Alexander

When I walk back to Sara Jane and Cruise, my muscles stiffen as my eyes narrow in on the unwelcome company just beyond my car. I keep walking past Sara Jane, but say, “Let me handle this.” I knew I couldn’t hold them off forever, but I didn’t expect to have to deal with the cops at Chad’s funeral.

Brown stands with his arms crossed over his chest and an arrogant fucking grin on his fucking face. Langley is Langley. I don’t get him. He seems to want to actually help. Are there honorable cops left? I’m not letting my guard down around him just yet.

I keep distance between them and us, spreading my stance when I stop. “I assume this is not a coincidence?”

“Unfortunately not,” Langley replies. “Sorry to bother you.” I notice his eyes on Sara Jane.

Judging by his tone and expression—the look of concern in his eyes, I believe him. I still won’t trust him. Not yet. “Why are you here?” I ask, wanting their attention off her.

“That was quite a slap you took back there.” Brown has to have his say. The fat fucker always does, looking to continue this war with me, pushing my buttons to make me break. I won’t. I called his number a long fucking time ago.

“Just get on with it. I want to take my wife home. If you can’t tell, we’re in mourning.”

“Thought we’d follow-up with you. Got a problem with that? Got something to hide?”

The best way to beat him at this game is to remain calm. “My lawyer will.” A sly grin slips into place just from looking at him. He’s stocky. With a black leather belt that should be paid overtime dividing him like a sausage overflowing its casing. He harbors more than a Napoleon complex. It’s an attitude that gives cops a bad name, and makes criminals seek revenge.

“We’ve left him a few messages, but he’s refusing to return them,” Brown says. “So we decided to stop jumping through hoops and come find you ourselves.”

“That’s a shame because we have no comment.”

He grunts, his nose crinkling through the constant sunburn he fashions across his weather-beaten face. I can call it—an alcoholic or he owns a boat. Either way his personality still sucks. “Okay, fine, pretty boy—”

“A guy was killed over on the West End.” Langley stops the standoff between Brown and me from building by moving closer and saying, “Sleepy subdivision with low crime.”

Brown pipes in, “Shot right in the head while sleeping next to his lovely stay-at-home wife and one-year-old son.”

My stomach tightens—the memory of the baby and Johnson’s wife is like a bullet to my heart. It makes me think maybe I’m not as far-gone as I once thought. I ask, “And?”

“And, would you happen to know anything about that?”

My head jerks back. “Why would I know anything about that?”

Langley steps closer, and whispers, “Look, we know you’re involved in some questionable activities to find your mother’s murderer. If you have leads, we can help, but don’t screw up your future. A lot has happened to you, but you have a choice. You don’t have to go down this road. You have a lovely wife. You’re both within a semester of graduating and starting your lives. Don’t throw it away on tenuous information.”

Tenuous? He might have a point, but I’m not giving them any information about what I’m doing. They’ve had four years to solve her murder, and they haven’t. I’m not willing to let it go like they have. Madeline Kingwood deserves more than what she’s been given.

I’m tempted to ask if they have real bad guys to go chase, but maybe I truly am the bad guy in their minds. “Thanks for the advice, Dad,” I say, walking away. “From now on, go through my lawyer, or we’ll file harassment charges.”

Langley nods to Sara Jane, but Brown calls, “We still have questions for you, Sara Jane.”

They’ve got some big fucking balls. I stop, holding my hand up to Sara Jane indicating to stay quiet. Looking back, my glare hits Brown. “Don’t you ever address my wife by anything other than her married name.”

It’s quick, but I catch the hint of fear—his eyes squinting, his mouth gaping open like a fish in need of water. We turn and leave.

I open the car door for Sara Jane and when she slips inside, I look back, met by two pairs of critical eyes. I flip them off before I get into the car, followed by Cruise slipping into the backseat.

Silence befalls the car as we leave the lot. We cover two blocks before she says, “We’ve not talked about that day much. What happened.”

