Withholding Evidence by Rachel Grant Read Free Book Online Page A

potential future senator and for all she knew was buddies with her boss’s husband, who just so happened to be the US Attorney General.
    Life in DC wasn’t for the faint of heart. Or poorly connected.
    She was on the receiving end of more than a few curious stares as she entered the office, but she ignored them all. She’d told Cressida the details last night but didn’t plan to tell anyone else anything.
    Of course, the day didn’t get any easier when the bouquet of roses arrived.
    They worked on a closed military base, which had been the location of a terrifying mass-shooting event. Security was tight on a slow day, and flower delivery was low priority but required high security. She was called to the walk-in gate, where she had to show ID and explain a gift she hadn’t known was coming.
    The flowers, two dozen red roses, had been searched. Stems were broken. Buds crushed.
    It wasn’t pretty.
    But still, they smelled nice.
    The card said simply: I’m sorry. –Keith
    A second bouquet triggered the same rigmarole. But security was twice as freaked out, because the basket was a massive floral arrangement. From a different guy. Who was also apologizing. She had no idea what the bright summer flowers would have looked like before they searched the hard foam sponge that was supposed to hold the arrangement together, but they fared even worse than the roses.
    And security snickered when they asked why Perry Carlson was also apologizing to her. Only one of the marines even pretended the curiosity was part of the job.
    Fed up with the questions and leers, Trina snapped. “He’s apologizing because I took a swing at him at a party. And he had it coming.”
    The marines laughed as if her claim was the most absurd thing they’d ever heard, and she took her flowers and returned to her office.
    Then security called to tell her flowers from Derrick Vole had arrived. On the card, he apologized for not realizing she was Dr. Trina Sorensen, and he hoped she’d still be willing to help him arrange a photo op for his boss. He included his phone number and begged her to call him.
    That was when Trina’s headache began.
    “I’m having the crappiest day,” she said as she flopped into a seat at a table with Mara, Cressida, and Erica in the cafeteria at noon. “Please, someone, show me a kitten video.”
    “I don’t have kittens, but the beast file cabinet will be moved out of your cubicle this afternoon,” Cressida said. “Mara got approval to let me catalogue it.”
    Trina smiled faintly. This was good news. The armored file cabinet took up far too much space, and she’d been saddled with it since she’d started working for the navy two years ago. The cabinet had been moved from cubicle to cubicle since as long as anyone at NHHC could remember—and some of the historians had been here since the Carter administration—always housed with the newest historian in the group. As far as anyone knew, it had been classified as top secret sometime after World War II and promptly forgotten. It was anyone’s guess when the keys were lost or what was in it.
    Mara had declared one of her goals while interim director would be to see the file cabinet opened and the contents catalogued, and it was on the list of tasks for Cressida to complete during her internship. But good old Walt Fryer had taken issue, insisting Cressida didn’t have the proper clearance. Mara had to appeal to the top brass, who concurred with her opinion that the “intelligence” the file cabinet contained was likely to be blueprints of German U-boats or something else laughably out-of-date.
    “Maintenance is going to drill out the locks today,” Mara said.
    “We should start an office pool over what’s inside,” Erica said. “I’m hoping for papers from Area 51.”
    Mara scoffed. “No way. The air force would never let the navy have anything that useful.” She fixed Trina with a knowing smile. “So, Trina, much as I love the flowers you gave me, I