Read HIS Choice: An H.I.S. Novel (H.I.S. series Book 2) for Free Online Page B

possibly with jail time. She’d go to jail for a source but not for this. She would fight with everything to avoid it.
    Could they even put her in jail for not reporting a crime? She actually did report it to them, and the world, in print this morning. Shouldn’t that count? She should’ve stopped by the newspaper’s legal department before coming to this meeting.
    When she reached the long, dark wood, welcome desk she squared her shoulders. She’d rather not be here, but she wanted to find the officers in the photo. “Hello.”
    “Yeah?” asked an overweight police officer with a nametag reading Officer Grimes. Her uniform stretched so tightly that Megan feared a button would pop off and hit her in the head. Her weight probably put her behind the desk, but her demeanor should’ve removed her from it. Obviously customer service wasn’t high on the academy’s teaching list.
    “I’m here to see Detective Cooper or Detective Phillips.” She mentally crossed her fingers, ignoring the flutter in her belly.
Please let me get the nice one of
the two .
    “Have a seat, and I’ll check if they’ re here.”
    The thought of sitting on one of the filthy lobby chairs nauseated her.
    A tall, African American man with a highly starched white shirt and red tie walked into the lobby and called her name. Great. She had the poster boy for a police detective who she bet was by the book.
    She pasted a smile on her face and extended her hand. “I’m Megan Rogers.”
    His large hand swallowed hers in a tight grip. “Detective Cooper. Detective Allan Cooper. Thanks for coming to the station.”
    “This way.” He turned and walked away.
    She hurried to keep up with him as he led her through a maze of desks. They had to have killed hundreds of trees for all of the paperwork that sat on the desks. What happened to a paperless government?
    Plain clothed and uniformed officers sat at desks. Some were talking on the phone. Others talked to a person in the chair next to their desks. A few of those being interviewed were rather boisterous. The most common shout she heard was, “I didn’t do it.”
    Detective Cooper stopped at an immaculate desk.
    Thankfully it sat far from the noise. He pulled out a chair behind a dented metal desk.
    The police department was in the process of renovating their stations, and the officers could expect new furniture. One of Councilman Thomas’s agendas he’d bullied to get passed.
    She couldn’t control how they spent their money, but they should spend it on more police officers on the streets, not on office décor.
    He gestured to the chair beside his desk. “Have a seat, Ms. Rogers. Would you like something to drink? Coffee?”
    Her gut clenched, her heart jerked, but she kept her features composed. “No, thank you.”
    He didn’t have a broad chest or large muscles, but his height, the way he carried himself and the air around him intimidated her. She’d hate to be one of his suspects.
    She met his partner, Detective Joe Phillips. He stood about a foot shorter than Detective Cooper. His head full of gray hair displayed his experience and time on the force. His desk was also immaculate. Not one but two poster boys. She envisioned a nightmare about to occur.
    Detective Cooper sat and ran a hand over his shiny, bald head. “I read your article. It was very illuminating.” He held the newspaper, folded to display her article on Councilman Thomas.
    Illuminating seemed to be an odd word for him to use. This didn’t appear to be starting out well. This seemed the appropriate time to hold her tongue although inside her screamed,
Illuminating? What the hell is that supposed
to mean?
    “I have a problem though. You witnessed an alleged crime, several in fact, and failed to report them. Instead, you took pictures and published them. Care to explain?” The edge in his voice dug into the confidence she’ d built.
    “As you said, they were alleged crimes. I planned to report them, but work kept me