Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,47
deep brown eyes made her nerves flutter. She kept her focus on his face, but it was hard not to gape at his muscular arms and perfectly sculpted torso. His feet were bare, too. He rested his hands on his hips and watched her curiously, but she didn’t explain what she was doing here.
“I was about to take a beer break,” he said. “Want one?”
“Sure.”
He turned and led her across the room, and she noted a ladder in the corner beside a wall of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Squares of sandpaper littered the floor.
“You really are doing it yourself,” she said.
He glanced over his shoulder. “You thought I lied?”
“No, it’s just people say that. But what they really mean is they’ve hired a crew.”
Hannah’s husband made his living off people like that, and Austin was getting more of them each day as people moved down from the Bay Area and New York to take advantage of a lower cost of living. The tech sector was thriving, and the city had been nicknamed Silicon Hills.
Jacob led her past a laminate bar and into a kitchen. Or what could have been a kitchen. Tile had been pulled up to expose a concrete subfloor, and there was an empty space where a stove should have been. A white bucket sat in a sink beside a brown refrigerator that looked older than Bailey. Jacob pulled open the fridge.
“Shiner Bock or Shiner Blonde?”
“I’ll take a Blonde.”
He grabbed two with one hand, then regarded her warily as he twisted the tops off. He handed her a bottle and leaned back against the counter.
“How’d you find my address?” he asked.
“Way too easily.”
His eyebrows tipped up.
“There’s no such thing as privacy anymore.”
He tipped his beer back, watching her as he took a sip. He set the bottle on the counter and reached for a dish towel. He wiped down his neck, and the towel came away yellow with sawdust.
“Nice shelves,” she said, nodding at the living room.
“They will be.”
“You’re sanding them by hand? Isn’t there a power tool for that?”
“By hand’s better. And better for working out frustration at the end of the day.”
“Why are you frustrated?”
He wiped his neck again and tossed the towel in the sink. Then he stepped closer and gazed down at her. She tilted her head back to look at him, trying not to seem intimidated even though her heart was thrumming.
“What’s on your mind, Bailey?”
His voice had an edge, and she knew she was the source of his frustration. At least, some of it.
She cleared her throat. “Robin Nally.”
His jaw tightened. “Where did you get that name?”
“Guy Elliott with the Chicago Trib.”
“Who?”
“He covers the courts beat. I called him up and asked him if he knew of a federal case about two years ago in which a woman in her early twenties had testified against someone and become a protected witness.”
“Where’d you get Chicago?”
“I didn’t originally,” she said. “Celeste Camden told me she thought Dana was from St. Louis because they once watched a Cardinals-Cubs game together. The court reporter in St. Louis didn’t have a case in mind, but he remembered something in Chicago that fit the timing, so I tried the Tribune.”
She set her purse down on the counter and took out two folded pages that she’d printed out at her office. The first was a copy of the Tribune story about Will McKinney’s conviction.
Jacob closed his eyes and cursed under his breath.
“There are two of them, Jacob. Two civilian witnesses testified in this trial. And check this out.” She unfolded the second article. It was from the lifestyle section and showed a couple on a red carpet outside the Art Institute of Chicago. The museum’s famous lion statues stood on either side of the carpet.
She had Jacob’s interest now. She pointed at the woman. “That’s Robin Nally at a charity gala with Will McKinney six months before he was indicted.”
Jacob’s brow furrowed as he stared down at the picture. Robin wore a shimmery yellow gown that was backless. She looked over her shoulder to smile at the camera, and a cascade of curly blond hair tumbled down her shoulders all the way to her elbows. Her boyfriend rested his hand possessively on her hip as he gave the photographer a cool stare.
“Beautiful, isn’t she?”
Jacob glanced at her but didn’t comment.
“Now, look at this.” Bailey took out her phone and opened a photograph she’d taken during her second visit to Villa Paloma. It was the Rossetti painting.
Jacob frowned. “What’s this?”
“That’s a painting