CHAPTER TWO
When Kale got back from work, I was sitting on his couch, watching TV. I quickly snapped the TV off and sat up straight.
He was wearing a casual suit without a tie. He stripped off his jacket and headed back to his bedroom, not even acknowledging my existence.
I waited for him to come back, but he didn’t.
So, I got up and went to his bedroom.
The door was open. He was sitting on the bed, his shirt unbuttoned. I could see his smooth chest beneath. He had his phone in one hand, and he was busily typing on it.
I waited for him to finish and look up.
But he didn’t. Instead, he finished typing and started scrolling.
I cleared my throat.
He looked up, eyebrows raised.
“Um,” I said. “It looks like it might take a little longer to get the car fixed than I thought.”
“I see.” He was expressionless.
“Well, I still don’t have any more money, so I can’t get a hotel room. I don’t want to impose on you, but I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”
He gave me a bland look. “I don’t care if you stay here.”
“Well, that’s very kind of you.”
He shrugged. “Is there anything else?”
“Um…” There wasn’t. I shook my head.
He got up off the bed, stalked over the doorway, and gave me a nudge.
I stepped backwards.
He shut the door in my face.
I glared at the dark wood. Yeah, there is something else, asshole. Can you tell me where you keep your dead girlfriend’s priceless necklace, please?
Goddamn it, this job was going nowhere fast.
I needed to find out more information. There was nothing in the house. I’d searched it top to bottom, and there was no necklace here. There was nothing here. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that Kale Morgan was a robot, not a man.
Since Kale was holing up in his room by himself, I decided that I’d snoop on his computer. He hadn’t said I couldn’t use it, after all. I got into everything I could. I looked at his bank account, thinking that maybe he’d sold the necklace for cash, and that was why it wasn’t around.
But there wasn’t anything there. Kale did well enough for himself, I supposed, but he wasn’t exactly rich. There definitely weren’t any big deposits within the last six months. I dug even further into the past, and there weren’t any in the last year either.
I looked to see if he had a storage facility somewhere in the nearby area. Not that he needed one. He had an empty house that he could fill with junk if he wanted to.
I combed that computer for signs and clues, and I came up with nothing.
Hours after I’d given up on it, Kale came out of his room. Now, he was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, but he didn’t really look more comfortable. He was still as standoffish as he’d been since the moment I met him.
He held up his phone. “I was going to order pizza. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure,” I said.
But if I thought we’d get to know each other while sharing a meal, I was sadly mistaken. Though we ate together at the table in the kitchen, he was scrolling on the screen of his phone the entire time. If I tried to start a conversation, he shut me down with monosyllables.
Later that night, I lay in bed, glaring at the ceiling, wondering how I was going to explain to my clients that I couldn’t find their fucking necklace. That wasn’t the worst of it, of course. I’d already spent some of the retainer that they’d given me. If I couldn’t complete this job, I was going to have to pay the retainer back. And I didn’t know how I would manage that.
Under a Raging Moon: Part One Page 5
