Page 118 of Himbo Hitman
“Okay …”
“Reilly, I know this is none of my business, but I’m going to behonest with you. This looks shady as fuck, and I need you to be honest with me about whether I should keep working on this? If I dig deeper and find anything illegal, I have to report it.”
Illegal. Colin? The guy who plays by every rulebook? “To be honest right back,” I say, “I have no idea what you could find.”
I rack my memory, trying to figure out if I actually do know about them and forgot.
But … this has to mean Colin’s alive. Doesn’t it?
Unless someone has his card and PIN for that account. But to have his PIN, they’d have to have had him. The amounts matching up means this wasn’t a random person stealing from us.
Shit.
“This is going to sound strange,” I say, “but can you keep working on it? Send me the ATM details. I’ll, umm, deal with it.”
“I’m not in the business of getting myself into trouble,” she says.
Neither am I, but here I am anyway. “Noted. Thank you.”
Livy hangs up, and I’m left staring at my phone, not sure whether she’s planning to look into things more or not.
“Are you okay?” Lars asks, following Perry out of the cabin.
I’m not fucking sure. “I think … I think I might have a lead on Colin.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
PERRY
“So your brotheris apparently missing but just dropped by a whole load of ATMs for a little cash hit?” I ask, trying to wrap my head around things. I’m channeling my horoscope and trying to beconfident, but I’m clueless what I’m supposed to be confident about.
Fake it until I make it and whatever.
“Guess so,” St. Clare mutters.
I want to reach over and pull his hand into mine, play with his fingers, and draw some of his stress my way. I’m not sure where the line between us is, though, because sex is one thing, and giving each other comfort is something totally different. Am I allowed to do that? Would Lars find it weird? Yeah, he knows we had sex last night, but plenty of people have sex for plenty of reasons, and when it comes to me, it’s never because they want anything more than an orgasm.
It’s sort of offensive the number of times I’ve been told I’m not the kind of guy someone wants to see again.
So I keep my hands in my hands and watch the way St. Clare’s doesn’t stop moving with the anxiety running through him.
“No offense, but if your brother is okay enough to take out money, he should be okay enough to message you not to worry about him.”
“Unless someone else is behind this.”
I drum my fingers on my knees to give them something to do. I dunno. This whole thing isn’t sitting right with me. “Couldn’t Colin have transferred the money?”
“What?”
“Well, I assume he can still log in. Why wouldn’t he do that instead of getting out cash? Cash is a lot more effort, especially going to multiple places where he could easily be seen. He’s a missing person. You can’t really wander around the streets as a missing person. I assume. Cash screams shady.”
St. Clare groans, scrubbing at his hair. “All I know is that there’s a good chance he’s alive, and there’s a good chance he’s done this because someone else is making him.”
“Or …” I don’t want to throw out this option, but we sort of need to. “What if there’s no one behind this, and he’s grabbing the money to keep paying his debts while he’s in hiding but doesn’t want anyone to know he’s still alive, which is why he went with the cash option? I mean, shit, it probably wasn’t even him taking the money out in case he was caught on a camera.”
“Why would he do that?”
I shrug, not sure I want to say the next part, but hey. Confidence. Gotta do it. “You said the other nightclub isn’t happy with you. But not just you.Bothof you. I think he’s probably in hiding to save his ass.”
