Page 26 of Catch Me When I Fall

“She was pulled over a week ago. Basic traffic stop,” Jake explained.

“A week ago?” I parroted. A whole fucking week?

He grunted. “Outside of Astoria, Oregon. Guess those boys in blue are a little slow to put things in the system up there. She’s driving a used sedan recently purchased at a used car lot in Portland. From there, she drove up and got pulled over by a sheriff.”

“Name,” I demanded, reaching for my laptop.

“Sheriff Michael Humbly.”

I didn’t respond and put his name into our system, pulling him up so I could see for myself.

Michael Humbly, aged twenty-seven, married with two children, born and raised in Astoria.

“I’ll let you know if I find anything else. There is a pending charge on her account, but I can’t see it yet,” Jake explained. “Whatever it is, it was a large amount of money.”

“She’s settling down,” I murmured as I pulled up the town of Astoria.

It was a coastal town just a short drive from my location. Small, but a good place to hide from your past.

“Inform the guys. I’m heading out,” I told him before hanging up the phone.

I stood, the laptop balancing on my forearm as I walked over to the small desk to set it down. I pulled on a pair of cargo’s and a black thermal before dialing my next call. Putting the phone on speaker, I checked my gun and loaded a bullet into the chamber as the phone rang.

“Jones,” Jeremy greeted, not sounding the slightest bit cheerful.

“Got a hit on Hale,” I informed him, strapping the gun to my hip before pulling out my set of blades.

“Where?”

“A little town up north. She hasn’t left Oregon.”

He was quiet for a moment and I heard a door softly close. “How can you be sure?”

I inspected my blades, something I always did before moving locations. “She’s smart. She has mainly been sticking with cash. She pulled a large sum out here in Portland to purchase a car and was pulled over outside Astoria.”

“She bought a car?” Jeremy asked, a hint of surprise in his tone.

“Looks like it. A used sedan from a local car lot. My boy pulled the report, and she wasn’t given a ticket,” I assured him. “You said Chief Harrison gave Hale her wallet and laptop, yes?”

“Yes, because we were trying to do everything to get her to talk. Before she left, she hadn’t spoken a word since the day they arrested her father,” he explained.

I knew all of this. I’d read it in her file. On that note, I twisted my torso to double check the thick file was where I left it two hours ago: on the right side of the bed, her picture laying on top. The moonlight seeped in through the cheap motel blinds, drifting over her soft smile and bright curls.

My jaw tightened.

The woman in that photo and the one from the security video were two different people. That soft smile she wore was fake, the sharpness in her cheekbones from a lack of food, the bags under eyes, poorly hidden by makeup, from a lack of sleep. To everyone else, that was good photo of the woman, but to a man like me, it was just proof of life.

Carrie Hale didn’t know what true happiness was. Her friends couldn’t see that, but I hoped when I had her back in St. Louis, she would be able to find it.

“I’ll have her back to you by the end of the week,” I said, turning back to face the desk, my eyes dropping to the phone.

“Don’t hurt her,” Jeremy warned, his voice hard.

“Hurting women isn’t in my job description,” I assured him, my voice cold. “I’m clean and swift. Nothing more, nothing less.”

He was silent for another moment, and then I heard him sigh. “Don’t scare her either, okay? She has been through enough.”

“So I’ve gathered,” I deadpanned, putting the blades into my bag.

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