There was a touch of pity in her eyes. “Well, that might be your definition of homemade, but it’s not mine. This was the first thing I made when I finally came home. After burying my mentor, I felt I needed some comforting.”
“So your answer was soup instead of a friend?” he asked.
“I don’t like to burden people with my problems. Besides, chicken soup creates a warm, contented feeling in the pit of your stomach. It doesn’t say inane things like ‘he’s in a better place now,’ or ‘he’s not in pain anymore.’”
“Both true statements,” he told her.
“I know, but they still don’t help fill up that empty feeling you’re left to try to deal with when someone you cared about is gone. Chicken soup doesn’t ask you how you’re doing. It just goes about its intended function to fill you up. Now, what can I make for you?”
“After that buildup? I’ll take the chicken soup,” he told her—and then smiled.
Chapter 6
“This is really good,” Morgan declared just before he slipped another spoonful of chicken soup into his mouth.
He had agreed to let her prepare something to eat predominantly to placate her. His main goal was to eat the meal as fast as possible and move on to the real reason he was here. But after consuming several spoonfuls of the chicken soup she had placed before him, the meal, with its tempting aroma, somehow captured his attention in its entirety.
“Why do you sound so surprised?” she asked, sitting down opposite him at the table.
He debated mumbling some excuse, then decided against it. Lying at this point, especially about something so minor, would be entirely counterproductive.
To a degree, he supposed he was guilty of typecasting her. “It’s just that you’re an accomplished career woman. Most career women I know either don’t know how to cook or they don’t have the time to cook—unless their careers involve having their own cooking show,” he amended with a smile.
She supposed she could accept that. “Well, I don’t have my own cooking show,” Krys said. “But cooking was just always something I knew how to do. I guess waiting for the pizza delivery guy got a little old after a while and I’m not really a big fan of junk food.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I eat too much of that when I’m on the road anyway.” She nodded at his soup bowl. “By the way, you don’t have to feel obligated to finish that. I can make you something else if you’d rather.” Although she saw that he was all but finished eating it.
“Maybe next time,” Morgan said, retiring his spoon beside his bowl. “But for now, I’d like a second helping of soup if you have any.”
She had no idea why his request for seconds could make her feel as happy as it did. But there was no mistaking the warmth that was flooding through her as she rose to get him another helping of soup.
“You’re in luck,” Krys announced, picking up the ladle and using it to fill the bowl she was holding. “There’s just one more serving left.”
“I don’t want to take your last serving,” Morgan protested. “You eat it.”
She turned around with the refilled bowl and brought it back to the table and Morgan. “Trust me, having you eat like this does wonders for my morale.”
“I wasn’t aware that your morale needed reinforcement.”
She merely shrugged, not seeing anything embarrassing about the situation. “Everyone’s morale could use an occasional boost.”
He thought about his life over these last few months. He was finally coming around. It hadn’t been easy, but life had gotten a lot better. “Mine doesn’t.”
“Then you are definitely the exception,” she told him. Krys considered what her twin had told her about this family Nik was marrying into. “But then, being part of such a large, strong family, I guess your situation might be different than the one that we mere mortals find ourselves slogging through.”
Finished with his second serving, he put his spoon in the bowl and looked at her. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She spelled it out for him. “It means that there’s always someone there to have your back, someone offering you emotional support even when you pretend that you don’t need it.”
He didn’t see their situations as being different from each other. “You have your twin.”
But Krys shook her head. “Not the same thing. Nik and I have taken slightly different paths. Hers wound up keeping her close by while mine has me flying around to all these different locations. Following these last two stories was the closest I’ve been to home—as far as this region of the country goes—in a year and a half.”
There was a lot more to this woman than he had initially thought, Morgan realized. He turned back to his work. “It looks like I’m going to need a bigger notebook to document this list of suspects I asked you to give me.”
“Yes, about that,” Krys told him. “I’ve been giving this whole matter a lot of thought,” she said. She could tell by the way he was sitting that he was closing himself off to what she was about to tell him. She pushed on anyway. “And, to be honest, except for Bluebeard, I really don’t think that any of the people from the drug trials I interviewed could be potential suspects. I don’t see them wanting to get rid of me in order to stop the articles from coming out.”
She paused, taking in a deep breath before proceeding. “If anything, they might even be hoping that I’ll wind up championing their cause—that is, if I could find them.”
Morgan stared at her. “How’s that again?” he asked. “You lost me.”
“That’s just the problem,” she agreed. “I lost them.” She realized that her comment made what she was trying to say no clearer for him. Krys backtracked. “When I started looking into this miracle drug that was scheduled to be released, I heard rumors that not all the test subjects were thrilled with the drug’s result. I actually managed to talk to a couple of rather dissatisfied, or at least unhappy, test subjects.
