Catch me when i fall cat.., p.7
Catch Me When I Fall (Catch Me Duet Book 1), page 7
“Back in the early 2000s, before Mr. Gelling became mayor of St. Louis, he worked in finance,” he said, telling me something I already knew.
“Go on,” I said, getting into the vehicle and taking a sip of the black coffee. Tasted like shit, but I needed it if I was going to get through this day.
“We knew that, but what we didn’t know was the man invested into a lot of stock,” Hayes said. “He made millions, Gray.”
My jaw jumped as I pulled out of the gas station to get back on the road. In the distance, I could see dark, heavy storm clouds. Great. I hated driving in the fucking rain. “If he made millions, then why pursue a career in politics?” I asked.
“We can find out. That is, if you want me to.”
I knew what Hayes was offering. Of all the dark shit that came from Carrie Hale’s situation, this was the mystery on top. However, in a few days, it would no longer be our problem. “No, leave that to the FBI investigation.”
Hayes, being Hayes, thought nothing of it and moved on. “Anyways, he made a shit ton of money, invested it, and put some aside for Carrie. According to this court document, she didn’t have access to it until she was eighteen.”
That was interesting. An eighteen-year-old girl not touching her trust fund.
“What about her husband? Did he have access to this account?” I asked, curious.
“Negative. Once Carrie turned eighteen, she was the only one on the account. I doubt Robert even knew it existed.”
“What do we have on him?”
Hayes was quiet for a moment. “Not much. You want us to keep digging?”
Hale’s dead husband was none of my business. This was an extraction and drop off, nothing more. “No, don’t bother.” I changed the subject. “Jake tell you I’m on the move?” I asked.
“Yeah. You want us to move to Denver?” he asked.
“No, this will be over before you get your bags packed, fairy princess,” I said, reaching for my coffee again.
“Fuck you,” he shot back. Hayes packed the most out of all of us; even when he was in the military, he always carried more than necessary.
I shook my head, my lips twitching once more before I said, “What is everyone working on?”
“Dominic and Ash are heading up the coast to Boston…” Hayes began, telling me about the newest case, who was involved, and how much these people were willing to pay to find the rat in their company. When he was done, I’d hit the rain and got off the phone.
The last hour of the drive was filled with dreary clouds and by the time I got to Astoria, the worst of it had passed, the sun poking through as I pulled up to the police station.
When I got out of the Tahoe, the smell of the ocean hit me as the sound of seagulls hovered over me. The police station was small and outdated, but the town had to work with what they had. I took note of the three cruisers parked on the side of the building before heading inside.
The Astoria police station was something out of a seventies movie, with brown carpet, orange seats, and horrid hospital lighting. The wood polish on the front desk was chipping, and the older woman sitting behind the counter was reading the local newspaper.
I kept my eyes on her as I waited somewhat patiently for her to notice me. Her gray hair was pulled back into an elegant swoop, making her green sweater stand out more. It was nearly eighty degrees outside, and she was wearing something that belonged in a cheesy holiday film.
When she finally noticed me, she jumped in her seat, putting her hand to her chest as the newspaper crumbled down onto the desk. “Oh, goodness,” she breathed.
I didn’t bother giving her a smile. “I’m here to see Sheriff Humbly,” I told her.
She looked me up and down, her eyes wide as they lingered on my scar. “Do you—do you have an appointment, sir?”
“No.”
“Oh.”
I sighed through my nose. “Is that a problem?”
“No, s-sir,” she stammered, leaning forward and picking up the office phone. I watched as her trembling fingers dialed 236 and held her eyes as she said, “There’s a man here to see you, Sheriff Humbly.” A short pause. “No, he doesn’t have an appointment.” Another pause. “Yes, sir.”
She hung up the phone and looked back up at me. “He’ll be right out. You’re more than welcome to take a seat.”
