Page 11 of Falcon's Prey

“What happened that made you take this seriously?”

“Ember had long hair. Beautiful, shiny hair. A couple of weeks ago, she cut it.”

“Okay,” I replied slowly.

Sam opened the cabinet behind him and pulled out a clear bag full of hair.

Shit.

“We tested it. One hundred percent match.”

“I won’t let you down, sir.”

He didn’t reply right away, so I took that as my cue to leave. Just as I was walking out the door, he called after me.

“We’ll see about that.”

I had the car door open when I got a call on my phone. “Yeah?”

“Ember took off,” Marcus replied.

“What!” I yelled. “How could you let that happen?”

I got in the car, putting the phone on speaker and opening the app I had installed on Ember’s phone. Every iPhone came with a Maps app, but Ember did not need to use hers. Last night when she passed out, I went to the living room and swiped her finger on it. Seriously that was the stupidest shit ever invented. I deleted that app and downloaded a maskable tracker app so she wouldn’t notice what I’d done.

“You’re new, so you don’t know how Ember gets,” Marcus replied.

I didn’t bother with an answer and instead hung up on him.

Following the tracker, I saw her on the move a couple of blocks from where I was. As I drove to catch up to her, I cursed her name. This was my fucking job, and she had no regard for anyone but herself.

* * *

Thirty minutes.

That was how long it took me to catch up to her location. I parked on the side of the street. I figured that if the car got towed, the Remingtons wouldn’t bat an eyelash at paying the fee.

I was new to the city, so I didn’t fucking know where I was going. The alley seemed seedy as fuck, and a part of me was praying to God that I didn’t find Ember Remington dead. I came to a stop when I saw I was by the lake. On the horizon, there was a boat.

“Fuck. Me.” I gripped my hair.

How did you save someone who didn’t want to be saved?

I went back to the car and asked the first person I saw directions to the harbor.

I swore this was the last time this spoiled bitch made a fool out of me.

“Doyou want to tell me why you’re so quiet?” Lilah, who lived in the same building as me, asked me as I looked across the water.

I got lucky that Lilah had an Uber already waiting downstairs, and with the extra cash we gave the driver, he took off like the hounds of hell were after him.

“Ho, I’m talking to you.” Lilah snapped her fingers in my face. “Is it the Marcus thing? ’Cause you got to let go. You fucked him once, and it’s not your fault he went and caught feelings.”

“It’s not that,” I told her.

Lilah was the closest thing I had to a friend. We’d grown up in the same circles and did drugs together, but whenever she wanted to go out of state, I had to decline. My father was paranoid and barely let me out of my protective bubble. She knew everything about me, knew all my truths except those I didn’t want to admit to myself.

“Your mom’s birthday is coming up,” she said in a softer tone.

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