Page 53 of Catch Me When I Fall

Pulling out the key card, I swiped it over my office door, letting myself in. The glass door shut slowly behind me as I took in the space: colorless. Utterly colorless. The desk matched the one back in Charlotte, black with a glass top, a black leather chair behind it. The walls were white and bare. I hadn’t had the desire to hang anything, but now…

Shaking the thought away, I rounded the desk and turned on the computer, pulling my laptop out of my bag, leaving Carrie’s file tucked away for now.

I pulled up our clients on this side of the country, cleaned up the contact list, and answered emails. About an hour later, Ash came in after swiping his card.

“Got a hit on the Miller case,” he announced.

The Miller case was new, a simple hunt. I needed something simple.

“Wife is certain the husband is cheating with a woman in Nevada. She wants Red Snake to get evidence.”

I nodded. Simple. These cases were so common that I’d become bored with them, but now, I’d give anything to keep my mind off her.

“I’ll take it,” I declared.

Ash nodded, stepping forward and handing over the file. “Didn’t want Hayes to take it. He might kill the fucker,” he said.

We both knew it wasn’t a joke. Hayes wouldn’t even blink when he pulled the fucking trigger.

“I don’t want to hide another body,” I muttered, opening the file and scanning the information.

Normal.

Normal.

Normal.

Just what I fucking needed.

“I’ll head out now.”

Ash lifted his chin. “Dominic is ready in the safe whenever you are.”

Raising a brow, I asked, “You think I need more than my usual?”

Ash’s eyes dropped to the file. “The husband is on the FBI’s watch list.”

Oh, for fuck’s sake…

I lifted the top page, reading the details about the husband. “As long as he isn’t on The Red list, I don’t give a fuck,” I said, dropping the page. The Red List was created by the talented FBI hacker I’d met in St. Louis, filled with names of high-ranking individuals within the American Government who were suspected of human trafficking. I rose from my seat, rounding the desk to head to the safe.

The safe was the weapons room, identical to the one in Charlotte. It was a walk-in safe, commissioned by one of Ash’s old Navy contacts, with a twelve-inch-thick steel walls and door. It housed Red Snake’s weapons—including the ones we weren’t supposed to have. I punched in my code on the keypad and scanned my eye, and the door clicked open.

Dominic was organizing the ammo on the far wall. “Already heading out?” he guessed.

“Need to,” I told him, going to the wall of semi-automatics to the right. They were in cage-like lockers, a white backlight behind them.

“Ash tell you about the Miller husband?”

“Yup.”

Dominic came to stand beside me then. “Good. What do you want?”

I wanted to get the blonde woman out of my head.

I wanted to feel normal again.

But most of all, I really wanted to shoot something.

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