Hidden

by Laura Griffin

  “What else?” she asked.

  “There’s a lot.”

  “I figured that, but—” She sighed. She didn’t know what this man could do for her that she hadn’t already tried to do for herself. She’d abandoned her life, her name, her city. She’d changed her appearance and moved around and stayed completely offline for more than twenty-two months. And still she hadn’t managed to remain off the grid.

  She was at the end of her rope. Tears burned her eyes.

  “But what?” he asked.

  “I don’t see how this is going to work. I thought of everything. I mean, everything. And I thought I was doing okay, and then the whole bottom fell out of it all. I mean, what am I supposed to do? I can’t change my face. There’s no way I can run forever.”

  He just looked at her.

  “Do you think that’s how they found me?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  No hesitation. Tears spilled over again at the futility of it all.

  “Sorry.” She brushed her cheek with the back of her hand. “I’m just . . . rattled.”

  “I understand. There’s a lot to think about. We’ve got a lot to cover.” He looked at his watch. “And I’d prefer to do it from another location because this one’s blown.”

  “How is it ‘blown’?”

  “Bailey’s next door with a cop. She trusts him. You don’t.”

  “Do you trust him?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know him. But if he reaches out to the FBI or the Marshals, you’ve got a problem. So we need to move.” He nodded at her backpack perched on the table by the door. “You ready?”

  “Yes.”

  The word popped out without her thinking about it. She was ready. She’d done everything she could by herself, and John Colt was her last good option. Her only option.

  She stood up. He stood, too.

  “Can I have my gun back?”

  She appreciated that he’d asked. She picked up the black pistol. It was heavier than it looked. The grip felt good in her hand, and she pointed the tip at the floor as she handed it over.

  He tucked it back into his boot without comment and stood again.

  “Check the bathroom,” he said.

  “It’s clear. I even wiped it down.”

  “Good.” He grabbed her backpack and hooked it over his shoulder. “Let’s roll.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-ONE

  KENDRA CAUGHT JACOB in the lobby of the police station just as he was leaving.

  “Hey, there you are,” she said. “I was about to call you.”

  “What’s up?”

  She looked him over, no doubt noticing he hadn’t been home yet and it was almost ten p.m.

  “I went by the ME’s office.” She held up a file. “Managed to get my hands on a copy of the preliminary report from the Scott Rydell case. Want to hear about it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ll walk with you. Where are you parked?”

  “Right out front.”

  He held the door for her, and they stepped outside into the humid August night. It was dark now, as it had been when he’d come in here this morning. He’d put in a marathon workday, only breaking once for food.

  “Anything new on the manhunt?” Kendra asked.

  “No.”

  “They’ve got every agency in the country looking for him. I’m surprised something hasn’t popped by now.”

  Jacob wasn’t surprised. He’d spent the better part of the day building a dossier on David Langham. He’d pulled every string he could think of for information, even tracking down the man’s former CO and some of his Navy buddies. Jacob had interviewed dozens of people and their feedback was the same. Langham was smart, confident, and highly trained. He’d been part of an elite combat unit before getting discharged for reasons no one was willing to talk about. Whatever the reasons, he’d been in the private sector now for almost eight years.

  Jacob looked at Kendra as they walked toward his truck. She was in her workout clothes—yet here she was coming to the office at night. She had even less of a personal life than he did.

  “So, what’s in the ME’s report?” he asked.

  “Everything we expected. Plus some interesting stuff about the murder weapon.”

  “What about it?”

  “The blade is about one point two inches wide and has a serrated edge.”

  “It’s a match,” he said.

  “Yup. He keeps using the same weapon. Makes me think he’s attached to it, for some reason, and that’s a mistake.”

  Jacob stopped beside his pickup.

  “Wouldn’t you agree?” she asked.

  “Probably.”

  “He’ll make some other mistake, and we’ll bag him up. It’s only a matter of time.”

  A pair of scooters buzzed by, probably on their way to the bars on Sixth Street. Jacob watched as they passed Paco’s taco truck and the picnic table where he’d sat with Bailey that first night.

  “You think he’s still on the job?” Kendra asked.

  “What, you mean hunting for Tabitha Walker?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Highly unlikely. The operation’s blown, and he knows that. It’s every man for himself now.”

  Kendra followed his gaze to the end of the block. “Yeah, I heard the McKinneys are refusing to talk, except through their lawyers.”

  “Not surprising.”

  She looked at Jacob. “What’s Bailey think?”

  “Of what?”

  “Of everything. Tabitha’s disappeared. Langham’s on the run. The McKinneys aren’t talking. The FBI is looking really bad here. Not to mention the Marshals. Isn’t she still covering the story for her paper?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kendra’s brow furrowed. “Why don’t you know?”

  “I haven’t talked to her.”

  “Why not?”

  He popped the locks on his truck and opened the door. “Because.”