“I’ll stand,” I told her, turning to walk towards the wall, leaning my shoulder against it as I folded my arms over my chest. As I waited, I made sure to look at every single officer on duty, memorizing where their desks were, taking note of how they responded to my presence.
A few minutes later, Sheriff Humbly appeared. He was ten years younger than me and still had life in his brown eyes, so I was impressed when he cut the bullshit and held out his hand. “Sheriff Humbly, sir,” he greeted as I took his hand.
“Joseph Grayson,” I returned, shaking his hand once before he dropped it.
“How can I help you today Mr. Grayson?”
I got right to it. “Carrie Hale.”
Suddenly, his good boy, hometown charm melted, and I got a good look at the cop underneath. His eyes flashed as his jaw tightened. “What about her?”
“We can do this in your lobby, or we can discuss this in your office,” I offered, holding his questioning gaze.
He nodded once. “Follow me.”
I ignored the skeptical looks from his peers as we walked by the bullpen and made a right into his office. Law enforcement didn’t like me or what I did, mainly because I was better at their jobs most of the time.
Humbly walked around to his desk, gesturing to the two seats in front of it before bracing his hands on the wooden surface. I ignored his gesture and leaned back against the door. He didn’t seem to mind. “Now, what do you want with Carrie Hale?” he demanded to know.
“You’re a little young to have an office, aren’t you?”
He tensed. “I don’t see how my career advancement is any of your business, Mr. Grayson.”
I folded my arms back over my chest. “Just an observation.”
Humbly held my eyes for a moment before he shook his head, sighing. “Became an officer right out of high school and worked my way up. Now, I’m second in command.”
“Your wife, Sarah, must be proud.”
That got to him.
He slowly rose back up to his full height. “You have three seconds to tell me what you want with Carrie Hale, and you’re going to keep my wife’s name out of your fucking mouth, that clear?”
Suddenly, the urge to put a bullet in his skull faded.
“Sheriff Humbly, I’m the owner of Red Snake Investigations,” I informed him. “I’ve been hired to find Carrie Hale and escort her back to St. Louis.”
“St. Louis?”
I nodded once. “I understand that you pulled her over outside of town about a week ago. So, what I need from you is anything you have on her, and if you know where she is, to tell me where.”
The young man studied me for a long time. “I’m going to need some identification.”
Without a word, I pulled out my driver’s license, business card, and the contract signed by Jeremy Jones. I made my way to him and dropped them on his desk. I watched as he picked them up, reading over the contract, and I walked over to the bookcase that housed pictures of his children, his wife, and their dog. I also took note of the awards he’d earned from the town.
Michael Humbly was a good man, there was no denying that.
However, if he refused to cooperate, he would find out how easy it was for me to break good men.
When I turned back around to face him, I said, “As you can see, I am not here to cause trouble. I’m here on a job and nothing more.”
He looked up from the contract. “Who is Jeremy Jones?”
“He’s an old friend of Carrie’s. They grew up together.”
“Why does he want her back?” he asked. “Is she in danger?”
“No.”
“Does this have to do with her dead husband?”
So he did know her.
I lifted my chin. “She tell you about that to get out of her ticket?” I guessed.
His jaw hardened. “Carrie’s a good woman.”
“Never said she wasn’t.”
“Is there a bounty on her head?” he pressed.
“She’s a mark, Humbly. Jeremy Jones is paying me to bring her back,” I told him.
He looked away from me for a moment. “And when I tell you where she is, then what?”
“I escort her back home.”
“Just like that?”
I nodded. “Yeah, just like that.”
“And if she refuses?” he pressed.
Now my jaw was getting tight. “She won’t.”
“How do you know that?”
“She’ll want to go back home to her friends,” I assured him.
Was it the truth?
No. I knew in my gut the last place she wanted to be was in St. Louis, but Jeremy was paying me a good deal of money to bring her back.
“This is going to be the last time I ask this, Humbly, so make sure you’re paying attention,” I said, stepping closer to the desk and pulling out my gun. “Where is Carrie Hale?”
