“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, exactly?”
“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.”
Morgan shrugged, unfazed. “Well, you’ll just have to use that charm of yours and talk them into it.”
She pressed her lips together to keep from screaming in frustration. Didn’t he understand that what he wanted just wasn’t doable? His being there would send entirely the wrong message—that talking to her was dangerous.
“What kind of a journalist would that make me in their eyes if I need to have police protection when I went out?” she asked.
“A live one,” he answered matter-of-factly. He held his hand up to stop the onslaught of words that he could just tell were about to come pouring out. “End of discussion, Kowalski. I either go with you, or you don’t go at all.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “And, as a matter of fact, you’re coming with me first.”
“What?” she demanded, frustrated.
The more agitated she was, the calmer he became, she thought, something else that infuriated her.
“I think,” Morgan said, “the first order of business is
