Sandy continued. “Why are you interested in this case? Something wrong? Appeal?”
“We’re helping Sac PD go through Hart’s cases to determine if one of his trials might have triggered the attempted assassination.”
“This doesn’t sound like much.”
“An informant gave me a heads up.”
“I can come by in the morning and take a look, if you want.”
“That would be terrific. Thanks, Sandy.”
“Paulson sounds familiar, though. Hold on a sec.” She put the phone down. He could hear her typing in the background, her fingers flying over the keyboard. Then silence. A few clicks. Silence. A minute later she picked up the phone. “Paulson was killed in prison.”
“When?”
“Don’t know specifics, I’ll call the warden—I know him well—and find out. But the report says no one was charged with his murder. So that means they didn’t know or couldn’t prove it. If you really think there’s something in this case, I’d check to see if there were drugs involved. Maybe it was pled out before the trial, or there was a problem with the evidence. I don’t remember Monteith ever taking a case that wasn’t connected to the drug trade.”
Matt thanked Sandy and hung up. He called Alex. Her phone went to voice mail. He left a brief message.
“Alex, it’s Matt. Call me when you get this message. I have some information about the file you flagged.”
Nine-thirty. Shouldn’t she be home by now?
He booted up his laptop and started researching the address itself. Alex either didn’t notice or didn’t mention that Cordell was involved in the arrest, but she seemed certain that something was odd about the address. He could start the process of a title search at a minimum, but wouldn’t see any results until tomorrow. He sent a note to Zoey to follow-up first thing tomorrow.
Matt glanced at his watch. How long did it take to have dinner? He’d call again if she didn’t call him back in thirty minutes. He started in on other work and tried to put Alex—and Travis Hart—out of his mind.
***
The intruder spent a good hour searching Alex Morgan’s apartment, but there was nothing here. No notes. No password protected computer. She had a laptop that she apparently only used to check email and watch Netflix. She had no television. Her email was sparse – friends and family, a few crime related issue groups, nothing that suggested she was doing anything more than she said she was doing.
But why had she spent all day at the District Attorney’s office? Did she have an ulterior motive to visit Hart this morning and ask about the case? Was her presence at the hotel purely coincidental?
Something was ... off. He couldn’t put his finger on it, and that bugged him.
He would find out what Alex was hiding. He hoped it was nothing.
He planted two bugs, one in the living room near her computer, and one in her bedroom. He wished he could access her phone ... but she didn’t even have a land line. Maybe he could find a way to bug her phone tomorrow.
He hoped there was nothing to his concerns, but he was alive because he never ignored his instincts. And his gut told him Alex was up to something.
He didn’t want to kill her.
But he would if he had to.
Chapter Twelve
It was close to ten by the time Travis dropped Alex off at her apartment. He reminded her that he expected her call before five the next day. She thanked him for dinner and assured him that she would get back to him. She felt uncomfortable with the whole situation, but this was exactly the type of access that Dean Hooper and Matt Elliott wanted. She’d worked undercover for six months for the FBI last year; she could work for Travis Hart until the election.
She walked into her apartment and immediately went to the refrigerator for a beer. She’d replayed Travis’s comments about Matt Elliott over and over in her head. She’d ignored Matt’s earlier call because she’d been with Travis, but she didn’t really want to talk to him tonight. She was more upset than angry.
She put her phone on the charger and went to her bedroom to change into sweats and a tank top. She was too wound up to sleep—especially after all the coffee she’d drank after dinner. And she couldn’t stop thinking about what Travis said.
Travis could be lying about the whole history with Matt, but why would he? He didn’t know about her relationship—such as it was—with the D.A. He didn’t know about the undercover investigation otherwise he wouldn’t be pushing for her to take a job with him.