KENNICK: A Bad Boy Romance Novel (6 page)

“What about the cheese shop?” Kim asked, trying to
keep it all straight in her mind. Kennick smiled again, wide and open this
time.

“Damon,” he said shaking his head. “He’s got a knack
for pairings, believe it or not.”

Kim thought of the huge, burly man she’d just watch
pretend to beat the snot out of his brother. She
didn’t
believe it. Not for a moment.

“And what’s your role in all this?” she asked,
realizing he’d never laid claim to any of the businesses himself. “Or do you
just get to sit back and take the ride?”

He laughed, as though it was the funniest thing he’d
ever heard.

“I’m r
om baro,”
he
said. “Leader. Kind of like…I don’t know, President, or something. I kind of
look after it all. Make sure everyone’s happy. Make the big decisions about the
kumpania.
”

She nodded. Somehow, it made sense. When you looked
into Kennick Volanis’ eyes, you got the feeling he knew what you should be
doing better than you knew it yourself. He just had that way about him; a way
that made you hungry to trust him. Follow him.

“And I guess most people, well, you all work there
together, I guess, right? Like, all the people who live here work at one place
or another?”

Kennick nodded.

“We find it doesn’t pay to outsource our labor, most
of the time,” he said. “There’s about thirty people in our
kumpania.
A lot are too young or too old to work. The ones who can work,
work their butts off, and we more or less share the money between ourselves.
We’ll hire a few locals, though. Kids to help in the grocery, any local talent
for the tattoo parlor and nail salon.”

The unspoken idea that “local talent” might also include
women for the gentleman’s club passed between them.

“I never really thought of…well, you’re very
industrious,” she said, quickly trying to save herself from saying something
terribly presumptuous. But it was true; the typical person’s idea of a gypsy probably
didn’t peg them as being particularly upstanding citizens of the business
community.

“And rich as shit,” Kennick said, catching onto her
near-miss and smiling to let her know it wasn’t going to be taken personally.
“My people have become Americans, same as Asians or Hispanics or anything else.
We offer some very particular services, and some general services, we’re smart
with our money – most of the time. We live in trailers so we can move
around…and afford parties. Nothing like a Rom party. Bet we can spend a month
of your rent on a one-night kegger.”

Kim shifted in her seat. She wanted to ask the real
question that had been plaguing her since she’d realized the connection that
the Volanis family already had to Kingdom. Her fingers plucked at her nails, an
old habit that was dying a slow hard, death. When Kennick looked down at her
busy fingers, she forced them to stop.

“Kennick,” she said, looking down now. “I think…well,
you just have no idea how much Kingdom needs this all. We’re really…we’re not
doing so well. I’ve been worried what would happen to the town if something
didn’t change. I think that all these new businesses will be just fantastic.
But I have to ask…”

“Why did we come back?” Kennick asked, anticipating
her question. Her eyes rose to meet his, shyly. She nodded. His smile waned and
he seemed to be looking for something in her face. Perhaps some sign that she
could be trusted, that she wasn’t like the man she worked for. Perhaps
something else.

He sighed.

“My father, Pieter Volanis, died, a little less than a
month ago,” he said.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said softly. He waved
his hand in front of his face again.

“He was too young, but that was just his luck,” he
said, the smile returning to his face again, though sadder this time. “The
Volanis have never been known for their great luck. My father was a good man.
He was a good father, a good gypsy.”

Kim flinched at the word gypsy. She wasn’t sure if it
was a slur or not, but the way some people said it made it sound like a slur
for sure.

“Gypsy’s not a bad word,” Kennick said, picking up on
her discomfort. “Unless it’s preceded by dirty, fucking, worthless, no
good….you get the picture.”

Kim nodded. She couldn’t overlook the way her body had
warmed up a degree when he’d said the word
fucking.
Like a pre-teen testing out curse words in a secret hiding place, watching
his mouth form the word, hearing it come out in his low, honeyed voice, was
exciting. He rose slowly, going to the fridge and pulling out two beers,
handing her one before taking his seat. She sipped when he did.

“My father was a good gypsy,” he continued on his
earlier track. “One of the best. And the only thing that ever tarnished him,
ever, was what happened here in Kingdom. He loved Rhonda Teek more than he’d
ever loved any woman before. Maybe more than he loved any woman that came
after, including my mother. He never killed her. But he was run out of town by
a damn lynch mob. I’m here to clear his name.”

Chapter
Nine

Kim studied him across the table. He was here to clear
his father's name. Alright. End of conversation. But her mouth had different
ideas.

“But he was already, you know, exonerated or
whatever,” Kim said, reading the steely look in his eyes. She hadn’t been that
surprised by his statement; she’d assumed something of the sort, and in the
little bit of research she’d done on the thirty-year-old case, she knew that
there had been no legal action taken against Pieter Volanis.

“Maybe legally,” he said. “But in terms of
reputation…well, people in a town like this, they like to write their own
history. And they’ve decided Pieter killed her. And he didn’t.”

“Well, what do you really think will happen if you
do
clear his name? I mean, will anyone
even care? It was so long ago…her parents are gone, I mean people still talk
about it sometimes but…”

“Listen,” Kennick said, now crossing his arms across
his chest. “I don’t actually give a fuck what happens after. But my clan
doesn’t like taking credit for shit we didn’t do. It’s a matter of honor, a
matter of legacy. The last thing Dad asked of us was to clear his name, and
that’s what we’re going to do.”

