You Really Got Me (20 page)

“Oh God, I can’t imagine,” Erin said softly. “Poor Kevin. He must be worried sick.”

“Yeah. He’s not saying much. About anything.” The coffee finished brewing so she poured it into two cups and handed one to Erin where she sat at the kitchen table, then pulled out another chair and sat too.

“What are the police telling you?”

“Um. As much as they can, I guess. Jason is…”

“Jason?” Erin lifted one eyebrow.

“The police chief.” Heat rose in her face.

“You two are on a first name basis?”

Kendall bowed her head and her dark hair slid over her face. “Yes.”

“Want to tell me about that too?” Then when Kendall looked at her, she said softly, “Oh, honey. What is it?”

Kendall met her eyes. Shared memories and understanding passed between them. Erin was the only other person who knew a lot about Kendall’s past.

“We’ve been seeing each other. It started…before this all happened.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

“I know. We were seeing each other a couple of months ago, but I’d actually ended things with him, so I never mentioned it.” She paused. “Then we saw each other when the police got involved with the missing person case, and…things started up again.”

Erin sat back in her chair, her mouth open. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Why’d you end things with him?” Her eyebrows pulled together.

Kendall looked down. “It was really…intense.”

“Um…what does that mean?”

“Oh God, Erin. He’s…” She didn’t even know what to say. “Remember when I was going out with Anthony Marsh?”

Erin’s eyes narrowed, then widened. “Yeah. The old dude.”

Kendall choked on a laugh. “Yeah. Him.” He’d been thirty when she was only twenty-one. “Remember I told you that he liked to…um…spank me?”

Erin grinned. “Yeah. That guy was kinky.”

“Well. He had nothing on Jason.”

Erin’s mouth dropped open. “Seriously?”

Kendall bit her lip. “Seriously.”

“But…um…you liked that stuff…didn’t you?”

Kendall closed her eyes. Yeah. At first, she’d been so horrified, ashamed, embarrassed…did she have enough negative words to describe how she’d felt when Anthony had introduced her to a little discipline and pain? Probably not. She could add confused…and holy mother of cake, turned on. “I still don’t understand it.”

“Is this the first guy you’ve been with since Anthony who’s, ah…into that?”

“Yes.”

“Which is maybe why things never worked out with anyone else.”

Kendall sighed. Erin
so
got her. “Maybe.”

“See, here’s what I think,” Erin began, leaning forward, apparently eager to share. “You always felt so guilty about your parents. I think you had this feeling that you should be…um, punished for not doing more.”

Kendall frowned and gave her head a shake. “What?”

“I really think that has something to do with it. You felt guilty. You felt like you deserved to be punished.”

Kendall tipped her head to one side, frowning at her friend. “But…”

“But it’s more than punishment, right? More than pain? You like it.”

Kendall’s cheeks heated again. “God, you make me sound so messed up.”

Erin reached out and covered one of Kendall’s hands with hers, giving a gentle squeeze. “Oh honey, we’re all messed up, somehow. I’m sure it probably
started
as pain and punishment, but…” She shrugged. “I’m not going to judge anyone. The last guy I dated liked to suck my toes. Surprisingly, it was pretty hot.”

Erin’s unconditional affection and acceptance of what, in Kendall’s mind, was a little fucked up, eased her discomfort. Not to mention, Erin surprisingly had hit on something she herself had realized—the pain she felt physically helped her deal with the emotional pain she’d carried around so long. She let out a long breath. “I love you, Erin.”

“Love you too. So, the cop is hot?”

“Oh God, yes.”

“I assume he has handcuffs.”

A smile tugged at Kendall’s lips. “He probably does, but he hasn’t used those yet.” Dammit, just thinking about being handcuffed to his bed made her girl parts squeeze hard. “The problem is…I think he suspects Kevin had something to do with Natalia’s disappearance.”

Erin frowned. “Seriously?”

Kendall swallowed. “Well, Jason doesn’t come right out and say that, because they don’t know for sure that there’s been any crime. But they took him in for a polygraph test.”

Erin’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Because he was one of the last people who saw her.”

Erin nodded and pursed her lips. “Yeah. Okay.”

“Oh Erin, I’m so afraid.”

“Why are you afraid?”

“I…I don’t actually know where Kevin was when Natalia disappeared.”

Erin shook her head, holding Kendall’s gaze. “What are you saying? He would never do anything to hurt her.”

“Yes. I know that.” Kendall rubbed her forehead. She stared down into her coffee cup. “But…oh this is so bad. Someone in Santa Barbara saw him that night. They got security video showing him with a…a girl.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. He won’t say anything about it. If it was Natalia, then…oh, I just can’t figure it out! Damn Kevin! If only he’d tell us what was going on.” She bit her lip.

Erin nodded, her mouth tight.

“I know he didn’t hurt her, but I’m terrified that something will go wrong, that somehow they’ll think he did it and arrest him and…he’ll go to jail for something he didn’t do.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Erin said firmly, reaching out again to squeeze one of Kendall’s hands. “Trust me, honey.” She paused, looking briefly distracted, then said, “Have faith in the justice system. This Jason…if you like him that much, he must be a good guy. He’s not going to make a mistake like that.”

“It could happen.” She lifted her head to look at Erin. “Mistakes happen. Kevin’s my only family.” She paused. She knew she shouldn’t admit this out loud to anyone, but Erin was her best friend and she felt an agonizing need to tell
someone
. “I told the police he was with me the weekend Natalia disappeared.”

It only took seconds for Erin to figure that out. “Oh sweet Jesus on the cross,” Erin breathed. “Kendall.”

“I know. Now they know I lied. But I have to protect him.” Kendall pleaded with her eyes for understanding. “You get that, don’t you?”

