He had to be making this up. There was no other explanation for this uncanny juggling act of his that he was boasting about. “I don’t believe you,” she told him.
“That is your prerogative,” Morgan replied magnanimously. “So, now that you’re up, what’s on tap for today?”
Discounting what he had just said to her about his unbelievable sleeping pattern, she focused on answering his question. “I’ve got four interviews set up for today. One of them is with a test subject who abruptly took back the story she had told me. I want to find out if she was lying to me then, or if she is currently lying now.”
He thought of what he’d had to go through himself on those occasions when he was forced to dig down until he finally got to the truth. Sympathizing with her, Morgan shook his head.
“Something wrong?” she asked him. She could feel herself growing defensive even though she didn’t have a clue as to why.
“Doesn’t it sometimes get to you?” Morgan asked her.
“Doesn’t what sometimes get to me?” Krys asked.
“Always having to lock horns with people, dealing with them as if lying was a given, or that they thought of you as the enemy,” he said.
“I tell myself that I’m ultimately looking for the truth and that’s really enough to placate me,” she told Morgan.
He didn’t look convinced. “What if you don’t find the truth?”
That meant giving up and it just didn’t happen, she thought. “Then I just keep digging until I do,” she told him.
Morgan had no doubts that she was telling the truth. She didn’t give up until she had her answers no matter how long it took—and that apparently was what was putting her life in danger, he thought.
He supposed that sort of dedication was to be admired, but he wasn’t here to admire her. He was here to make sure that she didn’t get killed because of her “noble” dedication.
But who would take over after he accomplished his job? After he kept her safe until her stalker was apprehended—or permanently stopped. He had no doubt that she would continue operating this way when she undertook her search for the next story, the next truth.
The next dangerous subject matter that could get her killed.
Not his problem, Morgan told himself. He just had to get her through this.
Even as he thought it, he didn’t completely believe it.
“Since you don’t have anything to eat, how do you feel about getting breakfast at your local fast food place?” he asked her.
“I feel fine about it,” she answered. “As a matter of fact, my system would probably go into some kind of shock if I actually ate breakfast in a real kitchen,” she confessed.
He looked at her thoughtfully. “That sounds like a challenge,” he told her.
“No, no challenge. Just a simply fact,” she replied. At this point in her life, she’d had more breakfasts on the go than she had consumed sitting down in an actual kitchen.
He nodded, getting ready to leave with her. “Remind me to stop at a grocery store on our way home tonight so I can pick up some things and make you a real breakfast tomorrow morning.”
“Do you actually want to cook?” she asked him, saying the verb as if it was tantamount to running naked through a town square.
“Do I really want to?” he repeated, rolling the question over in his mind. “No,” he answered honestly. “But it’s one of those necessary evils that you learn to live with,” he told her. “Right along with paying taxes—and obeying the law.”
Does he really equate the two? she wondered. “You’re kidding me now, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “I guess I must be doing a decent enough job at it since you’re obviously not really sure what I’m doing.”
No, she thought, and that went double for her because instead of concentrating on the story, the way she should have been, she found herself thinking things about Morgan Cavanaugh that had absolutely nothing to do with her story, or leads or what she did for a living.
Focus, damn it. Stop thinking about how he makes your skin tingle, she upbraided herself. You don’t get paid for that.
“Let’s just say I’m good at guessing,” she finally told him. “Now I’ve got less than an hour before my first appointment, so let’s hope that fast food place lives up to its name.”
“Count on it,” he told her as they walked out of her house.
He paused in order to make sure that her door was securely locked. Satisfied, he nodded and gestured for her to keep walking.
Chapter 12
Krys shifted in her seat.
“I feel like I’m growing roots,” Morgan said. His eyes never left the entrance leading into the Mexican restaurant. He and Krys had been sitting in the parking lot for almost an hour and a half waiting for her contact to arrive. “I’ve certainly consumed enough ice tea to sufficiently water a tree. You sure that woman you’re supposed to be meeting got the name of the restaurant right?” he asked Krys.
“She was the one who picked it,” she told Morgan.
So far, Claire Williams, the woman who had already changed her story once, was turning out to be a no-show. The meeting for the interview had been set up to take place in this restaurant, which was clear across the city, far away from Weatherly Pharmaceuticals, solely for the reason that the woman was afraid of being accidentally overheard by someone from the company. But apparently Claire Williams had decided that this wasn’t safe enough, and she had either changed her mind about the meeting or even possibly lost her nerve.
They had been sitting out here all this time waiting for her to show, but it was looking as if she wasn’t going to.
Krys had been checking her phone every few minutes for a call or text, expecting to
