Page 2 of Reclaiming Chaos
“Boss.” Melony appeared in the doorframe.
“Yeah?” I raised my brow and turned the empty hair dye box for her to see.
Her lips twitched. “Carlee sure is resourceful, and she left you another surprise.”
My target was playing games with me. We’d missed her by mere minutes the first time we’d found her. The team had teased me relentlessly that Carlee was the only woman to get away and I was losing my touch. She’d succeeded where most fugitives failed.
I followed Melony into the kitchen. Her smile grew as she gestured to a cake sitting out on the table.
Not just any cake but a birthday cake for me.
“You didn’t tell us it’s your birthday.”
“It’s not relevant,” I answered, swiping my finger through the frosting. I sniffed it. The scent of lemons made my mouth water. I licked the icing off. Few people knew I preferred the taste of lemon to chocolate and vanilla. “She’s good. We’re going to need to up our game when I get back from my brother’s wedding.”
Melony pushed a wrapped present closer. She moved the bow to reveal my name. “Looks like she left you something special. You going to open it?”
Special. I frowned. What did Carlee have to gain from flirting with me and trying to be nice? Did she think I’d go easy on her? No, she was smart. She had to know better than that.
At the last place we’d tracked her, she’d told the bouncers we were drug dealers with fake badges there to kill her before she slipped out the back and into the alley.
“That’s a store-bought cake. She probably got it from the grocery store we passed on the way in.”
“How could you possibly know that?” Melony asked.
“I’d know that icing anywhere. It’s my favorite, and that store is the closest one that uses it,” I said, picking up the present. “Start with that store, but check the surrounding grocery stores and get me some footage of her buying it. Maybe she picked up something else that might leave a clue to what the hell she’s been up to.”
“I’m on it,” Melony said, barking out orders as she left the kitchen.
The ribbon around the box was cut at even symmetrical angles. The OCD diagnosis in Carlee’s file was showing in the way she lived. There were little signs of it everywhere. I slid the ribbon off the box and held it to my ear, listening for any sound coming from inside.
The psychic wasn’t dangerous in ways other criminals might be, but I wasn’t going to take anything for granted when dealing with her.
I gently lifted the lid off to find a cell phone sitting inside on a bed of satin.
It rang.
