Page 10 of Catch Me When I Fall

I stayed on the line with him as I opened the file, scanning over the first report. Three sentences in, and my blood was already boiling. Two pages in, and I was ready to burn this goddamn city to the ground. “Fuck,” I bit out, my eyes scanning over the crime scene photos. “Jesus.”

“Bad?” Hayes guessed.

“Worse.”

He muttered something under his breath as I heard typing in the background. “Send it over,” he ordered.

“I will when I’m done. Then I want you find out everything there is to know about Robert Hale.”

“Who is he?” Hayes questioned.

My eyes stared at the photo of the mutilated body in the bathtub. “Carrie’s dead husband.”

I hung up the phone and inhaled the rest of the information. Once I was done sending it over to the team, I tossed the heavy file into the passenger seat and stared out the window, my eyes on the Arch just a few blocked away.

For two minutes, I connected the dots in my mind.

For three minutes, I managed to shove the unexpected fury down.

Once five minutes had passed, I pulled out my phone and made a call.

“St. Louis Police Department. This is Angie,” a woman answered.

“Get me Chief Amara Harrison,” I said, my voice firm.

“Who’s calling?”

“This is Joseph Grayson. Red Snake Investigations,” I told her.

The woman gasped. “You’re the bounty hunter.”

I let my head fall back against the headrest.

This fucking city.

Chapter 3

Grayson

“Thank you for meeting me, Chief Harrison,” I said as we stood in front of a picture-perfect, two-story home in the suburbs of St. Louis.

“Please, call me Amara, Mr. Grayson,” the woman standing beside me said, her voice sincere. “Thank you for doing this. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be at Oasis this morning,” she continued, turning to face me. She looked up at me through her sunglasses.

I didn’t bother looking at her as I responded. “How long has the home been up for sale?”

The police chief read my mood almost instantly and, thank fuck, she decided to cut the shit and get right down to it.

“Over a year now. Carrie’s father started getting rid of everything and put the home on the market without her consent,” she explained.

“I assume this was before her father was taken into custody?” I asked, moving up the driveway, tilting my head back, my eyes on the upstairs windows.

“Yes,” Amara answered, keeping up with me, her hands in her pockets.

After I took another few seconds to take in the condition of the house, I twisted my neck to look at her. “You got the keys?” I asked.

Releasing a deep breath, she nodded, pulling off her sunglasses. “Yes, but I don’t think she stopped by after she left rehab. I had a team do a sweep of the residence last night when Jeremy called.”

I looked back to the front door and then back to her. “No offense, Chief Harrison, but your team isn’t me. I’d like to do a solo sweep.” I wasn’t going to call her by her first name. We weren’t friends. We were nothing more than strangers caught up in this tangled web of shit.

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