Lisa Phillips - Manhunt

Her face shut down, as though she’d heard accusation in his voice. “Until seven years ago.”

“Joint custody?” She nodded, but he didn’t feel right leaving it at that. “Are you okay?”

Hailey studied him. “You’re not going to interrogate me for all the juicy details?”

“I figure if you want me to know then you’ll tell me.”

Eric was more than curious about what caused a vibrant woman like Hailey to marry suave Mr. Mayor. They did not fit together at all, which might explain the divorce, especially with Charles being remarried. Had he cheated on Hailey? Eric was glad he hadn’t been in town early enough to vote for the guy because he’d probably have volunteered to hand out flyers for his opponent.

No wonder she hadn’t accepted Eric’s partnership.

Hailey pulled open her top drawer and drew out a photo, which she handed to him. “That was a year ago.”

An older man who’d bequeathed Hailey a wide jaw and his nose sat with Hailey and a red-haired girl around a restaurant table. The same girl Eric had seen in the picture at Deirdre’s house. Hailey’s daughter.

“How old is she?”

“Kerry will be thirteen next month.”

Eric was thirty-two, which meant Hailey could easily be older than him, by at least a couple of years.

Her jaw flexed, and she answered his unspoken question. “I’m thirty-five.”

Eric hesitated, measuring his words. “High school sweethearts?”

Hailey’s face morphed into something that looked like pain. “We did get married because of Kerry, but we were in college. It wasn’t long before I realized Charles was only pretending he wanted to be there. He loves Kerry in his own way. It’s just me he wasn’t able to live with.”

“Did he cheat on you?”

Hailey brushed back a strand of hair that had fallen loose. “Let’s just get back to work, okay?”

Eric shrugged like his world wasn’t still spinning faster than normal. “Sure.”

He knew she and Kerry lived with her dad. The guys on the team had told him that much about her when they’d warned him about his new partner. Prickly was the word they’d used. That had been an understatement. Getting her to open up even a little bit felt like a victory, one he wasn’t going to take lightly.

No wonder she’d hesitated before, when he suggested they partner up. He hadn’t even thought Hailey might be concerned about whether she could trust him or not. It made him want to prove himself, to tell her about his life and his own family so she would know for sure she could rely on him.

Eric studied her, and she didn’t look away, so he turned in his chair to face her. “Thank you for sharing with me. You know I worked with WITSEC. That means I know a little something about keeping secrets. And finding someone you can trust with part of yourself is huge.”

She waved away his words. “Whatever. It’s not a big deal, Hanning.”

Eric studied her as she got back to work. He knew she didn’t mean it. Hailey seemed to live her life in “protection” mode, never letting anyone get close to her. Getting burned by her husband couldn’t have been easy. Eric knew what it was like to lose a relationship with someone you cared about.

Had she loved Charles? If they’d had a baby together, she must have felt something for him. But it didn’t necessarily mean they’d been head-over-heels in love. She’d avoided the question enough for him to know there was more to the story. Not that he cared, of course. But he was curious. And the more he learned about her, the more Eric wanted to know what was below the surface.

He looked back at the computer, and pain sparked behind his eyes. “Maybe we should get some dinner.” The granola bar he kept in his desk had been stale, and now he was hungry again. “We could order pizza. You like pepperoni?”

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head. “Ham and pineapple.”

Eric made a gagging noise and picked up the phone. “Two pizzas it is.”

Half an hour later the door buzzed and the rest of the team swept in. Jonah wiped his mouth with a napkin and broke off to Turner’s office. Two of the others had pizza boxes from the place he’d ordered them from. He should never have paid over the phone.

They tossed the boxes on the side of Eric’s desk. A detective from Portland who’d been transferred to their team grinned. “Thanks for dinner.”

Eric flipped the lid of the top box open. A single strand of cheese remained. He pushed up the other. The entire ham-and-pineapple pizza was untouched.

“Charles!”

Eric looked over. Jonah shook hands with the mayor, but it was more businesslike than personal. He couldn’t tell if Jonah liked or disliked the mayor. Eric wasn’t sure if that said more about Charles or about Jonah.

Marshal Turner hauled his girth out of his chair and slapped Charles on the back. All three men broke into a round of manly chuckles, though Jonah’s laugh sounded more polite than anything else.

Eric sighed. The WITSEC office he’d worked in had been much smaller. Navigating the politics of a large fugitive apprehension team was proving to be a lot harder. It was going to take him a while to figure out each member of the team, and to ascertain how he fit into the group.

Eric slid out Hailey’s pizza box and handed it to her.

She frowned. “You don’t want any?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Hailey’s phone rang and she snapped it up. “Shelder.” She listened. “Thank you.”

She replaced the phone and looked at him. “Blood test has been done. They’re emailing over the results.”

She hopped up and strode to Turner’s door, knocked and stuck her head in. Seconds later Jonah strode out. Eric got up and met their huddle around Hailey’s desk, while she opened the email and scanned the test results.

“The blood found at the airport was degraded too much by rain and jet fuel. They weren’t able to pull together a pure enough sample to run through the system.”

Jonah’s eyes were dark. “So we’ve got nothing?” He glanced at Eric for a second, and then back at Hailey. “Both of you fire a shot, one of you hits someone with enough accuracy to make them bleed, and it turns up nothing?”

Eric folded his arms. The bad weather wasn’t their fault.

Hailey sat back in her chair. “We need another lead.”

“We need to find Deirdre.”

Hailey glanced at Eric and nodded. She’d done well earlier, coming up with the result they’d gained at Deirdre’s house. Anything was better than nothing.

Jonah glanced at the window, where rain was pounding against the glass and gray clouds hung low in the sky. “Get back out there. Get me something on Farrell.”

Eric nodded.

Hailey stood. “I have to pick up Kerry.”

Jonah said, “Okay. Do what you gotta do and then get back to work.” He turned to Eric. “We need to know who helped Farrell.”

Eric sat back down at his desk and watched Hailey pull on her jacket while Jonah strode back over to Turner’s office and let himself in. None of them had expected the blood test results to turn up absolutely nothing.

His phone rang. The display said Aaron .

Eric sighed, not at all in the mood to speak with his twin brother. No matter how many times he was going to call.

FIVE

Hailey sat in the car looking up and down the sidewalk for Kerry and her neon backpack. Eric’s disappointment in her refusing his offer of a partnership stung. Still, something kept Hailey on the ledge instead of jumping off and trusting Eric completely. She just didn’t want to admit to herself that it had everything to do with Charles.

Eventually the team was going to see her for the asset she was. Eric was a decent partner, but he didn’t get what she was trying to do. He had no need to prove himself to anyone, but Hailey had to keep the doubts at bay. She couldn’t let herself be ruled by what the people in this town had thought of her for so long.