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I shook my head before Hansen could say anything. We couldn’t start talking about the Community and what they were doing. Or Yorov’s involvement. She didn’t know anything about that, and it wouldn’t help the police anyway. It certainly didn’t seem to be helping us.
“You must at least know who’s behind it?” she pressed. “How else would you know they’re after you?”
Damn cops, using their thinking boxes.
“A foreign company looking to further their business with corporate espionage,” Hansen said as he decided to give her something. “Wouldn’t you use her for that, too?”
“She already is, in a way,” I volunteered.
“I need to know whether or not to take this to Kaye and Bowman,” Mulligan continued, ignoring me. Maybe that wasn’t just Hansen? Maybe it was a police thing?
“If you do that, they’ll have to know everything,” Hansen said, glancing over at said detectives’ empty desks. “God knows I’ve been spending too much time running around blind.” He looked at me but said nothing more. The underlying jab about my secrecy was not lost on me.
“Please don’t do that,” I said and turned to look at her. “It has led us nowhere and won’t help them, either.”
Man, was she uncomfortable under my direct stare. I couldn’t blame her. But I didn’t want to be exposed to any more people, let alone cops.
Mulligan looked at me with clear skepticism, lips pursed sideways a little as she considered my plea. Finally, she turned to Hansen. “What do you think?”
Apparently,Iwas not to have a say in this. I could try and run away, of course. I turned back in my seat.
“Let them live in ignorant bliss if you ask me,” Hansen said to my utter surprise. He’d wanted to involve his colleagues the whole time. “She’s right. Knowing she’s the intended target won’t help them any, and they will want to know why.”
“We can convince them easily enough,” Mulligan said. “That is…you can,” she told me.
Hansen suddenly tried hard not to smile. “I bet you she’s already thinking of escape routes out of here to avoid that.”
I didn’t deny it. Only sat in silence, pondering how the hell Hansen had known that, while hearing the chief exhale. She couldn’t force me to prove I could listen in. If I didn’t cooperate, she would look like a fool. Worse, actually. She would seem like she’d lost her marbles. Not a good way to keep your job. At that point, I couldn’t help but smile a little, noticing Hansen giving me a sideways stare. Only because he’d helped, didn’t mean he agreed with me.
“Fine,” I heard Mulligan say, though I had lost interest by now. “But if you find out anything—”
“You’ll be the first to know,” Hansen agreed before she took her leave of us and headed for her office.
So, he’d helped me. But why? Because he knew I was his way to find Andrea? It had to be. He knew I wouldn’t cooperate with any more cops. This was the only way to keep tabs on me. Well, judging by Eddie’s time estimate, no cop in Ashport would be keeping tabs on me for much longer.
“So?” he asked, interrupting my train of thought. I looked at him, raising my eyebrows.
“You sure you have nothing to share regarding Freddy Miller?”
Oh, so we were back there again. Not one to let things go, this one. Nope. He was like a dog with a bone when on to something.
“You might have given me a hand with Mulligan,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll start sharing information I didn’t have before.”
He gave me an absolute blank stare for a moment before he logged off his computer and stood up. “Come on,” he said. “School’s almost out.”
I practically jumped out of the chair, having momentarily forgotten the little girl we were supposed to look out for. Normally, that would have made me feel guilty, but my head was wrapped up in too many problems at that time. One of them showing its smug face a couple of seconds later.
Chapter 14
As I followedHansen toward the entrance, our way was blocked by an impeccable dark suit, with a seemingly unhurt agent inside it.
“Going somewhere?” Agent Larkin asked as we were forced to stop.
“Agent Larkin,” I said, smiling wide. “How're your balls? Come down again yet?”
I wondered how it must have been waking up on Highfield Ridge in the middle of the night, hurting and confused. The agent’s eyes did not look kindly at me.
“A word?” he simply said and indicated the closest interrogation room with a nod of his head. The tone of his voice told us we didn’t have much of a choice. Not if we wanted to avoid any attention.
