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“You have a way with critters,” Emma said, giving him a smile. She didn’t come any closer though, and Ted suddenly felt her nerves.
“Yeah.” Ted looked at the computer screen. “I won’t close any of this. I just need the Internet.”
“How do you look up a license plate?” she asked.
“In another life,” Ted said. “I was a lawyer.” He glanced at her. “And we learn all kinds of tricks to get information.” He didn’t want to get too deep into what he’d done as a lawyer, because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to keep his questions to himself.
He clicked and started typing. “There are a lot of things that are public,” he said. “If you know where to look.”
“What kind of lawyer were you?” Emma asked.
Ted heard the trepidation in her voice, and he forced himself not to look at her. Instead, he kept his focus on the computer screen as the State of Texas website came up. “I worked as an assistant prosecutor,” he said. “In the Southern District Federal Court System.”
“Wow,” she said. “That sounds so fancy.”
Ted chuckled as he typed in the license plate division. “It was a massive organization,” he said. “We spanned a couple dozen counties, and there were almost two hundred prosecutors in the office.”
“Hmm,” she said, and Ted sensed she had other questions she wanted to ask.
He swiped and tapped to get to the note he’d taken for the license plate, and he typed it into the system.
“Kind of funny how a lawyer ended up in prison,” she said, trying to be oh-so-nonchalant.
“Oh, you want to know why I went to prison.” Ted leaned away from the computer, because the information was right there on the screen. He didn’t have the same skills with names as he did faces, but it wasn’t going anywhere.
He looked at her, his eyebrows raised.
“I could just look in your file,” she said. “But I thought I’d ask right from the horse’s mouth.”
Ted nodded. “I don’t mind telling you, but I have something I want to ask you too.” He couldn’t have planned his opportunity to find out about her connection to Robert Knight better than this.
“All right,” she said.
“For real?” Ted asked. “I’m not going to tell you, and then you won’t like my question, so you won’t answer?”
“Maybe you better tell me the question first.” Emma reached up as if she’d tuck her hair, but it was all up in that ponytail.
Ted kept his gaze on hers, hoping and praying that she wouldn’t stalk away from him once he revealed the question. “I have seen you before,” he said slowly, trying to find the right words. “And I know where now.”
Her eyes rounded and widened and stayed that way. She clenched her arms across her middle, and Ted paused for a moment.
“You were in one of my case files when I was a lawyer,” he said. “You were a known associate of a man named Robert Knight, and I want to know what that association was, and if you’re in any trouble now because of it.”
Emma’s eyes filled with tears, and Ted got at least one of his questions answered with that. She was in trouble now, and it most likely had something to do with Robert Knight.
“I can—” he started, but she spun on her heel and beelined for the door.
“Help you,” Ted said to himself and the empty office. Sighing, he returned his attention to the computer screen and copied down the name tied to that license plate. After all, he didn’t have access to a computer in the Annex, and he wasn’t giving up on solving this mystery, even if he couldn’t get the information straight from Emma.
He stood up, sighing, and he’d taken two steps toward the doorway when Emma filled it again.
