Page 41 of Daring You

12

Astor

It’s betterto go the polite route first.

That’s what my mom taught me, a bunch of nonsense about catching more flies with honey that I groaned at as a teenager, but now wish I could hear again from her lips as an adult.

Finding the number for the US Marshals Service was easy enough. Taryn’s in her own cubicle today, attempting to research other ways of tracking down a material witness under protection.

The futileness of our goal is like a loudspeaker against my ear, but I can’t shake the idea that there’s a reason Yang wants the associates on Ryan Delaney’s tail, and hell if I won’t be the one to figure it out first.

Then I was laughed at—repeatedly—over the phone by a man named Aiden Watts, Federal US Marshal.

“Listen, honey—”

Big mistake. “I’m not your honey or dear or sweetheart or strawberry tartlet,” I interrupt. “I’m an associate at Costello, Wine & Cottone, and I want answers. If you can’t give them to me, I’ll be forced to get creative, and believe me, when I do that, I usually unearth facts that the other party really wants kept quiet.”

“You’re not going to find anything, anywhere,” Watts says, my scolding having zero effect.

“I want to know where Ryan Delaney is. His life could be in danger. This is a well-known, well-funded crime ring we’re talking about, here.”

“His life is not in danger,” Watts says, “because he’s adequately protected. I want to say that any sniffing around you do will likely compromise him, but sniff away. You’re not gonna find him.”

“He’s a grown man. What does he want? Have you considered that?”

“He wants nothing to do with whatever you’ve got going on with your two men in custody.”

“Aha, so you’re admitting you talked to him.” I prop my elbows on my desk, holding the phone in the crook of my neck and ear and write down, AIDEN WATTS - contact for RD.

Aiden muffles a curse, then recovers quickly with, “Of course I have. I’m a Marshal.”

“But you might not’ve been his Marshal.” I tap the pen against the desk. “Is he in New York City?”

“He’s not anywhere you’ll be able to locate.”

“Yet.”

“He doesn’t want to be found, Miss Hayes.”

“Well, I work for my clients, not for him.”

“Goodbye, Miss Hayes.”

“Until I call you again, at least.” I rush to say before he hangs up, “Which I will.”

Click.

God. Some parts of this job, I really do feel like a tabloid reporter.

I set the phone back on its handle, and slump back in my chair, thinking. The polite route didn’t work. I didn’t think it would, but had to cross it off my list before the deluge of phone calls Mr. Watts is going to get once the other associates get a whiff—but now I’m stumped.

I’ve never had to locate someone in WITSEC before, an acronym for Federal Witness Security, the official term for witness protection. And from my research, nobody else was successful, either. Not if the witness played by the cops’ rules and stayed clean. As far as I can tell, Ryan Delaney poofed out of existence the night his parents were killed. He hasn’t done anything to make his identity known, that I can see, and he’s been under protection since he was a toddler. He’s unlikely to do anything now.

Unless.

He must’ve heard about Lopez and Garcia’s arrests. I have to use this to my advantage, flush him out somehow, maybe go to the press anonymously with some insider information about the case. But that blurs a whole bunch of lines.

Am I that desperate?

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