Page 30 of Catch Me When I Fall

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.”

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