Page 31 of Direct Action

“I questioned that too. Poppy explained that she’s close with Cynthia. They talk a lot while they’re working, and more than once Cynthia has bitched about her sister being, and I quote, ‘pushy and annoying.’ Poppy also said that as annoying and pushy as Pamela could be, she loved her big sister. Both parents are dead. Mom died when they were in their teens. Dad when Cynthia was twenty-one, so they’re close because they’re all each other has.”

Normally dead parents would be nothing more than tragic. However, in this case, with an orphan working in a club that was suspect of human trafficking, it was both tragic and a huge target on her back.

I clenched my molars and stated the obvious. “This isn’t good.”

“Gets worse,” Gavin went on. “Poppy said she remembers Cynthia being jazzed about what she called a ‘side hustle.’ Cynthia didn’t give Poppy the specifics, just that she was doing hostessing at private parties. And part of why she was so excited was because she was going to take Pamela out to Catalina and get them an ocean suite at the Bellanca for the weekend. Which made Poppy rethink her sister squabble because the more she thought about it, she hadn’t heard Cynthia bitch about her sister in weeks and no way she’d drop a few grand on an oceanfront suite if her sister was on her case. So she caught Pamela in the parking lot, they talked, and now Poppy is firmly in the Cynthia-is-missing camp.”

Pete’s gaze went over my shoulder right before I heard “Cynthia’s missing? Is Poppy okay?”

I craned my neck, found Chloe standing at the mouth of the hall wide-eyed. She also looked visibly shaken. Part of that could’ve been because she’d been expecting Gavin, not Gavin, Fallon, and Pete. And she might not have intended to show herself at all, but when she heard her friend’s name mentioned, she’d acted on instinct.

The truth was, I didn’t care why she was wide-eyed, and it might’ve made me a dick, but I wasn’t passing up this golden opportunity to stress the danger she faced if she continued working at the Vault.

“Do you know Cynthia?” I asked.

“I’ve never met her, but I know who she is.” Chloe paused, glanced around the room like it was her first time seeing it, jerked herself from her stupor, and looked at Gavin. “Is Poppy okay?”

“Jack and Cat came in for dinner. I asked them to take her home.”

“Why’d you send her home?”

It was Pete who fielded that. “How much of our conversation did you hear?”

Her cheeks tinged pink, and she glanced down at her sneakers.

Yeah, baby, your participation in the conversation means we know you were listening.

When Pete finished with “Why don’t you come sit down,” Chloe’s gaze snapped to Pete—or more to the point, the table. The pink deepened, and her gaze swung to me.

I felt my lips twitch. Chloe saw it, reacted, and narrowed her eyes.

Fuck, she was cute, and now that the seal had been broken, I really wanted to sweep away that dirty look with my tongue. Or better, kick my friends out of my house and go back to what we were doing before they interrupted.

Like always where Chloe was concerned, it took me longer than it should have to wrest the need to get close and drag her someplace private. And now that I knew what she sounded like, knew what she felt like, knew she had a generous mouth and an unbelievably tight pussy, the length of time it normally took to beat back the need lengthened.

I managed this feat, but barely, and only when she nervously answered Pete.

“Not a lot. Just the part about Poppy speaking to some woman in the parking lot and her thinking Cynthia is missing.”

“Right. That woman’s Cynthia’s sister, Pamela. She hasn’t spoken to her sister in six days. Yesterday she filed a missing person report.”

“Did you pull the eighty-five sixty-eight?” I asked.

“I did.” Fallon spoke up. “Corroborated what Poppy told Gavin. The sisters spoke every day. They argued like sisters can, but still they touched base daily and there was a solid bond between the two women. Pamela also references Cynthia coming into extra money, but she called it a bonus from work, not a side hustle. The sisters were meant to go on vacation in two weeks. I confirmed: Cynthia made a reservation. She used her credit card and debit card daily. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing in seven days.”

“What’s an eighty-five sixty-nine?”

All eyes came to me.

Right.

Chloe had no idea.

“Eighty-five sixty-eight,” I corrected. “Gavin, grab Chloe a water.”

I turned my back on the guys to fully face Chloe.

She’d only made it a couple of feet into the living room.