“I had plenty of help,” he admitted.
Her lips curled. “You’re one hell of an investigator, Mr. Callaghan.”
“High praise coming from you, Miss Sullivan.”
She blew out a breath. “The question is, what do we do with all this?”
“That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to you about. I asked my father to reach out to a family friend to see what our options are. She’s a former US Deputy Marshal. She thinks we’ve got enough here for a federal inquiry. She also said that, based on this, the Philly ME’s office will be falling over themselves to clear your record. Your leave will be rescinded, and you’ll have no trouble getting your job back.”
She blinked slowly. He could see her processing it. Not just the information, but the lengths he’d gone to without her knowledge, without her having to ask.
“Thank you,” she said softly. “But… I’m not sure I want it anymore.”
Patrick stilled. “What are you saying, Morgan?”
“I don’t know,” she said on an exhale. “I’m still working things out, but I talked to Frank this morning.”
He knew from the way she said it that something had shifted there too.
She stood and began pacing in small circles in his office. “Frank knew someone might come for me,” she said eventually. “He’d been watching.”
“That’s what family does,” Patrick said quietly. “They have your back.”
“Not all family,” she said, probably referring to her mother and stepfather. “But it’s not just Frank. It’s his housekeeper Donna, who, it turns out, is a hell of a lot more than a housekeeper. And Riley and …” She looked at him. “You. I’m not used to this. To people having my back. I’m not entirely sure what to do with this.”
“You don’t have to do anything with it,” he said. “That’s the point.”
“Butwhy?” she asked. “Frank, I get. He’s family. Donna, even, because of her relationship with Frank. But why you? What could you possibly get out of helping me?”
The question was direct and honest, and he wanted to answer her in exactly the same way. But not yet. And not here.
“I’ll tell you,” he said, “if you agree to have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
She narrowed her eyes slightly. “Resorting to bribery? Or are you deflecting?”
“I’m not deflecting. I’m choosing my moment.”
She gifted him with an almost-smile. “Those are the same thing.”
“They really aren’t. Tomorrow night. Dinner. Say yes.”
“Well, you do make a good Marsala,” she said with a tiny twist of her lips. “Tell me that’s not the only dish you can make.”
He laughed. “Definitely not, but I won’t be the one cooking.”
She widened her eyes. “You can’t ask me to dinner and expect me to cook.”
“I don’t expect you to cook. I want to take you out.”
Morgan looked confused, and Patrick wondered what kind of assholes she’d dated in the past. None of his in-depth research had covered that.
“You mean like a date?”
So much more than a date, he thought. What he said out loud was, “If you want to label it that way, sure.”
She thought about that. “All right,” she said finally. “Fine. Dinner.”
“Good.”