Erin closed her eyes and was silent for a long moment. “Yeah,” she finally said. “I get that. But…Jesus, Kendall.”

“I really didn’t think it would make a difference, because clearly Kevin had nothing to do with Natalia’s disappearance. But now…something has happened to her, and Kevin was lying, and…I don’t know what’s going on.”

“And you hate that. You hate not having it all under control.”

Kendall bowed her head, Erin’s words reminding her of Jason saying the same thing. The two people in the world who understood her so well.

“You’ve got Arman involved?” Erin asked.

“Yes.”

“Good. Otherwise I’d be on my way to see that police chief and have a little talk with him.”

Kendall smiled faintly.

“Did Arman tell you not to talk to the police?”

She gave Erin a wry smile. “Yes, but that’s kind of hard…seeing as I’m sleeping with the police chief.” Sleeping and doing all kinds of wicked, naked things with him.

“Christ,” Erin muttered.

“I know you’re a lawyer,” Kendall whispered. “I know you think everyone should follow the rules.”

A funny look passed over Erin’s face that Kendall couldn’t decipher. Erin shook her head. “It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said. “I’m here for you, Ken Doll.”

Kendall smiled at the corruption of her name Erin had used since they were sixteen. “Thanks,” she said. “It’s nice to know someone is. Now tell me about what’s happening in your life. Any man? How’s work going?”

Erin sighed. “No man. I’m too busy. And work is going…well, it’s been kind of rough lately.”

“How so?”

Erin shrugged and smiled. “I’ll tell you all about it some other time. You don’t need to hear all my problems right now, you have enough of your own. Now what can I do before I get back to the farm to see how Grams is doing?”

“Nothing, Erin. But thank you.”

“Do you want me to talk to Arman? The police?”

Kendall shook her head. “No. I don’t think so. Just having you here feels so good. Thank you.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Erin said. “If you need anything though, let me know.”

“I will. Thanks, Erin.”

After Erin left, Kendall thought about what her friend had said. Erin didn’t look down on her or think she was a sick pervert because she liked to be spanked.

And neither did Jason.

Somehow, he understood her. He accepted her, in fact encouraged her. He got her. Her heart swelled and she let out a long shaky breath.

Okay. Things were messed up, but she had to remember Maria and Juan Debarros were still at their home and their problems were far greater than hers. Their only daughter was still missing, and hope that she was going to turn up safe and sound was quickly fading. She needed to worry about supporting them.

If something had in fact happened to Natalia, Kendall was absolutely certain it had not been Kevin. She knew that, deep in her heart and in her soul. He had his faults, but he would never hurt someone. He was all she had in the world and she believed he hadn’t done anything to Natalia. She wished he would at least be honest with her so she could better help him. Then they could figure out what to do to exonerate him.

Although in this weird state of limbo—there was nothing to exonerate him from.

Chapter Fifteen

Jason powered off the sander he was using on some baseboard Saturday morning when his cell phone vibrated against his hip. He reached for it and answered the call. “Holloway.”

“Chief! We got something!” It was Paul Janko.

Jason’s body stiffened. “What?”

“Feds found something when they were searching the lab again. Found a lab coat with blood on it stuffed into the ceiling in one of the labs.”

“Jesus Christ.” Jason surged to his feet, as if a gallon of adrenaline had been drop-loaded into his veins. “I’ll be there in five.”

He cursed again in his mind as he washed up, grabbed keys and bolted out of the house. A bloody lab coat. In a way, finally finding something was almost a relief, but shit, even though he’d accepted that Debarros hadn’t simply run away, he’d still had a faint hope somewhere in the recesses of his mind that it wasn’t going to go down like this. This was bad. So damn bad.

An hour later, news of the find had already leaked to the press.

“We’re not confirming it,” Jason ordered the team. “No statement to the press right now. Let’s look again at those security system records. Get blueprints for the building. And let’s find the trash that was taken from that facility after last Saturday. We need to go through it.”

Back in his office they poured over the security records and finally Jason leaned back in his chair and rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay. We’ve narrowed it down to three people who went into the room where the lab coat was found that day.”

“Problem is, Chief, the building wasn’t shut down after that.” Nicki Barden gave him a look that pissed him off. “There are a lot more people who had access to the building in the days after that.”

“I know.” His gut clenched, hating that she’d pointed that out. “I know, believe me. The lab is damn well closed now. But let’s go with the likelihood that if Debarros was murdered in the lab, they had to hide the lab coat that day. Otherwise it might have been seen by someone, if not Sunday, Monday morning for sure.”

“But we still have the same problem,” Barden said. “If she was murdered in the lab, how did they get the body out of there?”

“They couldn’t have. We’d have seen it on the security tapes.”

“Which means either there
is
no body—or it’s still in there. Hell, we don’t even know if the blood on the lab coat is hers. It’s possible someone cut himself and got blood on the coat.”

Jason shot her a frown. “Yeah, right. And then hid it in a ceiling panel?”

“One of the other students who works in the lab said he heard an argument and glass breaking. Maybe Natalia cut herself on the glass and hid the coat herself.”

“You know that doesn’t make sense.”

“Maybe not.” She shrugged. “Or maybe Kevin Vioget hid it. Before he left.”

“We have to talk to the three people who went into that lab Saturday.”

“Of course we do. But it could also be something completely unrelated, although that seems highly unlikely. The other explanation is that the body is still there. We’ll bring in our dog,” Nicki Barden said, referring to the cadaver-sniffing canine. “We’ll go through the building again.”

“Yeah. With those blueprints. Someone who works in that building and knows it well would know places to hide things. Like in the damn ceiling panels. Jesus.” He shook his head. “We still have the issue of seeing her leave on video, but hell, let’s not close off that avenue.”