Free Guilty as Sin by Jami Alden Page B

Jackson here has a missing fourteen-year-old he’d like to find.”
    Kate’s blue eyes narrowed into a glare. “I know exactly why I’m here.”
    “And I’m here because I want to help, and from what I heard when I was walking in here, the first way I can do that is by putting up cash for the reward,” John said.
    “That won’t be necessary,” Tommy started. While Jackson would have trouble getting access to a sizable sum of cash any time soon, Tommy had done well enough for himself that he could put up a decent chunk without it hurting too much. “I can—”
    “How about a hundred thousand?” Burkhart offered as though Tommy hadn’t spoken.
    Kate’s eyebrows arched up to her hairline. “A hundred?”
    “Not enough?” he asked. “Make it two hundred thousand.”
    Tommy hid a wince. A hundred he could have managed. Two would involve more effort and time to liquidate than they had.
    Jackson shook his head. “That’s very generous, but I can’t ask you to do that.”
    Burkhart held up a silencing hand. “You didn’t ask, I’m offering.”
    Jackson scrutinized him with the same steely gaze that had made dozens of enemies of the United States squirm. For a moment the hard-as-nails operative Tommy had known broke through the mantle of the father overcome with grief and worry as he tried to discern the other man’s motives.
    Apparently Jackson decided they were sound because he nodded his head once and held his hand. “I’m in your debt and will do whatever I can to pay it back once my little girl is home safe.”
    Burkhart shook his head and schooled his face into a mask of humility that Tommy didn’t buy for a second. “You don’t need to pay me back. Cases like this, a young girl missing in our community…” He turned his gaze to Kate. “I remember what it was like when Kate’s family lost Michael, how it tore their family apart. If I can do anything to keep another family from going through that…”
    Tommy looked at Kate, felt a stab of disgust when he saw that Kate was eating up his line with the gusto of a largemouth bass gulping a fat, juicy worm.
    Then the disgust turned toward himself when he saw the tears in Kate’s eyes, the way her expression seemed suddenly haunted. Help was help, and if Burkhart’s money could help get Tricia back safely, Tommy would kiss the douchebag’s ass himself.
    “This is great news,” Kate said, struggling to compose herself. “We’ll announce it to the press as soon as the tip line is up and running.”
    The sound of a phone ringing pierced the air. Burkhart pulled his cell out of his pocket and offered a sheepish apology. “I have to take this,” he said, already headed for the door. “I’ll check back in later.”
    Kate called CJ to fill him in on the latest development and then sat down and pulled out her laptop to prepare her statement for the press.
    Jackson stood in the middle of the room, looking a little dazed and at a loss for something to do.
    “Why don’t you go home and tell Brooke the good news in person,” Tommy offered gently. “I’ll call you when the flyers come in and we can start distributing them.”
    Tommy walked him out and retrieved a box of equipment and his laptop from his truck. He pulled six small black boxes from the box and tried to keep his gaze from snagging on Kate. But it was damn hard to keep from getting distracted by the way she sucked her full bottom lip between her teeth as she tried to concentrate. Almost impossible not to remember how the plump, pink curve had felt between his own teeth, how it had tasted when he traced it with his tongue.
    “What are you doing?” she asked, frowning pointedly at the black box he was hooking up to the first phone.
    “Tracing equipment,” he said matter-of-factly.
    “The police will put a trace here if they think it’s necessary. Until then the phone company will track all the calls.”
    Tommy shook his head. “All they can tell us is the number the call came