Morgan knew when to back off. The intense scowl on her face made him laugh as he shook his head. “And you think I’m pushy?”
“Do we have a deal?” she asked.
“No.” Then, reluctantly, he said, “Yes, we have a deal.”
“Good, then you just stay next to me and look pretty,” she instructed, letting him see that she was completely serious.
Morgan batted his eyelashes at her—lashes that, Krys noticed, were rather thick and long for a man. “I’ll do my best,” he promised.
Weatherly Pharmaceuticals was domiciled in a state-of-the-art building. It looked as if it might have been more at home sheltering an art museum than a place where cutting-edge research was conducted.
Morgan noticed that Krys grew very quiet as they drove onto the compound. It wasn’t like her.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
Krys shook her head. “It’s nothing.”
“Nothing?” Morgan repeated, not buying it. “Your complexion just got five shades lighter. That’s not ‘nothing.’ That is definitely ‘something,’” the detective stressed.
“Aren’t you supposed to be watching the road and not my complexion?” she pointed out.
“I’m good at multitasking,” he protested. “Now why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”
She knew he wouldn’t back off until she told him. “Because whoever shot out my window did it from somewhere over there,” she told him, pointing out the adjacent parking area, which was directly in front of Weatherly Laboratories.
He’d forgotten that. “The chief and his crew already combed that entire area. They didn’t find spent shells lying on the ground or any sort of evidence that you were shot at.”
“Other than my shot-up window,” she reminded him, tongue in cheek.
“Yeah, other than that.” Pulling up in front of the pharmaceutical building, Morgan saw the wary expression in her eyes. He didn’t want to lose the ground he had gained with her. “Look, just because we didn’t find any evidence doesn’t mean we don’t believe you. All it means is that we could easily be dealing with a professional.”
“Like Bluebeard,” she concluded.
“Or a contract killer, someone hired for the job,” he pointed out.
The very suggestion that she might be stalked by someone like that sent a cold shiver down her spine. “You do know how to make a girl feel all warm and toasty,” she said sarcastically.
“Maybe not,” Morgan allowed. “But I do know how to protect one. Stay put,” he instructed as he shut off the engine.
“How am I supposed to do my interview if I stay put?” she asked, then sarcastically suggested a solution. “Ventriloquism?”
“No,” he answered, raising his voice as he rounded the back of his car and came around to the passenger door. “I meant that you should wait until I came around to your side,” he told her, opening the door for her.
She swung her legs out and noticed the way that Morgan stared at them before he forced his eyes back to her face. “Shouldn’t you be looking around the parking lot, then, instead of at my legs?” she asked.
“Multitasking, remember?” Morgan reminded her good-naturedly even while he upbraided himself for getting caught up in the way Krys looked.
Meanwhile, Krys just sighed and shook her head. He seemed to have an answer for everything, even though it might come across like the wrong answer.
“Remember, no talking,” she reminded Morgan.
And then she saw that he was holding the notepad she had taken out of her backpack for him. That was a good sign, she thought. She decided that it was only fair if she said as much to him.
“Oh good, you remembered to take the notepad,” she commented.
Morgan’s eyes crinkled a little as his smile widened. “Multi—”
“—tasking, yes, I know,” she said with a long-suffering sigh, completing his sentence for him. Walking quickly, she went through the automatic doors that sprang open for her.
She braced herself, not looking forward to what lay ahead but doing her level best to be as prepared for it as she could be. After all, the next person she interviewed could very well be the person trying to kill her.
“And you do this kind of thing all the time?” Morgan asked Krys a little over two hours later as they left the building.
“Exactly what do you mean by ‘this kind of thing’?” she asked, bracing herself for the worst.
“Talk to people who are in love with the sound of their own voice?” Morgan elaborated. He could see by her expression that he had struck a familiar chord. Listening to the research scientist, he could barely keep from falling asleep. “I have never heard anyone use so many words to say so little before.”
Krys smiled at Morgan’s description of the situation. She had run into this sort of thing more than once. Still, she was kind in her assessment. “He didn’t want to give away any secrets.”
Morgan laughed at the description. “Well, if you ask me, he succeeded royally. Tell me, how did you manage to stay awake?” he asked. “Because I almost fell asleep a number of times.”
“By forcing myself to wait to hear that one phrase, that one sentence that would ultimately make everything crystal clear,” she told Morgan.
“Did I miss it?” Morgan asked.
“No, you didn’t,” Krys told him. “Apparently Peters was utterly full of himself and didn’t care who knew it. He’s just part of the research group, not the head of the team. That’s a position being held by Lawrence Jacobs,” she informed the police detective.
“Jacobs,” Morgan repeated. “Is he on your list of people to interview?”
“He definitely is,” she confirmed with feeling.
“When’s the interview?”
“I’m still working on getting an appointment to see him,” she confessed. “Jacobs is not an easy man to get a hold of. He’s been out of town for the last week, working on getting the final funding.”
Morgan wasn’t sure that he followed what she was telling him. “You mean they still haven’t gotten the money for this