It’s not a question, but it’s leading. “Do you want to? I thought you might not.”

“It happened. As much as I wish it didn’t, it did, so maybe we should. Just get it all out, so we don’t have to another time.”

I can’t bring myself to offer up much or to really kick this conversation off. “Okay.”

“I know what happened. I know what you did.”

I know what you did contaminates the air, so I roll down the window to freshen it.

When I don’t say anything, she says, “He killed Chad. I would have done the same to that bastard.”

Her gaze stays outside the window, the world whizzing by. “Jason won’t tell me why he was there or why he’s still here.”

“I’ve asked him several times myself.” I keep the sarcasm to myself.

Whipping around to face me, she asks, “You weren’t having him spy on me?”

“No, I was. I just don’t know why he showed up when I did or why he stays.”

“You were paying him?” Ooh, she’s pissed. My bad. Maybe this wasn’t a good time to admit that. “Ugh. How could you, Alexander?”

As much as I want to protect her from everything bad, I’ve failed so far, so I need a new tactic. Since Cruise is remaining quiet, I’m going with the truth. “Because I was worried about you. You disappeared. You left everything behind. I thought you had been kidnapped until we saw tapes of you walking out of the building of your own free will.”

“Yes, I left on purpose. I left to save what little sanity I had left at that time, but you couldn’t let me go—”

“No. I couldn’t. Did you let me go? In your heart, did you let me go?”

“No, but I tried. For a short time, I tried. It was useless. I knew it was temporary, but I had to. I needed a routine I didn’t have to think about, a life that wasn’t consuming me, a heart free from pain, a change of scenery that didn’t remind me of your father’s breath on my back.”

“Did you have that while you were away, Sara Jane? Did you find what you were looking for? What you needed?”

“No, Alexander. I didn’t. I lived simply, a quiet daily routine with a mindless job. I lived a life surrounded by people who didn’t ask me anything and didn’t dig into my past. None of that erased you from my thoughts or my heart. Not even temporarily giving me a reprieve.” She reaches over and covers my wrist while I hold the steering wheel. “But once I truly understood there’s no me without you and no you without me I knew I couldn’t stay there any longer.” Relaxing back, she adds, “Driving back, I felt alive again. I felt my heart beating in my chest, anxious to see you again. And then the blue sedan . . .” She takes a deep breath. I can’t imagine the fear she must have felt when she was forced off the road.

Turning toward me, she asks, “If you knew where I was, why did you wait so long to come to me?” She composes herself to move past the horror. My God, she is strong.

I blow out a breath and think before I speak. The answer is complicated, like my emotions over her leaving in the first place. “You saved yourself. But I was selfish and needed you, wanted you, so I gave in and went to see you. I didn’t find the girl I once knew.”

Whispering as if dreading my response, she asks, “Who did you find?”

“The woman I knew you always to be.”

Touching my arm, she whispers, “Who am I, Alexander?” The queen—the female with power, destined to reign.

“Stronger than you were, braver than you thought. You’re here and your scars make you even more beautiful.”

I look out through the windshield ahead. The trees make a canopy, the stars hidden from view. Under her careful scrutiny, she angles toward me. “I’m yours. Till death do us part.”

* * *

“What am I looking at?” Alone in the penthouse, I stare at the monitor, trying to decipher the medical record. Fuck. I call her number not really expecting her to answer. But she does.

“What the hell do you want, King? I gave you the password.” Shelly sounds furious, but I’m determined to use that anger for good.

“I need your help. Please.”

She’s stewing. I can hear her breathing, but she acquiesces. “Fine.”

“Thank you. Chad had April Dorset’s medical records. I need to know why. Can you see the file from the email on your computer?”

“Yes. Whatever. I’ll look it up now.”

After a few minutes, where I could practically feel her outrage through the computer, she answers, “If you go to the second page of the file, you’ll see that April gave birth when she was seventeen.”

