Kade groaned and rolled over, his arm thrown over his eyes. “What the fuck is that?”
She peeked at the clock. Right past six in the morning. “I don’t know. I think someone’s at the door. I’ll go see.”
She hauled herself out of bed with a grunt, everything achy and sensitive from the night before, and started to head to the front of the house but quickly realized she was still naked. The loud knocking came again, and she shuffled to her closet to grab her robe. Kade was climbing out of bed behind her when she made her way toward the living room.
“Who is it?” she asked, wishing she had a peephole.
“Police,” a voice called. “We need you to open up.”
Police? What the hell?
Maybe something had happened in the neighborhood. There’d been a few break-ins two streets away a month ago. She knotted her robe around her and opened the door. “What’s going on?”
Two officers, a man and a woman, stood on the other side, wearing matching stern expressions. The man spoke first. “Ma’am, we need to know if Kade Vandergriff is here.”
She blinked. “What? Why?”
The female cop stepped forward. “We have an arrest warrant, ma’am.”
Tessa’s heart climbed into her throat.
Kade walked up behind her, wearing his jeans and wrinkled T-shirt from last night. “A warrant? What the hell for?”
“Mr. Vandergriff,” the male cop said, and Kade nodded. The cop walked toward Kade, his hand on his gun belt. “We need you to step outside and come with us. You’re under arrest for assault and battery of a Mr. Douglas Barrett.”
Tessa’s mouth fell open. “Doug? No, wait, there’s been a mistake. Kade didn’t hurt anyone.”
The male cop moved past her, unhooking his handcuffs from his belt. “Well, Douglas Barrett disagrees and spent the evening in the hospital getting patched up from a beating he claims Mr. Vandergriff is responsible for. He also claimed you threatened his life.”
“A beating?” Kade said as the cop snapped handcuffs around his wrists. “I didn’t hit him.”
The cop began the Miranda warning and ignored Kade’s protest.
Panic welled in Tessa. She looked to Kade who appeared to be either intensely calm or intensely pissed, then tried to implore the female officer. “Nothing happened. Doug’s my ex-husband and is making this up.”
“Not my call, ma’am,” she said, all business.
“Tess,” Kade said, dragging her attention his way. “Call Reid Jamison, he’s my lawyer. Tell him what happened and to meet me wherever they’re taking me.”
She grabbed a scrap of paper and pen from a drawer in the entryway table and scribbled the information down as he rattled off a number. “Okay. Reid Jamison. God, this is ridiculous. I’m so sorry. Doug must’ve—”
“Doug’s doing what he always does. Lying. Don’t worry. We’ll get it sorted out.”
He seemed confident that it’d be resolved easily, but worry rolled around in her gut like a heavy boulder. Nothing was ever simple with Doug. He wouldn’t do this if it was a quick fix. There was more to it. She knew him too well.
Tess watched with dread as they tucked Kade into the back of the squad car. The cops pulled away, and she put in a call to Reid. He asked for details of the night before, and she told him the quick version of what had happened.
“Okay, Tessa,” he said, as calm as a judge. “I’ll head out that way. You should probably go there, too, to give a statement. You’re a witness to what really happened last night.”
“Right. Of course. I’ve got to get dressed then I’ll drive up there.”
She said her good-byes and hit the End button on her phone. She hustled to her room and grabbed jeans and a sweater. She tugged her clothes on and ran a brush through her hair. But when she pulled the door open to go to her car, Doug was standing on the other side. And he looked like absolute shit—eye swollen and bruised, lip split, surgical tape over one of his eyebrows.
She recoiled. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He smirked, which looked macabre with his cut lip, and walked past her into the house without invitation. “We need to talk.”
“You need to get out,” she said, staying by the open door as he took a spot on her sofa. “I don’t know what happened to you or who did it, but you need to go tell the police that it wasn’t Kade.”