Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,79
between her and that exit. She eased past the bed, and the body there shifted. Tabitha froze. She held her breath as she watched him. He shifted again, grunting, but his eyes stayed shut. He was out cold.
Carefully, quietly, Tabitha crept past him.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
THE POLICE STATION was humming with activity. Bailey watched from the bench as a steady flow of people streamed in and out. Today’s visitors looked to be a mix of patrol officers, defense attorneys, and off-duty cops.
Bailey’s cell phone vibrated, and she glanced down to check it.
SBUX 10 min.
The response put a knot in her stomach even though she’d expected it. Jacob didn’t want to talk to her at the police station. And she didn’t blame him.
Bailey gathered her messenger bag and hiked down the street to the coffee shop. She needed to suck it up and not let her feelings get in the way of her work. She had a job to do, and she couldn’t get distracted by a budding—or fizzling—romance with the lead detective. Right now she needed his help, and she figured she had a decent chance of getting it if she kept things professional. Jacob was a good cop. He wouldn’t turn his back on a victim in need.
She was counting on it.
She cast a glance over her shoulder as she reached the coffee shop. All morning she’d been jumpy and she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being watched.
Bailey didn’t need any more caffeine, so she stood in line for a juice and snagged a stool at the long wooden table facing the window. The guy next to her finished off a scone and got up, leaving behind a pile of crumbs. As she sipped her drink and waited, Bailey noted the security camera mounted above the coffee shop door. She was hyper-aware of every camera she spotted now, and they seemed to be everywhere.
Jacob walked in right on time and peeled off his shades. He scanned the room, probably looking for any cops he knew.
“Hi,” he said, taking the stool beside her.
“Busy morning?”
He nodded. “You heard about the homicide by the airport.”
“Yep.”
He glanced at his watch. “The press conference is at noon. Don’t you need to—”
“It’s not mine. They gave it to the weekend reporter. I’m off today, finally. First weekend this month.”
His eyes turned wary. She hadn’t invited him here to talk about a fresh homicide.
“You wanted to know about last night,” she said. “I told you I’d explain.”
His look of surprise confirmed what she’d thought yesterday—that he hadn’t actually believed she’d tell him. He definitely still had trust issues.
Jacob leaned his elbow on the table. “Okay, I’m listening.”
She took a deep breath. “So. I’ve been looking into the federal witness protection program.”
He didn’t look happy with the segue. “That’s not really your beat, is it?”
“This goes way beyond any beat.” Bailey leaned closer. “If someone managed to penetrate the witness protection program, that’s huge. Just think of the law enforcement implications. Think of all the lives in jeopardy, the cases in jeopardy. Without cooperating witnesses, federal prosecutions would grind to a halt.”
“What’s this got to do with where you were last night?” he asked. He seemed impatient now. Or maybe he wasn’t thrilled about her pursuing such a high-stakes story.
“Since Wednesday, I’ve been trying to figure out how someone uncovered the new identity of a protected witness,” she said. “Is there a hole in the government’s program? I thought maybe someone at the Bureau or the Marshals Office messed up. Or maybe someone paid off a federal agent to leak Robin Nally’s alias and then passed it along to some hit man. But what I discovered was worse.”
“Worse than someone selling her out to a hit man?”
“Turns out, a hit man didn’t need her alias. He only needed her face.”
Jacob’s brow furrowed.
“When Robin went into the program, they gave her a new name, a new social security number, a new location. She built a whole new life for herself here, but none of that mattered because her face had already been added to a vast privately controlled database of faceprints. All someone had to do was query the program, and they got a hit.”
“Privately controlled as in Granite Tech,” he stated.
“Right.”
“I thought they did background checks and document security?”
Clearly, he’d been checking up on the company ever since Bailey hinted they might be linked to his murder case.
“That’s not all they do.”
“And is this a theory or do you know it for a fact?” he asked.
“It’s confirmed. My source—”
“Who