Morgan surprised her by laughing.
“What’s so funny?” she asked indignantly.
His lips curved as he looked at her, amusement shining in his eyes. “You.”
Krys found herself struggling not to get annoyed. She didn’t like to be laughed at. “You’re going to have to explain that.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily so you might as well stop acting tough, Krys. You’re stuck with me for the duration, until whoever is trying to take you out is either dead themselves, or permanently behind bars.” He looked at her just before he put his key into the ignition. “So deal with it,” he told her.
Chapter 9
“‘Deal with it’?” Krys questioned, surprised that Morgan would have said something that blasé to her. It wasn’t anything that she would have expected from him.
“You heard me,” he told her.
Krys merely shook her head. “You Cavanaughs certainly are a pushy bunch, aren’t you?”
The expression on her face made him laugh. His manner softened slightly. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Morgan drove his vehicle to the edge of the parking lot, just before it exited onto the street, and then he came to a temporary stop.
Pausing, he looked at Krys. “All right, where to now?” When Krys didn’t immediately reply, he prodded her. “C’mon, you said you had this busy schedule and needed to meet your deadline, so where to?” he asked again, a bit more insistently this time.
“Then you were really serious about coming with me while I do the rest of my interviews?”
“Absolutely. Don’t worry, I have no intentions of flashing my badge—and the gun only comes out if someone threatens you,” he deadpanned.
But Krys was still hoping that, when it came right down to it, Cavanaugh was just yanking her chain. She wanted him to find whoever was trying to kill her, but that didn’t mean she wanted him to physically be her bodyguard. She certainly didn’t want him there during the interviews.
“You’re kidding, right?” she asked, fervently hoping that he was.
For the time being, Morgan’s expression remained completely unreadable. “What do you think, Kowalski?”
Krys closed her eyes, seeking inner strength. This promised to be an impossible situation if she didn’t find a way to get him to back off.
And then she thought something that might be an acceptable compromise for him. “Look, how about if you stay in the car while I conduct my interviews?” she asked hopefully, mentally crossing her fingers.
Hope died a quick death as Morgan shook his head. “Unacceptable.”
She frowned, still trying to come up with an alternative. “How about if I wear a wire?” she suggested. “If someone I’m questioning comes right out and threatens me, I’ll get your attention by using a safe word.”
But Morgan vetoed that choice as well. “No.”
“It’s going to have to be a different safe word than that one. ‘No’ is too common a word to use.”
“How about this: you can introduce me as your assistant.”
She gave him a long, scrutinizing look. “No offense, Cavanaugh, but you don’t look like someone that I would have as an assistant.”
If she was trying to put him off, she failed. “Then I’d say it’s about time that you broaden your tastes. Now,” he said, taking hold of the steering wheel again and releasing his brake, “where do you want me to take you?”
There was no use trying to reason with him or get him to back off, Krys thought. With a sigh, she gave him her next intended destination. “Weatherly Pharmaceuticals. I’ve got an appointment with Jim Peters, one of the scientists on the team researching drug number 1317.”
“That’s the drug’s name?” he questioned, surprised. “They’ll have to go with something catchier than that,” he said sarcastically.
“That’s the temporary working number of the ‘miracle drug,’” she told him. “The drug’s actual name is a secret until Weatherly finally releases it on the open market.”
“They’re afraid someone is going to steal the name?” he questioned, obviously amused by the thought.
“You’d be surprised.” Even the code number being used had been a secret until very recently.
“You’re right,” Morgan said to her. “I would be. All right, then we’re agreed,” he said as he drove toward the Weatherly compound. “When we get to Weatherly Pharmaceuticals, you’ll just introduce me as your assistant.”
“Right. My assistant. Waldo Jones,” she said, coming up with a name on the spur of the moment for this fictional character he had created.
Morgan winced at the name. “Waldo Jones? That’s what you came up with?” he questioned incredulously.
“Hey, you can still stay in the car,” she told him, making it clear that using this awful name was the only way she would go along with this charade.
Morgan sighed. “All right, Waldo Jones it is,” he agreed. After all, the name, hideous as it was, didn’t really matter.
“And you don’t talk,” she added, deciding that would probably be the best way to pull this off.
“I’m vocally impaired?” Morgan questioned, amused.
“I don’t care what you label it,” Krys told him. “But you’re not to say anything. You open that mouth of yours to say anything and no one is going to mistake you for a journalist. The minute you start talking, there’s no way you’re going to sound like anything except a police detective.”
She was definitely getting on his nerves with all these requirements. “I’ve got to say something,” Morgan insisted. “Otherwise this Peters guy will wonder why you brought me along.” Doesn’t she see that? he wondered.
Krys opened her backpack and dug through it until she finally located her notepad. She pulled it out for Morgan.
Since he was driving, she couldn’t hand it to him, but she did place it between their two seats so he could take it when they arrived at their destination. “Voilà. You can act like you’re taking notes for me.”
“Isn’t that a little old-fashioned, considering this day and age?”
“A lot of these people don’t like being recorded. This way it’s more
