Just enough.
“But Tennessee stuck with you.”
He swallowed.“Well, yeah.I guess.”
“Why?”Anchor asked.
Ron frowned.“Why what?”
“Why did it stick with you?”
He looked between me and Anchor.“I don’t know.She said it.I remembered it.”
“Did she say she was going there?”I asked.
His tongue darted over his bottom lip.“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
He shifted his weight.“She might’ve said Iowa.”
I laughed.I couldn’t help it.It burst out of me sharp and humorless, cutting through the office like a slap.
Ron looked at me.
Cross pushed away from the file cabinet.“You got forty-eight other states you could try, Ron.Maybe one of them will sit right with McKayla.”
Ron’s face paled.
Anchor’s expression changed just slightly.
That was when the room shifted.Ron looked toward the door.Then the window.Then back at Anchor.“I don’t really know why you’re so worried about where this woman is,” Ron said quickly.“She quit.People quit all the time.Seasonal workers come and go.”
Push’s voice dropped.“That woman is McKayla’s sister.”
Something cracked in Ron’s face.
It was small, but it was there.For one second, all the nervous fake confusion fell away and something ugly slipped through.
Anchor saw it too.“Where is Erin?”Anchor asked.
Ron shook his head immediately.“I don’t know.”
Lie.
It was written all over him now.
His breathing had gone too fast.His eyes moved too much.His hands flexed at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with them.“I don’t know,” he repeated louder.
I stepped closer before Push’s hand caught my wrist gently.
Not stopping me, just warning me.I stayed where I was.
“Ron,” Anchor said calmly.“You helped her get hired.You were the one who handled her schedule.You told us she quit, but nobody else knew she even worked here.”
Ron laughed once, high and wrong.“That’s not my fault.You guys never know half the people working here.”
Prime’s jaw tightened.
