Deadly Testimony

by Piper J. Drake

  “No souvenirs, then?” A heavy weight dropped into his stomach, surprising him. “You prefer not to remember this time?”

  Well, it was a good thing to know. He’d enjoyed their tryst. It was always good to have the correct expectations when interacting with a person. Refreshing, actually, the way she was breaking it to him. He’d usually had to let his companions down gently.

  “Slow down whatever thought process is going on inside your head. I prefer to do as little as possible to tie me to the person I’m keeping safe when I’m in the middle of a contract.” Her words had an edge to them, and tinged with real anger, not irritation. “Would you prefer I remembered you as my client or as a person?”

  Her question rocked him back on his heels. Without a doubt, he wanted her to remember him as the latter, not the former. He didn’t know when he’d stopped considering whether he’d extend her contract as a personal bodyguard but now, he was wondering whether he even had a chance of convincing her to let him see her again. Sometime in the past day or two—had it really only been that long?—he’d started looking forward to starting his life over. It wasn’t because he should, or to provide a life his sister and his nephew deserved, but because Lizzy had made it fun. The first two had been good reasons, the last made him happy.

  Lizzy had added a spark to life, expanded his world and threw him off balance. They were all very interesting things.

  For example, being completely wrong in his perception of a situation was new for him. She had a knack for getting through his guard, coming from an unexpected angle and knocking the breath out of him. And all with simple verbal sparring.

  He very much hoped to have the chance to tangle with her more over the next couple of days, physically and verbally. Intimately, as well.

  For the time being, he lengthened his stride to cover the step or two lead she had on him. “Perhaps one day we’ll have the opportunity to acquire a few keepsakes after the trial.”

  “We need to get you to it first.” She led him across the street and up into a small shop at the corner of Post Alley. “I like the white peach ginger beer here.”

  It took a few minutes to acquire their drinks. He’d chosen a different flavor, not because hers didn’t sound interesting but because the idea of trading tastes appealed to him. She was a generous soul, whether she was conscious of it or not. There was no hesitation in her when it came to sharing and he was enjoying it.

  After a moment, she led them back out of the store. “Too many windows there, no place to sit without being exposed. I’d risk it without you but having you out here with me is enough without adding to it.”

  He didn’t argue. Wearing the Kevlar vest she’d given him gave him a sense of security but it was only a vest. They headed up the open street, blending in with a walking tour group led by a man in a utility kilt.

  Kyle narrowed his eyes. “A chocolate-tasting tour. Did you time our walk to be here as they passed?”

  She shrugged, keeping her voice low to match his. The tour mostly had personal headsets attached to small receivers so they could hear their tour guide. None of them was listening. “They’re a regular tour and I knew the schedule. I figured we might be able to stop in at a store or two with them before the tour guide tells us to move along or sign up for our own tour.”

  He shook his head, then took a risk and wrapped his arm around her waist. Her body stiffened for a split second, then relaxed against him as she matched his stride for three steps. Then she pulled away, ostensibly to check her shoe, before straightening and slipping her hand into the bend of his arm. “Better for me to hold on to you so I can let go if necessary. If I need to react fast, I can’t afford the time it’d take me to untangle from you.”

  A practical reason. Of course. He wondered if she knew how warm a balm to his ego her touch was. The momentary pang of rejection he’d experienced when she’d pulled away stabbed surprisingly deep considering the brevity of their involvement. He’d been overly sensitive not once, but twice now.

  It was disturbing. And fascinating. In the middle of the most precarious time of his life, he was as bad as an adolescent boy trying to navigate his way through his first dating experience. The thought made him chuckle.

  “Don’t get too relaxed.” Lizzy gave his arm a squeeze. “We’re out here doing this because I didn’t trust you to stay where you were supposed to if I left you alone.”

  Ah. He should rectify the situation in regard to trust. It wouldn’t matter what he told her, so much as how he actioned on his stated intent. Things like trust, respect and integrity took a much higher priority when he held each of those for another person. And he did for her.

  “I would be disingenuous if I tried to claim you were incorrect in your suspicions. The temptation to go out and attempt to take control of the course of events would’ve gotten to be too much if I’d had to wait long.” The admission cost him little to say out loud and he was still amused as he continued to walk at the pace she set. Ahead and around them, the tour group walked along overtaking other people on the street here and there.

  “We need to know more.” It surprised him when she commented, but she kept to a conversational tone. “Coming after you is one thing, but investing in retrieving your family from Korea? The news coverage? That’s more exposure than I’d thought they’d be willing to risk. Knowing why is going to be key to making sure you all come out of this okay.”

