Intimate Knowledge (16 page)

Tristan and Lucas both nodded.

“Right, then let’s move on. I assume the two of you were conferring about the new evidence that Abigail Turner is being held against her will in a clinic on a seventy-two-hour suicide watch? Yes, of course you were, I can tell by that guilty look on your face, Sloan. What were you planning? Sloan?”

“Evidently she was placed into custody against her will,” Lucas replied, with a quick glance to Tristan to be certain of his support in this.

His partner’s gaze remained steady and he tilted his head faintly to indicate Lucas should continue.

“We were hoping that a plan to free her would be put in place that we could activate promptly. Clearly she is an innocent in this and Harper has been taking advantage of her.”

“Seems like you’re in luck, then,” Preston said a wry smile tilting the corner of his mouth up. “I agree with your assessment. I want you to be cautious here, Sloan, you’re flirting very close to the edge of being too emotionally invested in this case and this girl. Until we’re certain she is an innocent pawn, and not a willing party to Henley and Harper’s games I don’t want you getting too attached. If I feel your emotions are clouding your judgement, or compromising this case I’ll reassign you both faster than you can blink. One step over the line and I’ll write you up for insubordination. We clear on that?”

“Yes, sir,” they both replied.

Lucas had to swallow down the instinctive and gut-deep reaction of denial. This was
his
case, he needed to rescue this woman.

Even as he thought it, Lucas could see he had already privately stepped over the line of what was proper and what was not. In his heart he knew Tristan had guessed, but nevertheless protected him, and for that he was grateful. Their partnership might have begun as a rocky road, but they had settled into a friendship that only strengthened over time. Lucas wouldn’t want to test that newly blossoming relationship with too much weight at this early stage, but for now he decided he could trust Tristan to back him up.

“I understand that your first priority will be to get this girl out of the clinic and safe,” Jones said, his deep voice firm and serious. “But I need to give more than that to the higher-ups. If they have her under psych evaluation she might be doped to the gills on meds, in who knows what kind of physical and mental state. Questioning her immediately might need to take a back seat to the Agency medics doing their job and keeping her well.”

“You want us to question the staff?” Tristan asked sceptically. “If we’re going to be carting off one of their patients—with or without their approval—I doubt that will lend them to standing around placidly answering twenty questions with us.”

“No shit,” Preston cut back. “I was thinking more along the lines of perhaps one of you getting the girl under control and the other doing something useful, like nosing into their records, seeing what information they have on Dr Harper that might be of use to us. Small, unimportant things like that.”

“I can get the guys in tech to set up an external hard drive for us,” Lucas suggested. “Since George knows the software they’re using over there maybe he can help them get a drive copier installed for us, and instead of leafing through and scouring their drives we can just copy the lot?”

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About the Author

Elizabeth Lapthorne has been writing professionally since 2002. She has a number of books released and is continually surprised by how much fun she has starting a new book and discovering new characters and situations that they put themselves in. She enjoys going to the gym (usually to chew over her latest problem scene), is rarely without a partially read book and has a weakness for chocolate.

Email:
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Elizabeth loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.total-e-bound.com
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Also by Elizabeth Lapthorne

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