“But when I went back to attempt to verify my initial information, those people I had talked to just seemed to have taken off. They’ve disappeared,” she stressed, “and no one could tell me where they had gone. The two test subjects who I actually did manage to find swore up and down that I had gotten their stories all wrong. That the truth of it was they were overjoyed with the drug’s results. They said they were even willing to go on record singing the new drug’s praises.”
He barely knew this woman, yet had gotten the impression that getting her facts right was of exceeding importance to her. Apparently, she valued the truth above all else. People like that just didn’t bend the facts to suit their purposes.
“That sounds rather suspicious,” Morgan commented.
“You think?” Krys asked. The fact that this man believed her meant a lot to her. It also bolstered the stand she had taken. “But they stuck by their stories. When I wanted to talk to them at length, they refused to meet with me after that. One of them actually told me that if I had anything to ask them, I could talk to their respective lawyers. Lawyers,” she added, “who ironically worked for the same law firm,” Krys told him in a voice that was all but dripping with sarcasm.
“It sounds like Weatherly Pharmaceuticals is the one who might be looking to ensure your silence. They might not be above using methods that are less than savory,” he commented.
Taking a breather, Morgan rose from the table and took his bowl to the sink before Krys had a chance to do the same.
She turned in her chair to see what he was doing. It was a very small thing—cleaning up after himself—but she was impressed. “Someone certainly raised you right,” she commented with approval.
“My mom died when I was a kid and my dad was always working. When he wasn’t, I think he was a little overwhelmed, having so many kids to take care of. To show our gratitude, we all kind of pitched in. It wasn’t anything we talked about, it was just something that we did.”
>
“How many kids make up an ‘all’?” she asked, picking up on the term he had used.
It suddenly occurred to him that somehow, they were no longer talking about what he had initially wanted to discuss.
“Just how did we get off topic like this?” he asked.
He found the smile that she flashed at him dazzling and it went straight to his gut.
“It’s called conversation,” she told him breezily, “but don’t worry, we can pick up where we left off.”
Morgan shook his head as he laughed. “You’re definitely not your typical victim, I’ll give you that.”
Krys looked a little bemused. “Is that a compliment?”
She had a way of drawing things out of him that he had no intentions of volunteering. He decided to play it close to the vest. “I’m not sure yet.”
“Well, at least you’re honest.”
“To a fault,” he underscored, remembering his breakup. Joyce hated the fact that he didn’t sugarcoat things. “Some people find that off-putting.”
“Obviously those people haven’t had to endure the disappointment of being lied to time and again until they weren’t sure what to believe and what not to believe.” Her eyes met his. “Honesty, even brutal honesty, is far more preferable to having to deal with a liar.”
And then, for no apparent reason at all, Krys seemed to transform right before his eyes, her serious demeanor vanishing in the wake of a wide, disarming smile. “Dessert?” she asked cheerfully.
“What about it?” he asked, caught off guard.
“Would you like some?”
Okay, he needed to stop her before this went in another direction entirely. “What I’d like,” he informed her, “is to continue getting as much information about those missing sources of yours and about the possible whereabouts of this Bluebeard character as you can come up with.”
She realized that she had allowed the threat of a killer to temporarily make her forget something very, very important. She was obligated to protect her sources, the ones who had given her information they didn’t want getting traced back to them.
“I’ll tell you everything I’m free to share with you,” she told him.
Morgan knew what that meant. “Wait a second. You’re going to hold back?”
She should have led with that from the very beginning, Krys upbraided herself. “I can’t give you the names of all my sources,” she said with an apologetic note in her voice. “It was hard enough getting these people to trust me enough to talk to me. If word gets around that I just gave up their names to the police, no one will ever trust me again. And I mean ever. I might as well stop being a journalist right now.”
Didn’t she realize that one of these people she was protecting might very well be the one who was trying to kill her?
“Well, the cold hard truth of it is, if you’re dead, there’ll be no need to trust you, now, will there?” he asked her.
She frowned at Morgan. “You must really be an awful lot of fun at parties,” she said sarcastically.
“Just rephrasing what you told me,” he pointed out. “Look, thanks for the chicken soup,” he told her, getting back up to his feet again. “I’ll read your series on Bluebeard and see if perhaps I can get my cousin in the computer lab section to see if she can track down this guy’s whereabouts. She’s very good at finding people. And, until I can find whoever is behind this, I will have a patrol car drive by your house every half hour to make sure that you’re safe.”
He’d already told her that, but maybe he thought she needed reinforcement. At any rate, she merely nodded rather than pointing out that he was repeating himself.
“Thanks,” she said, walking him to her door. Having a patrol car go by would be good, if she was going to stay home, but that wasn’t feasible right now. “Maybe I overreacted,” Krys told him, trying to get him to relent when it came to the patrol car going by at regular intervals.
“Someone shot at you and when they couldn’t seem to kill you, they tried to run you over with a van. That is not overreacting. I’d say you were damn lucky that whoever is behind this missed you, but luck has a habit of running out at the most inopportune times.” He turned in the doorway to look at her. For all her bravado, she suddenly seemed very vulnerable to him. “Promise me that you won’t take any unnecessary chances and that you’ll stay put.”
