Page 65 of Kissing Kayley
A helicopter awaited just outside the Ranch’s main gates. “Why didn’t it land inside the Ranch?” I asked.
“To draw less attention,” Asher grimly said.
It transported me, Asher, Jenette, and our things to Bozeman, where we were quickly loaded onto a chartered plane and, minutes later were climbing into the air heading for LA.
This was something I couldn’t get used to. Not just because I didn’t like flying, but because it almost felt wrong to be ferried around in this manner. Like I was someone special, when I felt anything but.
I couldn’t even fly coach if I took a commercial flight. We could only fly first class, or if there was a business class section at the front. Even then I was always boarded from a separate airport entrance and unloaded first, quickly whisked away by awaiting vehicles parked on the tarmac and escorted by airport police.
It felt… surreal.
Even more so now.
It was after 9:00 when I numbly walked up to my front door. It was opened by an agent who immediately closed it behind us once Asher, Jenette, and I were inside. That agent took my bags from Asher and carried them into my bedroom for me.
“You guys don’t have to stay here,” I wearily said.
Jenette cleared her throat. “Sorry, ma’am. Mr. Cruz?—”
“Fuck. Yeah, yeah, I know. He asked you to stay with me. In the house, right?”
She coughed. “Yes, ma’am. Sorry.”
I turned to my babysitters. “When do I meet up with Mom and Dad?”
Asher answered. “They’re en route home now. Sunday morning, we’ll transport all of you to LAX. Your private chartered flight departs at 0700 Pacific time.”
“Why can’t we fly out tomorrow?”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” Jenette said. “Mr. Cruz?—”
I waved away her answer. “Yes, protective big brother.” I was still trying to… process. “I need to go grocery shopping. I don’t have any food.”
“Mr. Cruz ordered us not to let you leave the house,” she said. “We can go shopping for you. Just make us a list.”
That figured.Terrific.
“Is there an active threat against me right now?”
“No, ma’am, but he said?—”
“Protective big brother,” I grumbled. “Got it.”
I headed into my bedroom and closed the door behind me, flopping onto my bed for a long moment to… decompress.
Poor Elliot.
Yeah, I know, I know. I went from feeling resentful of him for the disruption to my life and Leo’s, to wanting to hunt down a necromancer to reanimate his sister so I could slug her for being a complete cunt and getting herself killed all because she’dwanted to scramble up the DC political ladder at her brother’s expense.
But no matter how shitty the victim, nobody deserved to go through what Elliot and his folks now were.
Or Jordan.
Not Leo either, but unlike Jordan, he was used to seeing the darker side of life and better able to cope with it. Although I suspected he’d need decompression time of his own after the fact to help him process the absorbed grief from Elliot and his in-laws.
Obviously, Stella didn’t deserve to die, but I certainly wouldn’t shed any tears for her.
From previous talks I’d had with Elliot with my Dr. Cruz hat firmly in place, I knew he agonized over the fact that his sister wasn’t a person he could ever have a “normal” sibling relationship with. Not the way I did with Leo, or Vic and his siblings.
