Chapter 16 Quest
QUEST
Kacey’s house was in Frederick, about forty-five minutes outside the city.
Four bedrooms, three baths, a backyard big enough for the kids to run around in.
Thad had bought it for her when she was pregnant with their son, back when he was pretending to be a man who was building a future for his family.
Now the man was gone and the house was still here and Kacey was holding it together on whatever savings she had and whatever I dropped off every few weeks.
Not because I owed her anything, but because Thad’s kids didn’t ask for any of this shit and they shouldn’t suffer because their father was a piece of garbage.
“Uncle Quest!” Kalani launched herself at my legs.
“What’s good, princess?” I scooped her up and she immediately started telling me about a caterpillar she found at daycare that she named Gerald.
She was three and had absolutely no chill and I loved this little girl in a way that reminded me I was still capable of softness even when the rest of my life was hard concrete.
Kacey appeared behind her, looking exhausted in her pajama with her hair in a bun and Thad Jr. on her hip. The boy was three months now and had his father’s face, which was unfortunate for everybody because looking at him meant looking at Thad, and Thad was a subject I preferred to avoid.
“Hey, Quest. Come in.”
The house was the perfect size for a growing family. Toys in a bin by the couch, dishes done, candles burning on the counter. Kacey was a good mother. Thad hadn’t deserved her. He def didn’t deserve Mehar. I couldn’t keep her out of my thoughts.
I set Kalani down and she ran back to her coloring book on the floor. I handed Kacey an envelope with five thousand in cash.
“Quest, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. I got you with whatever you need.”
She pressed her lips together and took the envelope and tucked it into the kitchen drawer where she kept the others. I’d been dropping off money every few weeks. She never asked for it, and she always protested, but then she always took it because pride doesn’t pay for diapers.
“Any news?” she asked, keeping her voice low so the kids wouldn’t hear. “About Thad?”
“I’m still looking, Kace. My people are on it.”
“It’s been months, Quest. Months. No body, no ransom, no contact. People don’t just disappear like that.”
I leaned against the kitchen counter and chose my next words carefully because this conversation was a minefield I walked through every time I came here.
“I know it’s been a long time. And I know that’s frustrating.
But Thad had enemies. He moved reckless, burned bridges, owed people. It’s possible somebody—”
“It wasn’t enemies.” She cut me off, shaking her head. “I’ve been thinking about this every single day for six months and my gut is telling me this has something to do with a woman.”
“A woman.”
“He was cheating on me. I know he was. I could feel it. The late nights, the phone face down, the showers as soon as he walked through the door. I’m not stupid, Quest.”
“Nobody said you were stupid.”
“I’ve been trying to get into his Apple ID.
His laptop is here, and if I can get into his iCloud I can pull his messages, his location history, everything.
I just need the password.” She was leaning forward now with that desperate energy that grief produces when it doesn’t have a target.
“Don’t you know people who can hack into that kind of thing?
You’ve got resources. You’ve got tech people. ”
“Kacey, Apple security is damn near impossible to crack. Even the feds have trouble getting into those accounts.” It was a lie and we both knew it smelled like one.
My people could get into anything with enough time and the right motivation.
But letting Kacey access Thad’s messages was letting her walk directly toward a truth that could set her sights on Mehar.
“I know he was cheating on me,” she said, her voice dropping to something low and steady and certain. “And whoever that woman is—she knows something about what happened to him. I can feel it. I’m gonna find out, Quest. With or without your help.”
Thad Jr. started fussing on her hip and she bounced him absently, still staring at me with eyes that were tired but sharp.
Kacey was smarter than people gave her credit for.
She didn’t have the resources to find Mehar, but she had instincts that were pointing her in exactly the right direction, and that made her dangerous in a way she didn’t even realize.
“I’m still looking,” I said. “I promise.”
She held my gaze for a beat too long. “Sure,” she said. And the way she said it told me she was done waiting for my version of the truth.
I kissed Kalani on the forehead, dapped up Thad Jr. even though he just stared at me with his father’s eyes, and left.
In the car, I sat for a minute thinking about timelines.
Mehar needed to give up Thad’s body. The longer that cage existed, the more exposure it created for everybody—her, me, Prime, Zainab, the whole family.
If we had a body, I could frame one of Thad’s actual enemies for the death.
Clean it up. Give Kacey closure, even if it was manufactured closure.
But Mehar wasn’t letting go, and pushing her too hard would push her away entirely, and I had personal reasons now for not wanting that to happen.
Personal reasons I wasn’t ready to examine too closely.
I pulled onto the highway and remembered the Audemars.
My Royal Oak, the one with the blue dial that Rita had given me for my twenty-first birthday, was still at the penthouse in the watch case on my dresser.
I’d grabbed most of my things when I moved out, but the watches and a few suits were still there.
I’d been meaning to go back for them, but the idea of walking into a space that used to be mine and now belonged to an ex-girlfriend I’d given it to out of guilt was not exactly motivating.
But that watch was worth sixty thousand dollars, and Rita’s initials were engraved on the back. I wasn’t leaving it there another day.
I used my key because the penthouse was still in my name and I was still paying the mortgage.
The place looked the same—floor-to-ceiling windows, open floor plan, the kind of space that architects put in magazines.
But it smelled different. Lyric had filled it with those Bath and Body Works candles that she bought in bulk and the whole apartment smelled like Mahogany Teakwood, which was fine, but it wasn’t mine anymore.