  Bailey had called him three times since yesterday afternoon when they’d parted ways at the Austin airport. Jacob hadn’t called her back. He couldn’t talk to her right now. He was still too pissed off.

  “Because why?”

  “Kendra. Drop it.”

  “No. You went all the way to New Orleans with her and put your ass on the line to help her run down a story and—”

  “I’ve been working. So has she.” He slid into his truck. “And I really don’t want to talk about this now.”

  She sighed heavily. “You’re doing it again.”

  “What’s that?” He shoved the key into the ignition.

  “Avoiding relationships.”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “Jesus. Can we skip this? I don’t need a lecture right now. I need a beer and a shower.”

  “All right, all right.” She held up her hands. “I’ll lay off.”

  “Thanks.” He started to close the door, but she caught it.

  “But let me just say this. Whatever it is, you should work it out with her.”

  He tipped his head back against the seat.

  “I know you care about her, or you wouldn’t have gone all the way to New Orleans to help her,” Kendra said. “You should give it a chance. I think she’d be good for you.”

  He stared at her, incredulous. “I thought you didn’t like her.”

  “Of course I like her. She’s tough. And you need someone who isn’t intimidated by you.” She stepped back to let him close the door. “I just wanted you to think it through before you got involved with a reporter. Now you’re involved, so . . .” She shrugged. “You should try to make it work.”

  Jacob shook his head.

  “Call me if you get any updates from Mullins,” Kendra said.

  “I wo
n’t.”

  She closed the door, and he watched her walk back to the station, probably to spend another late night catching up on paperwork. Kendra was a good detective. She was sharp and experienced and hardworking as hell. But he couldn’t take her relationship advice.

  Jacob checked his phone one more time before pulling into traffic. He wended his way through downtown, thinking about the case and the autopsy report and everything he’d learned about David Langham.

  A tight wire.

  That was how one of Langham’s buddies described him. He and Langham had been through training together and done two consecutive tours in Afghanistan. They’d had a falling-out after that, but the man wouldn’t say why. He hadn’t seemed surprised to get a call from a homicide cop, though. In fact, not a single person Jacob had talked to was surprised to learn Langham was wanted by the FBI. That told Jacob a lot.

  He crossed the bridge and caught a glimpse of the Austin Herald building. Would Bailey be there now? He figured she would. She was probably pounding away on her story, a story that was sure to be explosive. Which meant it would likely be picked up by news outlets across the country. Bailey was about to expose some powerful people, but in doing so, she was exposing herself, too.

  I know you care about her. Jacob’s gut clenched. The thing of it was, Kendra was right. He could admit it to himself, but he was too pissed off to figure out what to do about it.

  His phone buzzed in the cup holder, and he checked the number before answering. US GOV. Given the last few days he’d had, it could be anybody from the Marshals Office to the New Orleans FBI. He braced himself for bad news.

  “Merritt,” he said.

  “Hey, it’s Morgan.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Did you hear about Langham?” she asked.

  Something in her voice made Jacob’s shoulders tense. “What about him?”

  “He hijacked a car in Beaumont this evening. We think he’s in Texas.”

  * * *

  * * *

  I DON’T KNOW HOW you work in a pub.”

  Bailey glanced up with a start. “God, you scared me,” she told Nico.

  He smiled. “I scared you?”

  “I didn’t hear you walk up.” She’d been nervous all day, glancing over her shoulder and jumping at shadows, but she didn’t want to tell Nico that.

  She moved her computer over, and he set his bag on the table. “Thanks for meeting me,” she said. “How’d it go with your source?”

  “Awesome,” he said, sliding into the booth across from her.

  “Who was this again?”

  “A former Granite Tech employee who used to be on their red team. Now he works for a software start-up.”

  Bailey took a sip of her wine. “And a red team—they do what, exactly?”

  “It’s a group of white-hat hackers. As opposed to black. They run penetration tests.” Nico leaned his elbows on the table. “Basically, they get assigned to try to hack into systems and find holes in security. Companies hire them to sniff out vulnerabilities that can be exploited. Anyway, this guy worked for Granite Tech, and he told me how about two years ago he was given a special assignment by none other than Lucinda Oberhoff. She asked him to hack into three state DMV databases and collect records, supposedly to demonstrate flaws in their security systems.”

  “Whoa.”

  Nico smiled. “It gets better. He said he always thought the project was suspicious because he never dealt with anyone on the client side. Just Lucinda. Everything went straight to her.”

  “That’s especially interesting because Lucinda told me that Granite Tech doesn’t have any government clients,” Bailey said.

  He unzipped his backpack and pulled out a notepad. He flipped through the pages. “Get this. My guy said, quote, ‘I don’t know where all those records ended up. But it was frighteningly easy getting them.’”

  “He said that?”

  “Yep.”

  “On the record?”

  “Yep.”

  “We need that in the story.”

