The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

Jack waited. There was every reason to believe this was Henri Costa, his whistleblower inside Keepsafe General Insurance, but he lost nothing in waiting for Henri to declare himself, though he had to make a determined effort not to snatch the envelope, rip it open and dive into the contents.

“You’re Jackson Haley?” Henri didn’t turn; he spoke to the row of bottles behind the bar. “You look younger than your picture.”

The best word to use to describe Henri was average. Average height, build, blue suit, white shirt, black shoes. You didn’t have to look exceptional to be courageous and Henri Costa had courage, the kind that could get him into a lot of trouble.

“Is Henri Costa your real name?”

Now the man turned with a panicked expression above his five o’clock shadow. “You can’t use my name.”

“Relax, Costa. I need your information, not your name.”

Costa prodded the envelope, pushing it slightly toward Jack. “It’s all here. Names, emails, phone transcripts, internal memos, financial records. I can’t afford to lose this job, but they shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. It’s corruption all the way to the top. They’re ruining people’s lives.”

Jack put his hand on the envelope and slid it in front of him as Costa stood. “I’ll take care of it.” He’d use Costa’s information to start an investigation to verify the insurer was defrauding accident victims out of compensation by paying off doctors to invalidate legitimate claims.

Thousands of privately insured accident victims had discovered their injuries weren’t covered because of a criminal loophole in how they were assessed. At a time when they needed help the most, injured people were left without support, often unable to work, with horrendous medical expenses and without hope of putting their lives back together.

Stories like this were what Jack crawled out of bed for. It was how he made sense of his life. He downed his bourbon. He’d get started tonight, and if Henri Costa’s information checked out, Jack’s story would bring to light the corrupt practices of the insurer, start legal action, topple careers and with luck, provide relief and recompense to the victims.

Costa left his beer untouched. It was on the bar top still when Honeywell slipped onto his stool. Shit, he’d forgotten about her.

She took in his empty glass and the abandoned beer. She glanced at her watch. “Have you been waiting long?”

“Something’s come up, Clickbait.” He swiveled to face her. “A tip I have to follow through on.”

“Now?”

“I didn’t buy that beer for you.” He signaled Kelly as he stood. “I’ve got an account, get yourself something on me.”

“Jack.” She swiveled, just as he stepped into the gap between their stools. Her knees bumped his thighs. He almost touched her shoulder to steady himself. Her face colored and her mouth shaped an O. “Sorry, ah, I.”

He said almost the same words, dropping the Costa envelope. He’d gotten a nose full of floral perfume while she’d come too damn close to kneeing him in the groin. He bent to snatch up Henri Costa’s evidence and she moved too, and he scored an elbow to his ear. It knocked his glasses askew. When he straightened up, she had her hand clapped over her mouth, but it wasn’t enough of a barrier to stop her laughter spilling over.

He adjusted his glasses. “Yeah, very funny, the defender of the people needs defense against a woman who wrote about feminist art activism today.”

“‘Knitting in the City.’ You read my story.”

Curiosity had gotten the better of him. He read a dozen papers every morning and subscribed to more national, international and special interest news services than he could list, but he’d specifically looked for her story this morning because she’d surprised him.

She clasped her hands at her chest and fluttered her eyes. “Aw, Dinkus, you care.”

Dinkus. “At least it wasn’t ‘Movie Heroes in Extremely Tight Pants,’” which was the actual lead story for the Courier in terms of eyeballs that day.

“If you read that story I’ll have to rethink my stance on your sexuality.”

“I stopped at the headline.”

She grinned. “I won’t call you Dinkus if you don’t call me Clickbait.”

He’d intimidated her for all of five minutes yesterday, and she’d held her own admirably. There was something farm-fresh and freckled about Honeywell, with her auburn hair and her pale, otherworldly eyes, and for a moment he wanted to tell her to get out of this industry before it turned her humor to hardness and disappointed her.

“Sorry about the assault,” she said, with a shrug more reminiscent of a schoolgirl than an ace reporter.

“I’ve had worse.”

“I’ve heard you do a fight club thing.” She gestured to her eyes. He had no idea what color they were—washed out, ethereal. “How do you manage with glasses?”

“Contacts.”