nola’s, Curtis called again.
Kai declined it.
Then Denise called.
He stared at her name.
Nola had given him her parents’ numbers after the threats started.
Denise had never called him directly.
He answered.
“Mrs. James?”
“Is Curtis with you?”
Kai’s stomach tightened.
“No, ma’am.”
“Do you know where he is?”
Kai did not.
“No.”
“Yeah.”
Her voice sounded wrong.
“Everything all right?”
A long pause.
“I found a charge on our card for a furniture store in Mount Laurel. Four thousand dollars. Curtis says it’s business.”
Kai closed his eyes.
Paris’s condo.
Probably.
“Did you ask him?”
“He won’t answer his phone now.”
Kai gripped the wheel.
He could tell her.
Right now.
Instead he said, “Keep calling him. He needs to explain that charge to you.”
Silence.
“You know something?” Denise asked.
Direct.
No room left.
Kai did not lie.
But he still did not tell the whole truth.
“I think Curtis needs to talk to you himself.”
Denise inhaled softly.
“That’s not a no.”
Kai said nothing.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
The line disconnected.
Kai hit the steering wheel once with the heel of his hand.
He had just made the decision for everybody anyway.
Just in a different shape.
At Nola’s house, she opened the door before he knocked.
“Malik got anything?”
“Not yet.”
Mani was at the kitchen island wearing Nola’s oversized hoodie and eating cereal out of a mixing bowl.
“Don’t judge me,” she said.
“Wasn’t planning to.”
“Good.”
Kai looked at Nola.
He needed to tell her about Curtis.
Now.
Before something else happened.
Then Malik called.
“We got the number. It’s active. Moving west on Route 30.”
Kai’s focus snapped back to Dre.
“Exact?”
“Not yet. But it’s staying live.”
“Send Ray eastbound, Dez from north. I’m coming west.”
Nola grabbed her purse.
“I’m coming.”
Kai looked at her.
This time he did not say no.
“Get your shoes.”
Nola ran upstairs.
Mani looked at Kai.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.”
She gave him a look.
“You lie like Nola.”
Kai almost laughed.
“Stay here and lock the door.”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“She says you hate it.”
“Of course she does.”
Nola came down in sneakers.
They left.
For the next four hours, the phone moved, stopped, moved again, then went dark near an apartment complex in Lindenwold.
They searched what they legally could.
No Dre.
No phone.
At 5:46 p.m., Ray found the phone smashed behind a dumpster.
The SIM was gone.
Nola stared at the broken screen in Kai’s gloved hand.
“Somebody knew we were following.”
“Yeah.”
“How?”
Kai looked at the apartment complex.
He had only told Malik, Dez, Ray, and Nola about the live trace.
Not Rome.
Not staff.
That narrowed one thing and complicated another.
Nola rubbed her wrist.
Kai wanted to tell her about Curtis.
She looked exhausted, scared, angry, and still standing.
He made another choice.
“Let’s get you home.”
He told himself he would tell her tonight.
He did not get the chance.