“One doesn’t necessarily mean the other,” she said evasively.
“All right, then I opt for the second one. I want you to stay put,” he told her with emphasis.
“Funny, I was leaning toward the first one myself,” she cracked. Krys could see that the detective was about to tell her just what he thought of that choice. She was quick to back up her selection. “Look, I still have people to interview. I haven’t finished the articles yet and I’ve got a deadline.”
“Emphasis on the word ‘dead,’” Morgan pointed out darkly.
“No,” she contradicted him. “Emphasis on the fact that I haven’t finished the articles yet and I gave the editor my word. I’m not about to go back on that.”
Morgan sighed, clearly frustrated. But rather than walking out of her house, he went back in and closed the door again.
“Fine, have it your way,” he told her. “I just need to make a phone call to my superior.”
It was her turn not to understand. Why did he suddenly have to call his boss? “About what?”
He watched her for a long moment, his expression totally unreadable. “About a change in plans.”
“What change?”
“I’ll tell you in a few minutes.” He frowned at her. “Think you can stay put for that long?”
Krys could feel her back going up. “There’s no need to be sarcastic.”
“Just trying to speak your language,” he told her. Taking out his cell phone, Morgan put some distance between himself and Krys as he began to press the numbers on the keypad.
Krys found herself watching his back and wondering what the call was all about. She fought her natural inclination to eavesdrop, something she used in her line of work constantly. His body language wasn’t much help to her but toward the end, the way he held his shoulders told her that whatever this was about, Morgan was not about to back down or change his mind.
She glanced at her watch. This was costing her the better part of the day and she was already behind in her work. Unless something earth-shattering happened, Weatherly’s wonder drug would be out on the market soon. Maybe she was being overly cautious, but she still felt that she was overlooking a major issue. Maybe the drug was on the level, or maybe it wasn’t. The worst that could happen was that a lot of people who were pinning all their hopes on this would be bitterly disappointed.
But the third alternative to this had presented itself to her, and that was that the drug turned out to be not just inconsequential but harmful. And that didn’t even take into account that the drug would cost a fortune. People facing a spirit-crushing ordeal were already going into debt trying to handle expenses that their insurance plans—if they were lucky enough to have insurance coverage—didn’t cover. They couldn’t afford to be hoodwinked by the twenty-first century equivalent of snake oil.
Krys was about to tell Morgan that she needed to get going and that he was free to finish his phone call outside her house when she heard him say, “Thanks.” He was apparently ending his conversation.
Hitting the red button, he put his phone back in his pocket as he turned around to face her.
“All right,” he told Krys as if he was picking up their conversation in mid-discussion, “my boss signed off on it.”
She stared at him, wondering if she had missed something. “Signed off on what?”
“From now on,” he told her, “you have my undivided attention.”
She had an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. “What does that mean, exa
ctly?”
“It means,” he explained, “that I know all the signs of terminal stubbornness.”
“English?” she prompted.
“I realize if I tell you that you need to stay home until we can find this mysterious would-be killer who’s already tried to get rid of you twice, you won’t listen.”
“And—?” Krys knew there had to be more to this than just a declaration of knowledge on his part.
“And given the urgency of this matter, I’ve asked my lieutenant to let me be assigned to this case exclusively.”
Krys could feel the uneasiness continue to build in her stomach. “And what does that mean exactly?” she asked.
“It means that where you go, I go. More simply put,” he concluded with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, “you, Kowalski, have just acquired a shadow.”
Chapter 7
Krys’s deep blue eyes grew huge as she stared at Morgan. The last thing she wanted was someone hovering at her side while she conducted an interview.
“Oh, hell, no!” she cried.
“No,” Morgan corrected patiently. “Hell, yes.” He grew serious. As far as he was concerned, this was nonnegotiable. “Look, by your own admission, someone has tried to use you for target practice and when that didn’t work, they tried to turn you into roadkill. That kind of thing doesn’t sit very well with the Aurora Police Force or the Cavanaugh clan even if you weren’t part of the family, which you are.”
He could see the resistance in her eyes. Morgan plumbed the depths of his patience in an attempt to try to reason with her.
“Now, since you obviously refuse to stay put in your house, the only way you can go about ‘business as usual,’ which I get the distinct impression is your goal, is if I’m going with you as your researcher or whatever it is you’ll have to call me in order to pass me off as an assistant.”
“No,” Krys insisted, shaking her head. “That’s entirely unacceptable.” She could see that he still didn’t seem to understand the problem. “No one is going to talk to me with you hovering around like an angel of doom. It’s hard enough getting them to talk to me at all, much less talk to me with you there.”
Cavanaugh In Plain Sight (Cavanaugh Justice Book 42) Page 6
