Hidden - Laura Griffin Page 0,82

if this woman got murdered and we could have prevented it.”

The frustration was back. Jacob felt pulled in two directions. Part of him wanted to go with her to New Orleans, so he could stay glued to her side and make sure she didn’t get into any trouble. Another part of him wanted to shut this whole thing down.

The second option was definitely better, but he doubted it would work. Bailey had that spark in her eyes and that firm set to her chin. If he turned her down, she’d go without him. And who knew what kind of shit she might get into?

She gazed up at him with those defiant gray eyes, and he knew exactly what she was thinking. She was determined to do this, whether he helped her or not.

She checked her watch. “It’s 11:20. There’s a 1:35 flight to New Orleans, and I plan to be on it. Will you come with me or not?”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE MAN WAS painted silver, head to toe, and Bailey watched his stilted movements as he entertained a crowd of tourists. Bailey had seen the show twice now, and he was coming up on the moment when he would pull a handful of lollipops from his top hat and offer them to the kids.

Bailey shifted her attention to the oyster bar across the street. She’d rolled the windows down when she parked, and saxophone music drifted into the car, along with the smell of fried shrimp. Her stomach grumbled, reminding her that she hadn’t eaten anything besides airplane pretzels since last night’s ice cream. And the ice cream didn’t really count because Jacob had carried her off to bed, leaving the pint of double fudge chip to melt on the counter.

Bailey thought of the way he’d looked at her last night. His eyes had been dark and intense and . . . frustrated. There was no getting around it. He wasn’t happy with how all this had played out. He wanted to control what she was doing, or get her to stop, and the fact that he couldn’t bothered him. He was worried about her. And she’d played on that worry by asking him to come with her.

Jacob was used to being in control. But he couldn’t control her, and that made him edgy. She knew he saw getting involved with her as a risk, and she didn’t know whether he believed she was worth it.

Jacob stepped out of the police station and glanced both ways before jogging across the street to Bailey’s rented Kia. That had been another source of friction—my story, my rental car, she’d told him. And she’d insisted on driving while he navigated on his phone.

Jacob had won the next battle, though, and dictated that their first order of business would be a stop at the NOPD’s substation on Royal Street.

He opened the passenger door and slid in.

“Anything?” she asked.

“No.”

Bailey started the car. It was almost five, and she was eager to get moving. She looked over her shoulder before pulling into traffic. “What happened?”

“I showed her picture to a couple patrol cops, in case she’s been working the streets or doing something illegal for money.”

“And?”

“No one’s seen her around.”

“I’m not surprised,” Bailey said. “I mean, she’s an accountant, right? She’s probably a stickler for rules. And she testified for the government, so that indicates she has a sense of civic duty. I figure she’s living in the shadows here but doing it more or less legally.”

Jacob lifted an eyebrow. “Desperate people do desperate things.” He looked at her. “Where are we going?”

“St. Ann Street and Chartres. You said that’s where the surveillance camera is that caught her, right?”

Jacob studied the printout. “According to my expert, yes.”

And his expert was good. The woman—Gabby somebody-or-other from Austin PD—had taken Bailey’s black-and-white photo of Tabitha Walker and improved it immensely. She’d zoomed in on the face, sharpened the features, and colorized everything, and the result was a picture of Tabitha that provided much more information than they’d had previously. They knew, for example, that she’d not only chopped her hair but dyed it a dark red. And they knew that she typically passed through Jackson Square wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, with a blue backpack slung over her shoulder. In the monochromatic photo, the backpack had appeared gray.

“It’s five fifteen,” Bailey said now. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and catch her.” She stopped at a light and waited for a herd of tourists to cross. “I figure she lives north