Page 27 of Clay

“Do I scare you, Clay?”

“You fucking petrify me,” he said honestly, and then laughed along with her.

And when he laid down in his very lonely bed on luxurious sheets that felt like silk against his bare skin, he cursed his scruples.

Chapter Seven

They kept defying him, and it was getting fucking old. Flyboy had successfully evaded the smash-and-grab crew, and now they'd disappeared from her house. And for the first time he wondered if she'd hired the Air Force douche. If they weren't a couple so much as a she was a job. If that was the case, he'd just have to up the stakes a bit.

He logged into his department's database, wondering how long he'd still have access. He'd known, when he left South Carolina, that he was leaving it all behind him. His time there was up. The department was becoming too PC and he'd heard rumors that IA was looking at him for some missing evidence and for taking bribes. And if they looked hard enough, they'd find more than enough to hang him. So he was done anyway.

He'd taken precautions, made arrangements, spent the money from his little side hustles well. Once he had Katie, they'd head south, to a little town in Mexico where he already had a villa set up. It was the kind of town where no one asked questions, and where women did as they were told.

But before he could make that a reality, he needed to find Katie.

And as he surfed through what there was of Ivy Foster's life online and in national databases, he found his leverage.

~~~

Just like the day before, Clay rose several hours before Ivy, and when she emerged from her bedroom she was just as bleary-eyed.

He handed her a cup of coffee and settled back to watch her come alive.

It was an apt description, he thought, watching as she poured a second cup and sipped it more slowly.

She looked comfortable here, even though it was the diametric opposite of her home. She wore a strappy tank top with sunflowers on it and a pair of shorts that were almost indecent, even in Vegas.

Because he didn’t want to battle his hormones—again—he very purposefully gave her time to go through her morning ritual, scrolling through the information Dev had sent over just a little while ago while she caffeinated.

She sat down at the little dinette with a happy sigh, her third cup in front of her. “Good morning.”

“Good morning,” he replied. “We’ve got some intel from South Carolina if you’re ready to hear it.”

She took a sip, squared her shoulders. “Give it to me.”

“Greg Hamilton is a deputy with the Dorchester County Sheriff’s Department. From what we can tell he only dated Katie for a few months. But he has a type.”

Ivy stomach churned and she ignored the fact this Greg asshole had almost put her behind bars. “How can you tell what his type is?”

“Dev hacked into his dating apps, in addition to what we all saw on his open Facebook page. A cop should know better.”

“Do you think that Katie was hiding from him, here in Vegas?” Ivy asked, afraid she knew the answer already.

“Yeah, I do. I think she was smart enough to get away from him. I think that’s why the apartment is still in your name, I think that’s why her social media presence is all about the business, a business that she started when she moved to Vegas. Something made him start looking for her again. Warren may have more on that. Regardless, he found her. She figured it out and ran.

As much as it pained her, she had to agree with what he’d said. She just wished Katie had said something. “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me.”

“She was trying to protect you,” Clay said. “I don’t even know her, and I can see that. Guys like this jackass never stop.” He looked at her tight-knit brow. “I’ve known you for all of four days and I can tell that you would have wanted to try to do something about it.”

Ivy opened her mouth to argue, then shut it because he was right. She would have tried to do something to stop Hamilton. She would have tried so he couldn’t prey on another woman.

“Is he still in South Carolina?” Then a bad thought bloomed in her mind. “Wait. She’s not back there with him willingly, is she? I haven’t sent everyone on a wild goose chase, have I?”

He shook his head. “No, she’s not there. But neither is he. He took vacation time three days ago and no one has seen hide nor hair from him since.”

She took a long sip of coffee, studied him over the rim of the cup.

“I had to ask, since I may have been accused of butting into people’s lives and trying to make them better.” She sat back in her chair, her posture defeated for a moment before she sat up straight again. “So what’s next? What’s going on with Dev’s hacker?”

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