His eyes flashed as he spoke of honor and legacy. Kim
tried to understand, and could only draw up thoughts of her hometown, the way
she wanted to save it. She loathed the idea of Kingdom going down the road it
was headed; sooner or later, if things didn’t improve, it would be just another
poster town for poverty, meth, and crime. Kennick had his family. Kim had her
town.

“Okay,” she finally said. “I get it. But do you really
have enough evidence to prove that Pieter didn’t do it? I mean, it’s been
thirty years. Can’t exactly exhume the body for DNA testing or fingerprints.
And all that stuff on the case – ballistics, all that – I mean, do you really
think it hasn’t been gone over and over and over already? It’s not like you’re
the first person to try and crack the case, or whatever.”

She felt a little silly using the old cliché of “crack
the case”. She felt a little silly about the whole conversation. Was she
seriously getting herself pulled into some true crime novel, some Grisham
paperback? She was an assistant in the Mayor’s office, she had no business
getting involved in a thirty-year old murder.

Who says
you have to get involved,
she thought suddenly.
You can walk away right now. Deal with Kennick and his people’s
business in town without having to muddy your boots with his ulterior motives.

Well, the answer to that riddle was simple.
Embarrassingly simple. She wanted any excuse she could get to spend more time
in this tall, dark, handsome gypsy’s company. She couldn’t deny the way her
body flushed whenever she saw him, the way her heart beat just a hint faster.
Even now, as they talked about this direly serious subject, her eyes never
stilled, constantly moving across his body, focusing on this or that tattoo,
ogling those wide, weathered hands, taking in the thick vein that ran down his
muscled forearm.

“What do you know about the case?” Kennick asked,
bringing his beer to his lips and gulping smoothly, She watched his Adam’s
apple, small but clearly visible, bob slightly. She wondered what it would feel
like to be that cold beer, slipping down his throat…

“Not much,” she said, corralling her thoughts back to
the matter at hand. She spoke truthfully; she’d been born after most of the
hubbub had died down. She’d read up on it a bit after Ricky had left the day
before. Mostly, she could remember the occasional report in the newspaper –
usually tucked in the middle, never on the front page – when a journalist
caught wind of some new lead the detectives were following. All those leads,
inevitably, went nowhere. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen such
an article; not since she was a teenager, at least.

“Do you know exactly
why
Pieter Volanis was cleared of charges?”

Again, Kim shrugged. She didn’t.

“I figured it was just, you know, not enough concrete
evidence against him,” she said. Kennick rolled his tongue across his mouth,
from cheek to cheek, thoughtfully.
Fuck,
that tongue,
Kim thought, distracted once more. Every move this man made
seemed designed to turn her on more and more. She really needed to get her shit
together before she left a puddle on the bench.

“Something like that,” he said finally. “But what
really did it was the fact that the DA couldn’t go to trial. There was a page
missing from the case file.”

She cocked her head. Finally, something interesting
enough to get her mind off Kennick’s omnipresent sex appeal.

“Back then, you know, they didn’t have computers to
back shit up. So when the page went missing, it was gone for good. And any
lawyer worth his salt – even a shitty public defender – would have cried
mistrial, and won.”

“I didn’t know that,” Kim said. “But, I mean…why did
they even keep pursuing the case, then, if it would have been a mistrial no
matter what? I mean, couldn’t anyone
else
they have brought in said the same thing?”

Kennick shook his head.

“The page went missing, but it was easy enough to
figure out what was
on
that page. It
was the page that detailed the footprints left at the scene. Wouldn’t normally
make or break a case. Wouldn’t have to, anyway. If you had enough
other
physical evidence, or motive, or
whatever, I guess, you could still build a case.”

“But…they
did
have
all that on your Dad, didn’t they?” Kim asked. Even as she did, she felt warm
with regret; the way she’d asked it certainly made it sound like she wasn’t
buying what Kennick was selling. But she knew enough to know that the evidence
against Pieter had been compelling. Compelling enough to convince people,
obviously. His semen was inside her, his baby was inside her, he went AWOL when
they found the body, didn’t report it even though it was clear he’d been the
last to see her. Motive. Hard evidence. Sketchy behavior.

And above it all the looming specter of
who
he was. A traveler. A vagabond. A
troublemaker, con man, born of bad blood and worse morals. A gypsy.

“Sure did,” Kennick said stonily. “Heaps of it. Enough
to make it clear he couldn’t stay in town without getting lynched.”

Kim winced. Here she sat, trying to remain impartial,
though her body and heart yearned to believe whatever Kennick said. Didn’t make
it easy, though, when her whole life she’d heard how clear it was his father
had
done it.

“That page,” Kennick continued. “Like I said, it
contained the evidence of the footprints found at the scene. There must have
been good ones; they found Dad’s tire tracks easy enough. It had been a wet
summer.”

Kim nodded, now peeling the label of her own beer with
increasingly anxious fingers.

“What that page would have showed would have cleared
Dad. I know it would have,” Kennick said, leaning forward now, eyes glinting,
boring into Kim’s own.
Oh shit,
Kim
thought, wilting under his stare, imagining those eyes coming to her on some
cold, dark night, seeking her out in a dim bedroom, the hands that they were
attached to closing around her ankles and yanking her body towards him, towards
his…

“Why’s that,” Kim asked, willing the stutter out of
her voice.

“Because Dad had a limp,” Kennick said, eyes
narrowing. “There would have been a third set of tracks. A set that
didn’t
limp. And that would have been
enough.”