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for the honesty.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against her hand. “Yesterday scared the shit out of me. I was racing over to your place, and all I could think of was . . .” He shook his head.
“What?”
He shook his head again.
“I hear what you’re saying, but you aren’t obligated to offer me a place to stay.”
“I want you to stay with me.” He looked at her. The tenderness in those deep brown eyes made her heart squeeze. “I want to be near you. You’re going to need some help for a while. I know your sister could do it, and she’s probably better equipped. But I want to do it.”
She watched him, at a loss for words. Emotions swirled inside her, and she felt dizzy. She wanted to stay with him, but the implications felt daunting. More damn tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them back. She hated crying. It had to be the drugs.
“The logical thing is probably for me to go to Hannah’s,” she said.
He sighed deeply and kissed her knuckles. “It’s your decision. I won’t pressure you.”
She laughed through her tears. “You already did.”
“Just think about it.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Three weeks later
JACOB WATCHED THE narrow storefront through the dusty windshield. People streamed back and forth on the sun-baked sidewalk in front of the building, but no one stopped to go in.
His cell buzzed. Jacob lowered the binoculars and grabbed the phone from the cup holder.
“Merritt.”
“Hey, where are you?” Kendra asked. “I came back from my court appearance and you were gone.”
“I’m following up on something.”
“Well, did you hear about McKinney?”
“No.” Jacob put the call on speaker and lifted the binoculars again. “Which one?”
“Senior. The dad. I just got off the phone with my FBI friend in New Orleans. He told me there’s been a breakthrough. McKinney senior now admits to hiring Langham—as a PI, he’s claiming. His story is that he only intended for him to locate Robin and Tabitha and write up a report.”
“A report? That’s it?”
“That’s what he’s saying.”
“So, Langham threw in the hits for free?”
“I didn’t say it was a good story. But at least they’ve got him on record with it,” Kendra said. “Looks like they’re looking to cut a deal with prosecutors. I think they must have proof of their communication, or McKinney wouldn’t be copping to anything.”
“Hmm.”
“You don’t sound too excited.”
“I am,” he said. “Did you hear we’ve got a lead on Langham?”
“Damn, when it rains, it pours. What happened?”
“The feds have been watching several of his contacts. This morning one of his military buddies wired some money to a Western Union office. It’s waiting there for him under a fake name.”
“And they’ve got the place staked out?”
“Yep.”
“That’s awesome,” Kendra said. “Did you tell Bailey?”
“No.”
“Are you going to?”
“If they take him down, yeah.”
Jacob lowered the binoculars and checked out the street from his elevated vantage point. From the second floor of the corner parking garage, he had a 270-degree view of both vehicular traffic and foot traffic.
“How’d the feds get this lead?” she asked.
“The buddy’s name is Ryan Penning. I interviewed him three weeks ago when I was researching Langham.”
“You gave them this?”
“Yeah. I got a weird vibe from this guy. He was tight-lipped about Langham and he lied about something minor, which raised a red flag. So, I passed his name along to Mullins as someone to watch.”
“Ha. You know if they do arrest him, he’ll give you exactly zero credit. Guarantee it. Just watch the press conference. Mullins is a publicity hound.”
Jacob didn’t care. He just wanted Langham behind bars or dead. He wanted Bailey to be able to get through a night without waking up in a cold sweat. He didn’t know if it was Lucinda or David Langham or both that were messing with her head. But Jacob felt like shit every time it happened. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do, and he hated it. He’d never felt so helpless.
“So, where’s this Western Union located?” Kendra asked.
“Corpus Christi. The theory is he’s on his way to Mexico and he needs funds.”
“Corpus.”
“Yeah.”
The phone went silent.
“Don’t even tell me you drove down there.”
“Yeah.”
“What the hell, Jacob? They’re not actually going to let you in on the arrest, are they?”
“I’m here to watch.”
“You drove three hours just to watch?”
Jacob didn’t respond.
“Don’t you think that’s overkill?”
“No.”
“Geez. And I thought I was obsessed with this thing. When’s he supposed to show up?”
“The money went through at noon,” he said, “so could be any time.”
A man turned the