He glanced down, and every hair on his arms stood up.
Violation alert: Talbot, Frasier; GPS ankle monitor tampered — signal lost; Time: 6:17 a.m.yesterday.No hits on his credit card, and no listing on plane, bus, or train manifests.
Kayne’s stomach dropped.He excused himself to make a few calls.When he disconnected, he turned to Chloe.She was watching him now, reading his face the way she’d already learned to do when something mattered.Her own expression tensed cautiously.
“What is it?What’s wrong?”
He didn’t sugarcoat it.“Frasier Talbot took off his GPS yesterday morning.The parole office confirmed he’s missing.”
She blinked once.Twice.“Oh.”
That was it.Oh.
His blood pressure spiked.“Chloe, that man threatened you.He stalked you.Tried to grab you.”
“Correlation isn’t causation,” she said softly.
He pinched the bridge of his nose.“Correlation is absolutely causation in this case.”
“That’s not how data works.”
“Cher,” he said, exasperation bleeding through, “I am begging you not to bring data into this.”
She folded her arms, adopting a quiet, defiant posture.The one that made something in his chest ache.“It’s probably nothing.Maybe it malfunctioned.Or fell off.”
“Devices don’t just fall off,” he snapped.
The second the words left his mouth, he regretted the callousness.Chloe flinched slightly, but visibly.Then she straightened again, jaw firm.There it was.The courage he kept seeing in her.It wasn’t the loud kind.It grew out of a hundred tiny heartbreaks and still refused to quit.She was braver than she should ever have had to be.
“I can’t panic every time something happens,” she said.“If I do, then he already wins.”
Kayne stared at her, throat tight around a dozen things he wanted to say, all of them dangerous in their own way.“You’re allowed to be scared,” he murmured.
She shook her head.“If I let myself be scared every time a pin drops, I’ll stop functioning.”
He set his water bottle aside and stepped closer, his voice dropping low.“Chloe, somebody tried to hit you with a damn car twice yesterday.Now Talbot’s out pretending he’s Houdini.That’s not coincidence.”
Her eyes softened with understanding.Somehow, that was worse.
“So,” she said with a brittle smile, “what do we do?”
Kayne exhaled slowly.“We tighten security.We don’t take risks.And you don’t go anywhere alone.Not negotiable.”
Her lips twitched as if she wanted to fight him but was too tired to win.“Okay.”
He should’ve been relieved she agreed, but he wasn’t.Because she didn’t look scared.She looked resigned.Something dark and ugly burned through him at the sight.
Kayne wanted to put his fist through a wall.Or find Talbot and introduce his face to one.
Instead, he reached out and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
“You’re safe,” he told her.“Whether you believe it yet or not.”
She swallowed, breath shaking just a little.“Kayne ...”
He stepped back before he did something monumentally stupid, like pull her in and promise things he had no business promising.
“Let’s go,” he said roughly.“We’ve got work to do.”
