“Gus Cushings,” Lani said before Nyx could answer. “He was Nyx’s first crush.”
“Dude, no, we’re not supposed to discuss old crushes with our new mate,” Nyx groaned and smacked a palm to his head. “Besides, I was like, ten.”
“Is this the same guy who caused you to run into a bus?” I asked.
“One and the same,” Lani replied.
That my mates could still make me laugh while we sat there waiting to find out what had taken place was comforting and in direct contrast to the conversations I knew would need to come.
Chapter 8
Lani
“Sorry to keep you waiting so long,” Mrs. Masters, or in this case, Chief Masters, said as she entered the room, flanked by two other officers.
“This is Detectives Lujan and Torres,” she said, gesturing left first and then right to indicate the men who flanked her. We’ve just returned from Kekoa’s motel room, and I’m afraid to say that there are very few things left that can be salvaged.”
“And this all leads back to the bar incident?” Nyx asked.
“He was caught on camera breaking into Kekoa’s hotel room,” she explained. “It’s just a shame that no one was watching the monitors when it was taking place, or we’d have him in custody by now. Another guest reported that Kekoa’s door was open and that he saw things broken and tossed all over the room. The desk clerk rushed to see if there was anyone in the room who needed aid and discovered holes in the wall, the mattress half yanked off the bed, the mirror shattered, and things thrown all over the floor, but no one in the room. Hecalled the station to report the damage and provided your name, Kekoa, as the one who’d rented the room.”
“I haven’t been back since yesterday morning when I left to join Nyx and Lani at the arch,” Kekoa explained. “I didn’t know anything had gone on.”
“We know,” she replied. “And I’m glad you were with them and not in that hotel room when he forced his way in with a crowbar. We were able to see when he parked in the parking lot, as well as watch him actually break in. We have time stamps for when he left too; he did all of that damage in five minutes. It wasn’t the only rampage Nuno went on last night. A trailer at one of the jobsites was vandalized, as was one of the work trucks and the company office. With the fiesta we held last night, word has already spread about you being mated to Lani and Nyx. Rather than post a patrol car outside of the house, we decided it would be best to get the three of you out of there and post some officers in Aunty Ina’s house across the street, where they can keep an eye on the place and apprehend him if he shows up there.”
“Mom, you’re brilliant,” Nyx said.
“I wish you’d realized that all of those times you were running around trying to pull the wool over my eyes.”
Nyx flushed and inclined his head. “Fair point.”
I just sat there trying to absorb everything I’d heard, terrified that there was a guy who was running around hell-bent on leaving damage in his wake. The last thing I wanted was for any of that damage to happen to my mates.
“Were you aware that he was fired yesterday?” she asked Kekoa.
“No, but so was I.”
“Yes, we’re aware,” she said. “We spoke with your boss about the situation and strongly suggested that he stop taking the easy way out and start doing his due diligence to get to the heart ofthe matter when someone files a complaint or refuses to sign a letter of reprimand.”
Kekoa heaved a long, heavy sigh and hung their head.
“So, what was the reprimand really for?” she asked. “I read what Nuno wrote, where he claimed that you were slow to catch on and that your work quality was poor and that you’d been insubordinate to him when he attempted to correct you. That’s quite a trifecta. The kind that usually accompanies a pink slip, not a warning.”
“It was complete crap,” Kekoa replied. “I did everything I was told to do bymyforeman. Nuno just got pissed that I refused to make an adjustment that I knew was wrong, which my foreman confirmed when I brought the incident to his attention. Nuno never had a legitimate reason to write me up, which is why I refused to sign it. My foreman backed me in that and wrote up an incident report of his own about Nuno being on the jobsite and interfering with our work.”
“That’s along the lines of what I thought might have happened,” she said. “Your former foreman was not in favor of them letting you go, by the way. You were just another in a long line of workers Nuno had issues with, many of whom wound up being terminated, the same as you.”
“So why fire him now when he’s been pulling shit like that for years?” Nyx asked.
“The foreman,” his mother replied. “It turns out he was more valuable to the company than Nuno. He threatened to walk and take the crew with him if they didn’t get rid of him. That came after he learned that they’d fired you instead of dealing with him. With his background, experience, and references, he was highly sought after when they brought him on to work for the company, and the last thing they wanted to do was lose him to one of their rivals. After he learned of your firing, he started asking around and digging into the issues Nuno had with othersin the past and didn’t like what he learned. He interrupted the owner's Sunday afternoon brunch to express his concerns, and before he left, Nuno had been issued his walking papers. That’s when Nuno started to spiral completely out of control.”
“We’d like to keep the damage contained to property,” Detective Lujan explained. “But he has been heard issuing threats towards Kekoa. A neighbor of his called the cops last night after Nuno made so much noise trashing his own home that the neighbor went over and knocked on the door. We suggested he not do that again in the future. Nuno threatened him with a beer bottle, but he was gone before officers arrived at the scene. The neighbor reported that as he stormed off, Nuno made drunken threats about paying back; well, he used an impolite term that I won’t repeat and directly referenced the incident at the bar and how Kekoa had done nothing but try to embarrass him every chance they got, and the company was helping them. Apparently, Nuno was bound and determined to find everyone who’d wronged him and make them pay. We believe he was able to find the address and information about the motel Kekoa was staying at after he broke into the office and rummaged through the file cabinets before trashing the place. He’s managed to stay ahead of us so far out of sheer luck, since the alarm tripped when he broke in, but the time it took for officers to arrive on the scene allowed him the chance to slip away. We’ve got officers stationed outside the office, which is closed, and all of the jobsites are shut down until we get him. We are not willing to risk him hurting somebody.”
“Thank you,” Kekoa said to him, then turned back to face Chief Masters, “and thank you for an awesome fiesta last night. I’m sorry all of this had to follow it.”
“This is not on you,” she replied. “You did what was right and stood up for yourself in not signing that warning. If you had, you’d have kept your job, and he’d still be roving from worksiteto worksite harassing people and putting them at risk. I wonder how many times someone has followed the incorrect orders he’s given.”
“It’s terrifying, actually,” I said.