Chapter 8
Carrie
I was surrounded by books, hundreds of them, stacked taller than me, and I was in heaven.
It had been almost a week since I’d found that note taped to the front door of my new home. I battled back and forth with myself for hours that night on whether I should tell Michael about it. In the end, I decided against it for many reasons.
One, whoever wrote that letter was just trying to harass me. If they wanted to kill me, they would’ve done so already.
Was I scared?
No, not of death. I was scared of all the life I would miss. Life was scarier than death, in my opinion. I’d seen enough death in my short life, and it made me realize how much I was missing.
Two, if I had brought that letter to Michael’s attention, then all the work I put into starting over would’ve been for nothing. If that letter was my past catching up to me, then I didn’t want my future to collide with the nightmares of my past.
So I would keep them separate, and if my past finally did catch up to me, then so be it.
For right now, I just wanted to focus on me. How was I supposed to live in the moment if I was always looking in the rear-view mirror? What kind of life was that?
“Cardinal?” Margo called from somewhere outside the fort of books I’d managed to create around me. I’d been in the back room all morning, taking inventory for Sarah. I’d organized the books by genre and ended up making a circle around me. By the time I was nearly done, I was surrounded on all sides.
“Yes?” I asked, standing and spinning in a slow circle.
“Are you planning on shacking up in here?” she asked as I met her eyes over the top row.
It wasn’t a bad idea, though I’d grown fond of Margie’s key-lime pie and I doubted Rossy, Margo, or Sarah would be up to the task of bringing me a slice every day.
I looked down to the clipboard in my hands, scribbling down the last of the inventory. “Perhaps.”
I heard my grumpy co-worker mumble something under her breath, and a few seconds later, the book stack in front of me was moving. Once the stack was out of the way, she shook her head. “Has anyone ever told you you’re a nut?”
I nodded. “Yeah, the doctors at the nut house,” I told her with a straight face.
Her eyes widened a fraction before a beautiful, raspy laugh left her as she tossed her head back, giving me a full view of her butterfly tattoo on her neck. I watched in awe. I’d been here for over a week and had yet to make Margo laugh.
As her laughter died and her eyes met mine once more, she gave me a nod of approval. “Glad to see the fairy princess girl likes dark humor. That was a good one.”
I gave her a small smile and didn’t disclose the fact that I wasn’t joking.
“Anyways, Rossy asked if you could come man the checkout counter for a bit. He has to run an errand,” Margo finally said.
Once we were back in the front, the smell of coffee hit me, and I was ready for my third cup. I shot Margo a look. “Since I made you laugh, do you think I could get—”
“—another lavender latte?” she cut me off, smirking.
My mouth watered. “Please?”
“You know there are other things on the menu, right?”
I blinked. “Why would I want to try something else when I’ve already found the perfect drink? What would be the point in that?”
Margo rolled her eyes and waved me off. “Yeah, yeah. Okay.”
We split up, her going toward the coffee counter and me toward the checkout counter. Once I was there, I went directly to the to-do list Sarah had given me last week. She told me I didn’t have to rush through it, but what else was I going to do? Stare at the wall? I didn’t need this job, but it was better than just sitting in Blue Beauty all day. No matter how much I loved that house, the last thing my mental health needed was cabin fever. I’d spent a year in the same fucking room, and I vowed I would never spend more than three days inside.
This, of course, was easier said than done.
Fighting to better my mental health wasn’t just a battle: it was an all-out war. I didn’t have thousands of soldiers behind me ready to face the army of darkness and pain on the other side of the field. It was just me, and that had to be enough.
I was enough.
I was worthy and deserving of a good life, despite all the horror I’d been through.
I was worthy of being happy. To do that, I just had to try a little harder than some people, and that was okay. There was nothing wrong with having scars underneath the surface. Just because no one could see them didn’t mean I wasn’t brave.