  Bailey clicked open the article on her computer. She and Nico were collaborating on a three-part series that would run on A-1, above the fold, for three consecutive days. Max and the business editor and even the publisher were involved.

  “What are you working on?” Nico asked.

  “The story for day three.”

  “Mind if I look?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Nico scooted around to Bailey’s side of the booth and she pivoted the screen so he could read what she had so far. The other two articles were almost finished. The first laid out Granite Tech’s secret effort to compile the largest privately controlled faceprint database in existence, through legal and illegal means. The second story focused on Lucinda and the personal motive behind her obsession. The third story detailed the dangerous consequences of Granite Tech’s massive information raid.

  Bailey rubbed her eyes. She’d been working nonstop for two days, corralling sources and nailing down details, and she was running on fumes.

  “I keep tinkering with the lede,” she said.

  “Is this your working headline? Witness Protection Program Compromised with Help of Local Company?”

  “It’s just a placeholder.”

  “It’s too passive. How about, say . . . Woman in the Crosshairs after Data Breach?”

  “That’s better, but Max will still change it.” Bailey quickly made the change as Nico read over her shoulder.

  “This is looking good,” he said. “You need more about the murder here in Austin, though. You should add a quote from one of the investigators.”

  “I’m working on it.” Bailey rubbed a kink in her shoulder. “No one wants to go on the record.”

  “Don’t you have a friend over at APD? That detective? Merritt?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  Her stomach knotted as she thought of Jacob. They’d parted on chilly terms yesterday. She’d left him three messages since then, and he hadn’t returned her calls.

  “Here.” She closed out of her article and opened the day-one story, which was in the final stages. “Work in your quote. Put it somewhere near the top.”

  Nico checked his notepad and added the quote. Together, they read through the first few grafs and saved it.

  “Think it’s ready?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Max wants it tonight so he can run it by the legal department first thing tomorrow.” Bailey wrote him a quick note and attached the article. “Okay, here we go.” She took a deep breath and hit send.

  “Wow.” Nico looked at her. “That’s the biggest story I’ve ever worked on.”

  “Me too.”

  He gave her a fist bump. “It feels good, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” She checked her watch and blew out a sigh. “I didn’t realize how late it was, though. I need to get home.” And she had to swing by Stop-N-Save before it closed for the night.

  Bailey left money on the table to cover her bill and followed Nico out of the pub. It was hot and muggy outside, and her legs felt stiff from sitting in the booth for three hours. The street in front of the bar was dark and deserted.

  Nico turned to look at her, and the troubled frown on his face made her pause.

  “What?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry I doubted you,” he said. “Earlier. When I accused you of poaching.”

  “Forget it.”

  He shook his head. “That was a dick thing to say. I’ve been stressed out lately with all the layoffs and everything. I always feel like I’m about to get axed.”

  “I understand. Forget about it.”

  He nodded, looking relieved. “Well. Thanks for sharing a byline. I think this series is going to make an impact.”

  “We can only hope.”

 
; He looked up and down the street. “You need a ride?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got to stop at the store, anyway.”

  “Okay, see you in the office, then.”

  He crossed the street to his dinged black hatchback, and it took him two tries to get it started. Bailey watched him pull away.

  She set off down the street. Up ahead, the glow of a Lone Star beer sign told her the corner store was still open. She’d come home from her trip to an empty fridge and a cranky cat that held a grudge. This morning she’d fed him tuna for breakfast.

  She checked her watch again and clutched her computer bag close as she hurried down the sidewalk.

  Jacob still hadn’t called. An ache spread through her chest as she thought back to yesterday. The drive to the airport had been tense and quiet. And when they’d parted ways in Austin, he’d been agonizingly polite.

  Drive safely. Best of luck with your article.

  She wished he’d yelled at her and gotten it out of his system so they could move on.

  Bailey glanced up at the moon. It peeked out from behind wispy gray clouds. She remembered how peaceful it had looked at Jacob’s house the other night.

  Was he there right now, maybe watching a ball game or sanding out his frustration on his bookshelves? She understood that he was angry. But it wasn’t for the reason that she’d expected. He hadn’t been upset that she had helped Tabitha skip town. In fact, he’d agreed that John Colt, and not the U.S. Marshals, was Tabitha’s best chance of making a new start. If anyone could help her drop off the radar and stay there, it was Colt.

  What had upset Jacob was that she’d acted without telling him. He’d stood in that motel room with his hair still damp from the shower and looked at her with disbelief. She couldn’t get his look or his words out of her mind.

  All this time you’ve been telling me to trust you, Bailey. That works both ways.

  Bailey’s stomach knotted. They’d had something good. Something unique. When they’d been wrapped up in each other, Bailey had felt it. And she’d blown everything by not being honest with him. She hadn’t outright lied to him. Not unless you considered it a lie by omission—which she suspected he did. She didn’t know for sure, though, because he’d refused to discuss it.