I heard voices coming from the dining room and my jaw tightened before I even turned the corner.
Lyric was at the table with a glass of wine. And across from her, eating takeout with chopsticks like she still lived here, was Camille.
Camille. Seven months pregnant, belly round under a cream sweater, looking healthy and glowing and completely at ease in my dining room like she hadn’t been thrown out of this apartment eight months ago for trying to pass another man’s baby off as mine.
I turned the corner into the dining room and there they were.
Lyric was at the table with a glass of wine. And across from her, eating takeout with chopsticks, was Camille. Seven months pregnant, belly round under a cream sweater, looking healthy and glowing and completely at ease like she’d never left.
“Hey, Quest,” Lyric said, not looking up from her plate.
I nodded and kept it moving toward the bedroom. I wasn’t here for conversation. I was here for the Audemars.
“So you’re not even going to speak to me?” Camille’s voice caught me before I made it down the hallway.
I stopped but I didn’t turn around. “I said what I had to say the last time we talked. Nothing’s changed.”
“You told Lyric I could move back in. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“That was for Lyric. She wanted you here, so I said fine. That has nothing to do with me and you.”
Lyric stood up. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. You do shit like that, let her move back in but then act like she doesn’t exist. You want to be generous without being human. It’s cold, Quest.”
“I am cold. You knew that when you met me.”
“You know what I think?” Lyric crossed her arms. “I think you’ve got another woman. That’s the real reason you dropped both of us. Not because of Camille’s pregnancy, not because you needed space—because you found somebody new and didn’t have the balls to say it.”
“Lyric, if I had another woman, I would’ve brought her into this penthouse and moved her in.
I ain’t never lied to either of you about shit.
I was upfront about being poly and not wanting kids.
So if I had someone else, you’d know about this too.
I just don’t fuckin’ want you. I’m honest about that right now! ”
“This isn’t over, Quest.” She pointed at me with her wine glass. “You don’t just get to walk away from these years like it was nothing. I gave you everything.”
“You gave me headaches and credit card bills. I’m going to get my things.”
I walked past them toward the bedroom. The watch case was on the dresser where I’d left it.
I opened it and checked—the Royal Oak was there, along with my Cartier Santos and a Patek Philippe that Justice had given me last Christmas.
I closed the case and tucked it under my arm, then grabbed the garment bag with my remaining suits from the closet.
When I came back through the dining room, Lyric had disappeared—I could hear her slamming cabinet doors in the kitchen, which was her preferred method of communication when she was angry. Camille was still at the table, chopsticks set down, hands folded over her belly.
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry, Quest,” she said quietly.
“It ain’t worth shit.”
She flinched but didn’t look away. “I know.”
I should’ve kept walking. Should’ve taken my watches and my suits and gone back to the hotel and poured myself a drink and let the night end there.
But something about the way she was sitting—hands on her belly, no wine in front of her, that look on her face that was more exhaustion than regret—made me stop.
“Who’s the father?” I asked. Not because I cared. Because I wanted to hear her say it.
“Someone from the firm. A colleague. It was a one-night thing.” She paused and her eyes dropped to the table.
“It was late one night after a case. We went out for drinks to celebrate and I had too much. I barely remember most of it. I think I blacked out and he…” She trailed off.
Her hand pressed against her belly. “He took advantage of the situation.”
The room shifted. I set the garment bag down on the back of a chair because the conversation had just gone somewhere I wasn’t expecting.
“If that’s true, I’m sorry. Nobody deserves that.
” I meant it. Whatever Camille had done to me, whatever lies she told, nobody deserved to be violated while they were unconscious.
“But you still took out your IUD without telling me. That was before whatever happened with him. You were already trying to trap me into a pregnancy I told you I didn’t want. ”
“I know. I know I did that. And I’m not trying to excuse it. I wanted a baby so badly and you were so final about it—the vasectomy, the conversations, the ‘never ever’ of it all. I made a terrible choice.” She wiped her eyes. “But I want to rule out paternity. I want you to take a test.”
“For what? I had a vasectomy, Camille.”
“Those aren’t foolproof. There’s a failure rate. It’s small, but it exists. And I need to know for sure. For the baby’s sake.”
“And if by some insane stroke of luck that baby is mine—what then?”
“Then we figure it out together.”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “If that baby is mine, I want full custody.”
She stood up so fast the chair scraped against the floor. Her hand went to her belly protectively and her eyes went wide with an anger that transformed her whole face. “You can’t be serious. You can’t just take my baby—”
“I don’t want a liar raising my kids.”
The words landed and the room went silent. Camille stared at me with her chest heaving and tears running down her face and something in her expression that was equal parts fury and devastation. And then she said it.
“And I don’t want a murderer raising mine.”
I looked at her for a long second. She looked back. Neither of us blinked. She knew things about my family—about me—that most people didn’t because she’d been our lawyer before she’d been my woman. And she’d just reminded me of that in four words.
I chuckled. Picked up my garment bag. Tucked the watch case tighter under my arm.
“Take care of yourself, Camille.”
I walked out of the penthouse, took the elevator down, got in the Maybach and sat there in the parking garage for a minute. Peanut at the cemetery. Kacey getting closer to the truth. Camille dropping bombs in my dining room. Lyric slamming cabinets like a child.
Four women. Four different kinds of damage. And the only one I actually wanted to talk to was probably at home right now with her back against her apartment door, wondering why I didn’t kiss her.
I should’ve kissed her.
I started the car and drove to the hotel.