bigger than she is.
I smirk, thinking of some of the underground fights I’ve been to. “Of course.”
Before we know it, thirty minutes have passed and the sound of hushed voices on the stairs quiets us immediately. I push away from the wall I’ve been leaning on and adopt a semi-defensive stance, putting Carly behind me.
A woman and a man come up the stairs into view. Definitely not a couple, but they’re together.
She looks like a Fed, all business pants and blouse, low bun, and no-nonsense boots that she can probably run in for miles if needed.
He looks bland in low-slung khakis, an untucked polo, and Adidas, and I wonder if she brought her Tinder date to this little meet and greet. The only memorable thing about the guy is his red hair. And his dark eyes. I’ve seen eyes like that . . . in the mirror.
Carly rushes forward, neatly sidestepping me before I can react. “Claire! Took your damn time, didn’t you?”
For her part, Claire hasn’t taken her eyes off me. Not because she’s checking me out but because she’s doing a threat assessment. Smart woman. “Carly, who’s your friend?”
Carly stops, then glances back at me, sheepish. “Oh, sorry. Claire, this is Kyle. Kyle, this is Emma’s sister, Claire, and . . .”
She lets it trail off and Claire jumps in. “This is my partner, Matt. Why don’t we go inside to talk?”
It’s not a question.
Claire uses a key to let us into Emma’s apartment, which seems intrusive, but I don’t have a sister, so what do I know? Maybe they’re like that and swap dresses or something.
Claire and Carly start chattering about Nathan, talking over each other and making noises of shock here and there. I hang back, getting a glass of water from the kitchen and listening, absorbing it all while keeping myself as unobtrusive as possible.
Claire is interesting. She’s talking to Carly like old girlfriends catching up with all the giddiness, but her questions are direct and pointed. It’s like I can see the two sides of her converging before my very eyes, her personal and professional lives tangled in her words and in her very real fear as she talks about Emma.
“So I fucked up majorly, went off the tracks, and got Em tied up in this whole mess,” she says finally as she goes on to tell us that Emma went undercover into Nathan’s life but has fallen hook, line, and sinker for him. Everything she’s telling me coincides with the research, rumors, and intel I’ve found, confirming my thinking about Nathan.
You can feel the guilt weighing Claire down but also her desire to right what she sees as a wrong she’s done.
“What a mindjob,” Carly says. “So what’s going on now with her?”
“Well, let’s see,” Claire says, a little bitterly. “After the premiere of her show, I brought her back here to cry it out because he left without her. I thought it was for the best, but you’ll never guess what she did. She’s gone running off to Brazil after him. I couldn’t stop her even though I tried. I thought she needed a minute to calm down, and I knew Caleb—that’s Nathan’s brother—doesn’t like her. I figured he’d send her home crying, so I let her go. And by the time I realized something was wrong and followed her to the Stone house, Caleb and Emma were both gone, and all I got was the butler, who I swear to God is as unshakeable as granite.”
“So what happened?” Carly asks, and Claire shakes her head.
“What do you think? Poof, she’s in the breeze! She sent me a text message from the plane, telling me she’ll contact me when she’s back. I’m gonna kill her for that. Like literally dead.”
Claire rolls her eyes at the dark humor, but I get that it’s coming from a place of fear. She knows exactly what Emma’s gotten herself into.
Matt and I watch the conversation silently, not wanting to interrupt. For my part, I’m getting the information I need. Nathan is out of the country in Brazil. That rings all kinds of alarms in my head because I know the last assignment Anna worked on for Michael was about some caves in Brazil.
But I’m not sharing that with Claire.
Thankfully, Carly seems to sense that I don’t want to share Anna at all. And she doesn’t so much as mention my connection to the Stone family by way of their killing my fiancé and baby.
But as the