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“Good morning.”
Good morning, Hollis,” Locke said, stepping aside to let her in. He’d been right. She looked just as feminine in a pantsuit as she did in her pencil skirts and jackets, and as usual, she smelled good, and her hair looked impeccably styled. “How did things go yesterday?”
“I got three items off my ‘to do’ list completed.”
“Sounds good. You want to cover them with me over coffee in my office.”
“Sure.”
“And your desk arrived yesterday.”
“Yay!” The news clearly thrilled her. You would have thought he’d just announced she’d won the lotto. If getting a desk made her that excited, he wondered what a morning after spending the night in a man’s bed would do for her. Granted, the man took care of business the way he should have.
“The dining room table was nice, but I’m used to having my own space. The library will work better for me.”
“Glad to hear it.”
She then rushed by him to the library, and he couldn’t help but smile. If only more women took such joy in receiving small items. But then the desk wasn’t all that small. There was no doubt it would fit her needs. He’d even had Carol purchase a file cabinet and a few other things.
He was standing at the coffee maker in his office when she entered. “So, what do you think of your desk?”
“I love it!” she said, accepting the cup of coffee from him.
“Bigger than the one you normally work at in your home?” he asked.
“Definitely. My office at home is really small, but I don’t need as much space. Preparing for a trial seems to require more organization for the evidence collected.”
“You didn’t have that at the Bureau?”
“Yes, but for security reasons, those files were kept in a separate department and not in our office.”
He nodded as he watched her cross the room to take the chair in front of his desk. After pouring a cup of coffee for himself, he moved to his desk and sat down. “So tell me about yesterday.”
“I told you about what happened on Elm Street, but what I didn’t tell you was that when I was leaving, I got an alert that someone had placed a tracker on my car.”
The coffee cup froze midway to his lips, and he placed it down on his desk. “You were tracked yesterday?”
“Yes, and according to Rexar, I still am. I figured someone is trying to establish a pattern of my activities. So they know that, in addition to my visit to Elm Street yesterday, I went to the police station, a sandwich shop for lunch with Detective Connors, and the Tampa FBI office. If anything, they know I am earning my pay. However, I believe they had hoped I would lead them to where Karl and now Nyla are.”
He picked up his coffee to take a sip and casually asked, “You had lunch with Detective Connors?”
He hoped she did not pick up the agitation in his voice. There was something about the man he didn’t like, and it had nothing to do with the case. Mainly because Connors had made his interest in Hollis so obvious when he had interviewed them about Nick Underwood. That shouldn’t bother him since the man’s attraction to Hollis really wasn’t any of his business.
“Yes. He works in a squad room which does not afford much privacy, so he suggested we go to lunch.”
Locke just bet he had. “Did you learn anything new?”
“Nothing more than I suspected all along. Although the insurance company is a legitimate business, the insurance adjuster was not.”
“Interesting. Someone else using fake credentials.”
“Of course I mentioned that to him, just as an observation. Then I asked about the gun Karl used to shoot Donnie Barcos. The serial number has been wiped off, and Detective Connors wanted me to believe further pursuit would be a dead end. I don’t know what game he’s playing, but he and I both learned from the FBI academy that it’s not. They may not have the resources to pursue it further and are too proud to ask the FBI for assistance. I think he’s hoping that I won’t have any qualms doing so and will share any findings through discovery.”
He nodded. “Anything else?”
“While at police headquarters, I requested a copy of the boutique video from the cloud and the autopsy report on Nick Underwood. I should have them by now and will spend the morning reviewing both.”
After taking a sip of her coffee, she continued, “My contact at the FBI, Agent Jack Wells, wasn’t all that cooperative. He had done his research on me, so he should have known what to expect, but tried pushing my buttons anyway. I left him with an understanding that I would be doing my job, and he should do his. He did say the issue of the fake agents was being investigated further.”
