AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“No. Nothing.”
“Want me to take a look?” he offered.
“No thanks. I can see that the bag is empty.”
He wiggled his fingers at her. “Take everything out again and toss me the bag.”
She stared at him for a long moment, tempted to tell him to butt out. She glanced at his hands, flattened on his computer. He wasn’t hiding anything there.
Finally, after removing the stuff she’d already replaced, she tossed him the bag. He didn’t look inside it -- apparently he trusted that she’d done a thorough job. Instead, he patted his hands along the sides of the bag. The bottom. Ran his fingers over the handles.
Then he slid one hand into the bag and put the other on the outside. Slid both hands over one side from top to bottom. Side to side. Repeated it on the middle zipper pocket. Then the other side of the bag.
About half-way down the bag, he froze. Used his fingers to probe at the leather. Pluck at the lining. Sighed.
“C’mere,” he said, motioning her to his bed.
She sat beside him, leaving at least a foot between them. “You find something?”
“Not sure, but there’s something in between the leather and the lining. Let me show you.”
He took her hands in his. Pressed one against the leather. Pressed the other against the lining. Calluses on his fingers rasped against the backs of her hands, making her shiver.
His fingers were strong. His hands covered hers completely, making her feel small. Delicate, compared to him. “There,” he said, apparently not noticing the way her hands felt beneath his. “You feel that?”
There was a bump between the cloth and the lining. About the size and shape of the tracker she’d found earlier in her tote. The one that Gideon had dropped in her bag at the Mexican restaurant. “Is that what I think it is? A tracker?” she asked, fear curdling in her gut. If Jerry was tracking her, he could be close behind her. Getting closer as they sat in this motel room.
“I think so,” he said, his hands tightening on hers for a moment before dropping away. “Feels like it, anyway. Have you lost anything recently that feels like that?”
She drew a shuddering breath, then blew it out, trying to banish her terror. “It feels like the trackers I sometimes plant on my clients,” she said when she was sure her voice would be steady. “I keep them in a pocket of my tote. The one on the other side of the bag.”
“Any chance one could have fallen between the lining and the leather?” he asked, his voice calm. Logical.
She shook her head slowly. “I don’t think so. I haven’t had any in my tote for a while. I’ve been focused on the case we just wrapped up, and I didn’t feel I needed a tracker for that client.”
He leaned back and studied her. “When do you feel like you need to track your clients?”
“If I think they’re a flight risk, I drop a tracker in their bag. So I can retrieve them if they take off. Not good for a defense attorney’s reputation if her clients go missing.”
After a long moment of studying her, he said in an expressionless voice, “Isn’t that illegal?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding. “Illegal as hell. But the people I use trackers on aren’t going to complain to the judge. Most of the time, they don’t even realize how I found them. I don’t use them very often. Only if my client is desperate enough to take off.”
“So Alex Conway isn’t as lily-white as her reputation,” Gideon said.
She tilted her head to study him. “Is anyone lily-white? You’re a former FBI agent. Did you ever do anything during a case that was against the law? Or that violated the spirit of it?”
“Of course I have,” he said, his voice rough as he looked away. “But it was for the greater good.”
“Exactly why I sometimes plant tracking devices on my clients,” she said.
Their words hung heavily between them for a long moment, then Alex straightened. “We should remove the tracker, shouldn’t we?”
Gideon stared at the bag, his gaze unfocused. “Yeah,” he finally said. “I toyed with the idea of leaving it there. Using it to lure him in so I can take him down. But that’s too damn dangerous. So let’s take it out.”
Alex nodded, prodding at the place where she’d felt the tracker. It was at the bottom of the bag. Near a seam in the lining. “I think I’ll have to cut open the lining to get the tracker out.”
“Before you do that, check for holes in the lining,” Gideon said. “Trotter had to get that tracker in the bag somehow.”
