Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,50
see if she’d missed anything from Max. No new messages, so whatever it was hadn’t gone out over the police scanner.
Jacob ended the call.
“Sorry. Something’s come up.”
“No problem.” She searched his face, and his tense expression didn’t change.
“I should go.”
He nodded.
She grabbed her purse and walked to the door. Without a word, he followed her out to her car and opened the door for her.
“Sorry,” he said again as she slid behind the wheel.
“It’s fine.” She smiled. “It’s probably better, actually, if we put the brakes on.”
His expression darkened, but he didn’t argue, and she felt a twinge of disappointment. She pulled the door, but he caught it.
“Nothing’s changed, Bailey. I don’t want you on this story. You don’t understand the risks involved.”
“Well, I’m on it, so you’ll just have to deal.” She sighed. “Maybe if we worked together instead of butting heads, it would be easier for both of us.”
“How do you mean?”
“You help me. I help you. Collaboration? I’m helping you already, you just haven’t acknowledged it yet.”
He frowned at that idea, as she’d expected he would.
“No one has to know you’re talking to me, Jacob. I can be very discreet.”
His frown deepened.
“Think about it,” she said, and pulled the door shut.
* * *
* * *
JACOB WATCHED HER drive away, frustration churning inside him. Collaboration. Right. He didn’t want to collaborate with her. Not on this case or any other.
Especially not on this case.
He wanted her way the hell away from it, and he didn’t want Will McKinney or any of his hired guns to know Bailey Rhoads even existed.
We’re talking brass knuckles and steel-toed boots. Guy had to have his jaw wired back together.
Jacob went back into his house and eyed his phone on the bar. Talk about shitty timing.
Or maybe not. Maybe it was good that his phone had stopped him from doing what he’d been dying to do for days now, which would have been a mistake for both of them. Why did she have to be a reporter? And not just any reporter—a reporter covering his case, one of the thorniest cases he’d worked, a case that he shouldn’t even be working at all if he valued his career. But—just as with Bailey—he couldn’t seem to resist.
Jacob scrubbed his hand over his face and checked his watch. He walked over to switch off the baseball game and heard his front door opening and closing behind him.
“Well, well. Progress.”
He turned to see Morgan standing in the front room. She wore a skirt and heels again, which meant she was probably in town for another trial.
“Thanks for seeing me,” she said.
“You said it was urgent. What’s up?”
She crossed the room to his kitchen, where she leaned her hands on the bar. “You’re still working the Dana Smith case.”
“That’s right.”
She huffed out a breath. “Jacob.”
“You knew I wasn’t going to hand it over to Mullins from the second you told me about it.”
“What? I asked you—no, practically begged you—to let this thing go. And now days later, I hear you’ve been withholding evidence and talking to the Marshals Office?”
“I haven’t withheld a damn thing.” He crossed his arms. “But while we’re on the subject, why didn’t you tell me about Tabitha Walker?”
“Who?”
Jacob just stared at her, waiting. Morgan was an exceptionally good liar. But she had one tell, and he’d figured it out the first month they were together. She always asked a question to stall for time while trying to make something up.
“The second witness in the McKinney trial,” he said.
“What McKinney trial?”
He waited, and it turned into a staring contest. She looked away first.
“She’s not safe,” he said. “Someone has to pull her out of wherever they put her—”
“We didn’t put her anywhere.”
“The Bureau, the Marshals, someone has to step up and do the right thing for this woman. She trusted you guys. You used her as a witness. And now someone with a federal badge fucked up, and your program’s been penetrated. A woman is dead, and Tabitha Walker could be next.”
Morgan tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. She muttered something under her breath that Jacob didn’t hear. Then she glared at him.
“You’re impossible, you know that? I knew I never should have called you.”
He waited, watching her. He had no patience for games right now. Or relationship bullshit. He needed information.
“Where is she?” he asked.
She scoffed. “I have no idea.”
“You haven’t warned her, have you?”
“I haven’t? This isn’t my case. It’s got nothing to do with me.”
“Mullins hasn’t. The