Page 59 of Steele

“Your ex-wife deserves the same courtesy,” Steele said. “What about an address for Waylon Brooks?”

“I already gave them that,” Feldman protested.

One ATF agent nodded. “Perkins checked it out. No sign of the guy.”

“Well, let’s hope he doesn’t end up like Starkey,” Steele muttered. “Anything else?”

“No.” Jake stared down at the table as if he couldn’t bear to meet Harper’s gaze. “I’ve given you everything I know.”

Bringing the interview to an end, Steele escorted Harper back out to Rhy’s office. “Stay here until they take Feldman outside.”

She was unusually subdued. He dropped to one knee beside her. “You don’t look happy, Harper. I warned you that confronting your ex wouldn’t be pleasant.”

“It never occurred to me that he hadn’t heard about my pregnancy.” Her voice was so low it was difficult to hear. “I—should have thought this through.”

He wasn’t sure what to say. “I’m sure once he testifies against Grotto, he’ll be relocated to the other side of the country.”

“But he’ll be free, right?” She lifted her dark-green eyes to his. “There would be nothing holding him back from coming to find me. To try to see his son or daughter.”

“Do you have reason to believe he’d want the child?”

“No. I mean, I don’t think so.” She gnawed on her lower lip. “But I can’t bear the thought of him coming to find me.”

Was she saying she wanted to be placed in witness protection too? Oddly that idea was repugnant. He didn’t want Harper to leave the city, moving to a new location to start over.

Then he reminded himself he shouldn’t be selfish. “If you want to be set up with a new identity, we can make those arrangements.”

“No, I don’t want to leave here, this is my home. I’ve made friends in church. But...” She shrugged. “I don’t know what to do. I was such a fool to insist on confronting Jake.”

He hesitated, then said, “You don’t have to decide anything now, Harper.”

She nodded and tucked a strand of her long blond hair behind her ear. “What’s next?”

“We need to find a new place to stay.” He’d been about to ask Rhy about a safe house when they’d interrupted his meeting with the captain. He wanted a place that was well under the radar of even the ATF agents assigned to the case.

“Another hotel?” Harper asked.

He inwardly sighed. “For now.”

“What about the computer we had to leave behind?” Harper asked. “Can we go back to get it? I’d like to be able to get a little more work done.”

“No way.” His tone was sharper than he’d intended. “I don’t think you should log into work again anyway. We don’t know for sure how we were found.”

“It makes no sense that my boss would be involved,” she insisted. “He’s a very successful lawyer. And if he wanted me to be taken, why not wait until I was up in the office?”

She had a point. “What about one of his clients?”

“What reason would a client have to come after me?” She rubbed her temple. “You don’t seem to get how important it is for me to have time off after my baby is born.”

“I do understand.” He reached for her hand. “I got a text from Brock. He’ll be here soon. We can probably grab one of the computers here to use for a while.”

“Okay.”

He squeezed her hand and stood. When he’d glimpsed the spreadsheet over her shoulder, he’d noticed many billable hours assigned to Neil Otterson. He knew Otterson had been arrested for killing two young Hispanic men in a so-called attempted carjacking. But maybe there was more to the guy than they knew.

“Make yourself at home,” Rhy said with a smile when he returned to his office.

“We did, thanks. Hey, will you give me Brady’s number?” He reached for his boss’s phone. “I want to run something past him.”

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