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“I didn’t tell a lot of folks I was leaving,” she said, as the doors drew closer. “I didn’t want everyone to know?—”
“Because you didn’ttrustthem.”
She didn’t trust anyone. “I still don’t.” Her clothes were wrinkled, courtesy of the long ride, and she hadn’t bothered with makeup that morning—there hadn’t been time—so Erin knew she probably looked like hell. Not the perfectly pressed ADA image she’d worked so hard to maintain.
Her shoulders straightened. “Only one person knew I was up for the job in Baton Rouge. I wanted to keep it as quiet as possible. The bastard after me seemed to know too much.”
“He still does.” Jude reached for the door and closed his tanned fingers over the gleaming handle. “We’re gonna be seeing the one who knew about your transfer after we leave the station.”
Yes, they were. Seeing the DA again was one of the reasons she’d wanted to come along. She’d worked hard to disappear. The stalker shouldn’t have found her. Unless someone had told him about her plans.
“Hey, Jerome!” A bellow loud enough to shake her bones. A cop, a tall, skeletally thin black man with faint gray in his hair, jumped up from behind the check-in desk. “You finally brought your butt back home!”
She smiled at him. “Hi, Pat.” Patrick Ramsey. Patrick one-more-year-til-I’m-out-give-me-a-desk Ramsey. The guy had taken four bullets in his career. Tossed hundreds of perps into the pen, and he’d once told her he couldn’t wait for the day he got to kiss the badge goodbye and go lay on a Mexican beach.
He shot around the desk. Pretty fast for a cop whose knee had been blasted two years ago. He wrapped her in a hug that squeezed her bones. He’d always been so much stronger than he looked. “What the hell?You didn’t even tell old Pat goodbye! That tightass DA had to give me the news.”
She tried to breathe. Quick, shallow breaths. That was all she could manage right then.
He dropped his hold.
She sucked in a deep gulp of air. “Sorry, Pat, I-I had some personal things I had to?—”
“Personal, huh?” He fired an assessing glance back at Jude. “Guess he’s to blame?”
Her jaw dropped.
But Jude gave a nod. “Guess I am.”
Pat sized him up. “You look like a cop.”
“I’m not.”
Pat’s raised brows called him a liar.
“Bounty hunter.” Jude pulled out his ID. Pat never glanced at it. “Erin’s helping me on a case.”
“You?” He stared down at her and then gave a nod. “Always said the law was too tame for you.”
Too tame.Pat had always been good at seeing below the surface. That was one of the reasons he’d done such good undercover work back in the day. She smiled but the motion of her lips felt too fake. “I need a favor.”
A shrug. “Figure I owe you a few of those.”
Yes, he did. And she was sure glad he’d been the first cop she saw. Maybe fate was trying to throw her a bone.
But, ah, now for the delicate part. “I need to check some case files. We’re after a guy, a real bad asshole, and I need to see if his MO matches up with any unsolved crimes here.”
Pat scratched his chin. “That’s a bit dicey.”
She stared up at him. “I need this. You know me, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
His gaze held hers. Then he smiled and looked ten years younger. “What the hell? I’m down to days here now and it’s not like the bastards are gonna fire me for letting the ex-ADA review some of her old files, right? Besides, Ben isn’t here now. Gone on vacation. So it’ll be all right with the other guys in the?—”
Ben isn’t here.
Erin exhaled. One less worry. Because she’d sure been dreading seeing her ex-lover.
She still wasn’t sure what to say to him. How to explain...
