“Don’t worry,” he reassured her. “I can be charming if I have to be.”
Something warm undulated through her as her eyes met his. “Yes, I know.”
Morgan’s smile drifted up into his eyes. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”
She was going to have to watch that, Krys warned herself. This wasn’t the first time he had caused her guard to slip.
Drawing her shoulders back, she told him, “Take that any way you want to.”
Morgan merely continued smiling at her.
Krys was extremely glad they were about to get out of the house. The way she was feeling right now, it wasn’t safe remaining here with him. She was completely aware that there were police officers in the vicinity, watching her house—watching her—but that didn’t help her situation right now, not when Morgan was right here, up close and personal and practically in her very shadow.
A few minutes later they were all ready to leave to grab a quick breakfast before she got started going to her interviews when Morgan’s cell phone rang.
“Cavanaugh,” Morgan said as he swiped opened his phone.
Morgan saw that the incoming call was from the CSI unit head. He didn’t know whether to relax or brace himself.
“You asked me to call you when Bluebeard’s body arrived,” Sean told his nephew.
Krys saw Morgan glance in her direction. She was instantly alert.
“What is it?” she asked.
Morgan didn’t bother to cover the microphone. “It’s the CSI unit chief,” he told her, then said, “The body just arrived.”
Everything except for her two o’clock interview was immediately put on hold in her brain. She could reschedule the other interviews. This was more important.
“Let’s go,” she urged, then headed for the front door.
“You guessed it. She definitely wants to see the body. Right,” he confirmed. “We’re on our way.”
Krys waited for him to open up his vehicle. “He didn’t think I’d want to come?” she asked, getting in on the passenger side. She’d thought she’d made that clear the other day.
“It’s not that,” Morgan told her, getting in on the driver’s side. “He just didn’t think you were going to almost break your neck getting to view the dead body.”
She looked at Morgan as he started up his vehicle. “I want to be sure it’s him, and I want to be sure he’s dead,” she told him. “Now let’s go.”
Morgan gave her a little salute as he pulled out of her driveway. “Your wish, Kowalski, is my command.”
Settling back in the passenger seat, she blew out a deep breath.
“Something wrong?” Morgan asked her.
“No, nothing,” she said. “I just still can’t believe he’s dead.”
“Well, someone in that coffin certainly is,” he told her drolly.
Krys stared straight ahead, different thoughts going through her head. “I spent more than nine months chasing after that man’s story, putting the pieces together, making sure that all those different men were actually one and the same person. And now I’ve got the final proof. It’s hard to believe it’s really finally over,” she said in a dazed voice. She turned to look at Morgan. “They’re sure it’s him, right?”
“They’re sure,” he told her. “The fingerprints match. It’s him.”
She shook her head as realization sank in. “So many families are going to be relieved. I feel like I should give Valri something for all the hard work she did,” she told Morgan suddenly.
“Valri won’t accept it,” he told her. “She’d be the first one to tell you that she was just doing her job and that seventy-five percent of this kind of thing is pure luck.”
“Uh-huh.” Krys slanted a look at him. “There’s no need to be so modest. There’re no points off if you or Valri don’t take a huge bite of humble pie.” She firmly believed that people needed to take credit where credit was due.
“No humble pie,” Morgan assured her. “It’s just the way we were raised.”
They arrived quickly. Morgan paused after he got out of his car, and he looked at Krys intently. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’ve been ready for this for a long time,” she assured him.
But as she got off the elevator, walking beside Morgan, her hand dropped to her side as her breath backed up in her throat.
She felt Morgan take her hand, slipping his fingers through hers and tightening them. He didn’t say anything, but the simple action spoke volumes to her.
Taking a deep breath, she nodded her head slightly and then began to walk down the corridor, straight to the morgue.
Sean and Toni were waiting for them when they came into the room. Krys’s eyes were immediately drawn toward the body that was on the table.
“Is that him?” she asked in a whisper.
“That’s what the paperwork that came with him said,” Toni told her. “They did an autopsy on him, but there were some things that were left unaddressed. I want to conduct my own autopsy on the man, but I thought you’d want to see him first.”
Krys said nothing as she approached the body of the man who had caused so much grief and pain.
“Doesn’t look like the kind of man who could sweet talk women out of their life savings and their common sense, does he?” Krys asked in a hushed voice.
“Most con artists don’t,” Sean told her.
“What about the woman?” Krys asked suddenly. Looking up, she turned toward Sean. “The report said that he had a woman with him. Do we have any details at all about her? Do you think she was his next victim?”
“We don’t know that yet,” Sean told them honestly. “Nothing’s been determined. Speculation is that he had kidnapped her and was fleeing with her when the police caught up to him. Most likely, he was planning on using her as a shield or perhaps as leverage to get the police to let him go.”
That sounded likely, Morgan thought. “So where is
