Page 38 of Direct Action

Meaning he’d done a background check and pulled her credit. He wouldn’t have had time to do a deep dive.

I jerked my chin. He caught my request to hurry and didn’t delay.

“Ten months ago, Chloe stopped depositing money into her savings account. Eight months ago she started taking monthly withdraws, and in the last nine months she’s worked five different part-time jobs, three of them lasted only a month, another had lasted two months. The longest, lasting four months, was cleaning office buildings after hours.

“She has seventeen dollars left in her savings account. But in the last week her checking account balance had gone from under nine hundred to over three grand. All cash deposits.”

Over two thousand in deposits in the last week. I now understood her reluctance quitting a job where she made that kind of cake. Too bad for her, she was still quitting. Kidnapping her and taking her to Alaska wasn’t only still on the table, with three missing women and her stubbornness, it was a strong possibility.

If Fallon had more to report, he didn’t get a chance to before Chloe blew back into the living room, wide-eyed and frantic.

“I have to go,” she announced. “I ordered an Uber. It’ll be here—”

“Cancel the Uber. I’ll take you,” I told her and looked back at Fallon. “Keys.”

“Table.”

I moved that way.

Chloe shook her head. “It’s fine. I have—”

“Cancel the Uber, Chloe,” I mostly repeated.

As seemed to be a theme in the last twenty-four hours, those pretty hazel eyes of hers turned into slits. What she didn’t do was pull out her phone and cancel the rideshare.

“I’m not—”

“Fuck it.” I stalked to her, dipped down, gently planted my shoulder into her belly, and stood. “Pay the Uber driver when he gets here,” I called out as I walked out the front door with her over my shoulder.

“That’s not how it works, you big dummy,” Chloe said and smacked my ass.

“Baby, if you wanna grab my ass, that can be arranged, but I get the sense you got someplace important you gotta be. And next time—”

“Grr,” she growled, and instead of smacking me again, she curled her fingers around the waistband of my cargoes.

I didn’t bother wasting time shutting the front door.

When I got to my truck, I planted her ass into the seat, caged her in, and told her, “You get out of this truck and make me chase you, it’ll piss me off.”

Chloe let out an adorable harrumphing noise, and just in case I missed her irritation, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.

Chapter Thirteen

Six missed calls from my mother.

Six.

Six calls when she knew I’d be at work, therefore she wouldn’t call to shoot the shit and ask about my day, but she would call if there was an emergency.

And six calls screamed Emergency!

I’ll never forget the way my mom breathed my name when she picked up my call. The pain that drenched every word when she told me I needed to get to the nursing home and she’d explain when I got there but she couldn’t talk because she was waiting for my dad’s doctor. I hadn’t pressed her more. This wasn’t all about me and my worry about how quickly my father’s health was deteriorating. It had more to do with my mom and the state she was in—not only how she sounded on the phone but overall. For months she’d been putting on a brave face. She wore it like a coat of armor, thinking I wouldn’t notice the depth of her pain. And that pain was so deep, so devastating, there was no missing it. There was no armor strong enough to guard against the piercing blows as the days wore on.

I desperately wanted this to end for her.

On that disgusting, heart-wrenching, horrible thought that infiltrated my brain like a punch to the head, I swallowed down my self-hatred for even thinking something so hideous. The end of my mother watching my father waste away would mean the end of his life.

Who thought like that?