The bell above the door jingled, and I blinked, snapping out of it. Without looking up from the list, I greeted the customer. “Welcome to Rossy’s Books!”
The customer said nothing; then again, most of the time they never did. Sarah said I didn’t have to greet the customers as they came in, but Rossy found it endearing. Over the next few minutes, I stayed behind the checkout counter and unloaded the cute bookmarks Sarah ordered on Monday, setting them up in the display case at the end of the counter.
As I pulled out a new stack, taking in the details of the castle printed on it, I felt eyes on me. I looked up, surprised to find no one standing in front of me. I tilted my head back to look upstairs in the children’s section, frowning when I found no one there either. I looked over to the coffee bar, seeing the same two people who had been here since this morning still sipping on their coffee and working. Margo was finishing up my coffee, not paying any attention to me, so I moved my eyes over to the stacks.
My eyes landed on someone standing directly between to the two bookshelves in the middle of the store. They had their back to me now, head bent, reading the back of a novel they’d plucked from the shelf. Shaking it off, I went back to the bookmarks, and when Margo brought me my latte in my favorite mug, she leaned over the counter.
“There’s a woman who’s been staring at you,” she whispered.
Immediately, my eyes snapped up the the center aisle, but no one was there. “Who?” I asked, looking back to Margo.
She dropped her eyes to her finger, pointing towards the window seats on the far side of the store, across from the coffee counter. Slowly, I looked over and stiffened when my eyes collided with another pair. The woman was skinny—almost too skinny—and her brown hair was pin straight, almost lifeless, lacking shine. She was wearing a plain black t-shirt that was way too big on her, black capris, and flip-flops. She didn’t have a cup of coffee or even a book. She was just staring at me.
“I didn’t see her before,” I murmured, not looking away from her. I couldn’t tell if she was lost in a comfortable stare or if she was trying to make my head explode with some sort of freak mind power.
Margo cleared her throat loudly. “Is there something we can help you with, ma’am?” she called out. I looked around the store to see everyone in it looking our way.
“Margo,” I quietly scolded.
She didn’t pay any attention to me, only focusing on the woman. When I looked back over, the woman’s upper lip was curled in a sneer, but she didn’t respond.
“Hey,” Margo clipped, her voice hard. “I’m talking to you. Quit looking at her and look at me.” The woman’s eyes snapped over to Margo, and my co-worker took a step closer, her body tight. “I asked you a fucking question.”
“Margo,” I hissed.
The bell above the door jingled, and I heard a sweet British voice. “What’s going on, Margo?”
We both turned to find Rossy standing there, holding some to-go bags from Margie’s. My heart warmed. That man didn’t have an errand to run; he went to get us lunch.
“This woman keeps staring at Carrie,” Margo explained, looking back to the stranger. “You either buy something or get the hell out.”
Rossy looked to the woman, and I watched in real time as the gentle, kind man I’d been getting to know transformed into something else entirely. He didn’t ask for an explanation or try to belittle Margo. No, he stepped forward, putting a hand on Margo’s shoulder for a moment as he passed her.
“You need to leave,” he said to the woman, his voice stern.
Suddenly, I liked Rossy even more, and I didn’t think that was possible.
I thought she would put up a fight, but when she didn’t, I took a step back, getting closer to the store phone just in case. She took her time standing, keeping her cold gaze on Rossy. He didn’t move until she stood right in front of him, stepping to the side and gesturing to the door. “On your way, miss,” he ordered, his voice sharp.
She didn’t give Margo the time of day, and when she was in front of the door, Rossy right behind her, she cocked her head toward me. “Bitch,” she sneered.
I jerked back slightly, the hate in her voice slamming into me. What the hell?
Then, she was gone, but the uneasy feeling she left hovered around me like smoke. A second later, I felt hands on my shoulders, and I was being turned around to face a very concerned Margo. “You okay?” she asked.
