Page 2 of Silent Watch
"You were watching me."
He didn't deny it.
"For how long?"she asked.
"Two months.Give or take."
Her fingers tightened on the cup.She held very still for three seconds—counting, he realized, the way you counted when the ground shifted under you, and you needed it to stop.
"I'm not here to hurt you," he said.
"People who say that usually are."
"I'm not most people."
She studied him across the table.Her gaze was clinical.Surgical.She was reading him the way she'd read a source—looking for the tells, the inconsistencies, the places where the story didn't hold.
"No," she said slowly."You're not."She took a sip of her coffee."What do you want, Caleb Rourke?"
He hadn't told her his name at the wedding.They had exchanged maybe ten words, all of them careful, all of them circling.
"You did your homework."
"I always do my homework.It's how I've stayed alive this long."She set down her cup."You're a security consultant.Or that's what your cover says.You work with the man who just got married.Ronan Cross.Except Ronan Cross isn't really a security consultant either, is he?"
Caleb kept his expression neutral.
"Warren Caldwell is in federal custody," Harper continued."The land fraud operation that was bleeding this town dry is dismantled.Those aren't the results of a security assessment.Those are the results of an investigation.The kind that doesn't show up on official channels."
She was good.Better than good.Over a year underground had not dulled her instincts.
"What's your point?"
"My point is that you're hunting the same thing I am.And you have resources I don't have."She leaned forward, her eyes locked on his."The shell companies I was investigating in Mobile.The ones that got my source killed.They're connected to the same network that was operating here.Warren Caldwell wasn't running his own show.He was a regional player in something bigger."
Caleb said nothing.But his silence was its own answer.
"I've been in Blossom Springs for three weeks," Harper said."Working under a cover.Asking questions carefully.And the patterns I'm seeing..."She shook her head."The operation you just took down was one arm of an octopus.There are seven more.Maybe more than that."
"What do you want from me?"
"An alliance."The word came out flat.Practical."You have access to databases I can't touch.Digital resources that would take me months to build.I have fourteen months of research.Source networks.Human intelligence that your digital forensics can't capture."She spread her hands on the table."We're both hunting the same monster.We can do it alone and probably fail.Or we can do it together and have a chance."
"You don't know me."
"I know you didn't turn me in when you found me.I know you came to this meeting instead of sending someone to pick me up."Her jaw tightened."I know that you're the first person in fourteen months who's looked at me like I'm a person instead of a problem."
The words landed harder than she probably intended.Caleb thought about the briefing materials he had compiled on her.
The articles she had written before she went underground.Sharp, fearless journalism that made powerful people uncomfortable.The source whose death had sent her running.The editorial note at the end of her last published piece: "Due to circumstances beyond our control, Ms.Wynn is no longer available for comment."
She had been erased.And she was still fighting.
"Show me what you have," he said.
She reachedinto her bag and pulled out a tablet.
"I don't carry original documents anymore.Everything is encrypted, backed up to three separate locations."She tapped the screen and turned it to face him."This is what I've built over the past three weeks."