My dad was mid-twenties. The bastard. I figured she’d been young, but not that young. The thought of my father preying on a girl for his own entertainment disgusts me. The more I learn about him, the more I hate him, and I honestly didn’t think that was possible at this stage.

She continues, “Alexander Kingwood the second is listed as her guardian in the medical file.”

“The third.”

“What?”

“My father is Alexander Kingwood the third. Everyone confuses it.”

“Look at page three. Don’t you think it’s odd it says the second?”

“No. It happens all the time.”

“I would think they would be more careful in medical files.”

“If there are humans involved, there are mistakes to be made.”

“Are you sure it’s a mistake?”

“If it’s not, my family is more fucked-up than I thought possible.”

“Everyone’s family is. Anyway, you aren’t your family, King.”

I take a deep breath. “God, he took her at seventeen. What the hell?” Even I waited until Sara Jane was eighteen, and I loved her. Fuck. Why am I comparing the two of us? My life is so entangled with Sara Jane’s that sometimes I look in the mirror and I see her reflected back. You would think that would be enough to keep me from doing some of the shit that’s gone down.

“Interesting how that struck a nerve with you.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re blinded by her innocence.”

My laughter feels maniacal, but it’s soiled in disgust, an emotion I feel more often when thinking about my life. “I stole that a long time ago.”

“I meant she’s naïve. She lives in her head, in this fantasy that you are actually good for her.”

“She sees who I want to be for her.” God, my mind won’t stop spinning.

“You’re not built that way. King is right. You’re meant to reign. Now that your father is gone, you are in power, but will that power destroy her like it did Chad?”

“Her heart is strong. That’s all I need.”

Her laughter rings out. “You’re both fools if you think you can survive each other.”

“Shelly, what the fuck—?” She hangs up on me just as the front door opens and Cruise and Jason walk in, stopping when they see me in front of Chad’s computer swearing. Jason smirks. Asshole. I think about calling her back, but decide there’s no use. Fucking hell.

“King?” But I can’t answer Cruise, not when the fucker Jason is looking at me like that.

“Got a problem, Koster?” I ask, not taking his bullshit tonight.

“Not a damn one,” he replies with a chuckle.

“Apparently, you do.”

“You know what? I don’t, but you do. Let me give you some advice. You should get a hold of your anger, or you’re going to lose everything and everyone that matters, including the one thing you’re fighting for in the first place.”

“I didn’t start this for Sara Jane.”

“But she should be the reason to end it.”

“Why should I listen to you?”

“Call my advice a courtesy, but your girl, she’s worth more than continuing whatever you’re doing.”

“You don’t know anything—”

“I know your anger has built to the point of combustion. I’m trying to remind you what’s on the line to lose.”

“Mind your own fucking business.”

With that cocky-ass grin on his face, he says, “I’m paid to mind yours these days.”

“Why the hell are you still here?” Looking to Cruise, I ask, “Why the fuck is he still here?”

Jason responds, “I don’t want to miss the show.”

“Show?”

“The one where you self-destruct, and I swoop in to save the girl.”

I can’t say not over my dead body because that’s not outside the realm of possibility. I roll my eyes. This is bullshit.

I’m not sure if Sara Jane is the reason he stays or if the money is the only thing he sees these days. But as he walks down the hall to his room, I ask the question I’ve always wondered, “Can I trust you, Koster?”

“With your life.” The door slams behind him.

I should go to bed, but my mind reels. How many more buried Kingwood secrets will I find? My grandfather was listed as April’s next of kin, which makes absolutely no sense. She must have meant my father, but something doesn’t sit right with this new detail.

And thinking about what Koster said, his advice is solid. I don’t want to lose Sara Jane again. She trusts me to not hurt her. Lies do damage. I’m still pissed at Jason—he’s an asshole—but a guy I thought was my enemy just may turn out to be a friend and the ally I need.