Page 113 of Catch Me When I Fall

Chapter 30

Grayson

I watched Carrie’s dot on my phone for a few more moments as she made her way to the store before I looked back at my computer screen. Last week, I had Jake ship me a desktop and bought a simple desk to set up in the spare bedroom. If I was going to stay with Carrie long-term, I needed a place to work. The laptop wasn’t enough, not now.

So, I’d set up shop in the pink room, and over the last week, the color was starting to grow on me.

My eyes scanned the image of the mystery woman on the traffic camera filling the screen in front of me. Her facial features were sharp, but the overall image was grainy. No matter what trick Jake tried to do, nothing could help sharpen the picture. Then again, this town was over a decade behind in terms of technology. I looked down at my notes, reading over what we were able to pull on Robert Hale—which wasn’t much. We’d been at this for over two weeks, and never, in the history of Red Snake, had it been this hard to find information. There was one man who would be able to give us the answers we needed and Hayes was in-route to visit him right now.

Carrie’s father: ex-mayor Bradley Gelling.

Robert Hale, the good boy on paper. The more time went on, the more worried my men and I became. Jake had scanned his medical records; Robert’s parents moved from Philly to St. Louis after Robert graduated high school, taking his other siblings with him. None of them were alive today. According to what Jake found, Robert’s brother, Brandon, died in a car crash three years ago. The toxicology report noted heavy amounts of drugs in his system. Their little sister, Amy, died shortly after the Hales uprooted their life from a complicated case of the flu. She was only ten years old.

Jake and Hayes had been looking into Robert’s education, discovering that the high school he graduated from wasn’t, in fact, a public high school at all. It was a small private school, only accepting fifty new students every year, so his brother, who was only a year younger than Robert, went to a public school. He was just set to start his senior year when their parents decided to follow Robert to college—in St. Louis.

Dominic was on his way to St. Louis right now to get some more information out of the Hales. All three of their children were dead, and according to social media, they didn’t care; they were only focused on the country club they joined. Amara Harrison had her suspicions about the Hale family, but she never pursued the lead due to office politics. So I trusted Dominic to get us some answers.

However, Carrie’s evil, twisted fuck of a father might not be as forthcoming as I expected the Hales to be.

As I glanced at Carrie’s location on my phone again, it started ringing.

Jake Murphy Calling.

“Grayson,” I answered, rubbing the back of my neck as I leaned back. I was on edge, had been for the last week. Things had been quiet on our end—too fucking quiet.

“We have a problem.”

No fucking shit.

“What’s going on?” I demanded.

“You were right about Robert Hale,” Jake declared, his voice dark.

“What did you find?” I asked, leaning forward again as Jake took over my screen, pulling up the information he found.

“Robert Hale was having an affair,” he said as my eyes landed on a cell phone call log. Thousands of them, all from Robert’s old phone to one single number. My eyes snapped to the time the calls were made, and I bit off a curse, nearly all the calls were made during Carrie’s morning workouts and after she went to sleep.

My eyes sliced to Carrie’s file, landing on her wedding photo. “Christ,” I hissed as rage stirred inside me, my mind trying to connect the dots.

Jake pulled up a picture of a brunette next, her face awfully similar to the woman who had—

“The woman stalking Carrie is Robert’s fucking lover,” Jake cut through my thoughts. “They went to that private high school together, and when he moved to St. Louis, not only did his family follow, but she did as well. They’ve been in a relationship since they were teenagers, Gray.”

“Fuck,” I bit off, pushing back from the desk. I pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a breath. “I need her fucking name, Murphy.”

“Monica Larks, thirty-one years old,” Jake said, his voice filled with something I couldn’t figure out.

Larks.

I knew that fucking name. I’d seen it over a hundred times—in Carrie’s file.

My head snapped up, and I snatched Carrie’s file off the desk, flipping to page twenty-five. My eyes dropped to the halfway point, my gut twisting painfully. “She’s on the rehab roster.”

Monica was one of Carrie’s damn nurses.

She had been biding her time, waiting for the right moment to strike. A jealous lover. “She’s been watching Carrie since Robert’s death,” I concluded, slapping the file on the desk with a growl before turning to grab my gun from the safe.

I need to get to Carrie.

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