  The group stopped at a street corner, waiting for the traffic signals to turn.

  Kyle started forward and had to gently tug Lizzy along. Her gaze was raised upward and she appeared to be a tourist enjoying the city skyline as they walked. Once the group reached the opposite corner, they paused again for a bit of history and a witty story from the tour guide. Lizzy’s attention seemed to have been caught by a storefront.

  He leaned close and made sure to brush his lips ever so slightly over the shell of her ear. “Are you studying your reflection or the store?”

  Her hand tightened on his arm as she huffed out a laugh. “The reflection and it’s not mine. I’m checking out the area around us for potential issues.”

  “Is there anything I can do?” An itch developed between his shoulder blades. He rolled his shoulders uncomfortably.

  Her gaze remained on the storefront. “Not really. If you spend time trying to spot dangerous people, you’ll look suspicious. It’s better if I keep an eye out. You keep your head down, turned toward me or looking at things in storefronts. Makes it harder to get a good look at your face.”

  As much as he’d wanted to get out of the confined space of the hotel, she wasn’t making this outing enjoyable. Then again, he appreciated it. “I am very glad you don’t let me forget myself.”

  “It’s what I do.” Her simple response was reassuring and unsettling at the same time.

  Nervous, he studied the reflection in the glass pane and only saw buildings. Then he looked through the glass to the goods displayed. “Do spare a moment to admire the designer shoes too.”

  Silence.

  He glanced at her and butterflies tickled his throat. Dusky rose spread over her cheeks. He coughed to cover his laugh. “I’m partial to the nude pair with the dusting of crystals across the heel. I think it would lengthen your already very shapely legs.”

  She bit her lip, then tugged him to continue forward with the tour group. “I liked those and the strappy red ones too.”

  More and more fun. “Not the pink ones with the silk rose over the toe?”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Not so into flowers on the shoes. Maybe a bow once in a while if they’re simple and elegant. The flowers, not so much, and I definitely don’t like fur or feathers.”

  This time he did laugh. He had noticed those set in the corner of the display. Meant more for wear with lingerie than for going out, he’d bet. “I’m surprised you have this much of a
n opinion on heels.”

  There was a pause. “Okay, I have a thing for shoes. I don’t get to wear them often, but when I do, I like pretty shoes.”

  He was delighted.

  “Enough with the frilly stuff.” Her tone turned brisk. “I need some critical thinking. We’re missing something about your former employer and the projects you used to manage. Is there anything you didn’t mention before?”

  Kyle hesitated. He had resolved to testify and expose his mistakes in order to expose greater wrongs. It was one thing to do it in court. The testimony involved facts and documented proof. Telling Lizzy was a much more personal confession.

  Her opinion of him mattered.

  But she’d asked, so he would try to give her more. It was important for her to know in any case, because he was more and more certain he wanted to continue whatever this was between them.

  The tour group around them burst into laughter at some joke the tour guide shared via their headphones. No one else was listening.

  Before he could think harder on it, he took the plunge. “Part of my responsibilities was to oversee portfolio management for a subset of their drug products.” It’d been a challenging, interesting position at first. But as with any project management, departmental politics and personality conflicts had gradually numbed him to the good the drug products were actually meant to do. “The company had shipments of biological materials coming in by sea from Korea and other places. It was standard procedure to have those supplies tested to find out if they had expired due to various shipping delays.”

  The traffic light turned and Lizzy tugged him forward when he didn’t move. He wanted to drag his feet the same way he wanted to delay in telling her his story. “If the supplies had expired, the shipping containers were illegally dumped at sea and reported as ‘lost’ so our company and our vendors could collect insurance without worrying about proper disposal. Those materials were potentially biohazards.”

  He watched her face, looking for a sign of judgment somewhere. But her face was serene, a study of polite attentiveness. A mirror to the tourists around them. “You went over that pretty fast earlier, so I hadn’t thought about the premeditation involved. The way they went about it demonstrates an established procedure. There’s a lot of proof of forethought there.”

  “All of that, into our ocean, and I knew,” he confessed. “I’ve never been overly interested in environmentalism. It all seems very much removed from day-to-day living. It didn’t seem wrong to me until I was faced with the idea of family coming back into my life. Then suddenly, smart business wasn’t as important as doing the right thing. When I was approached to provide testimony to corroborate the evidence, I agreed. I gathered what documentation I could. The manifests, especially, are suspect. They don’t match up well with what should have been in those shipments. I mentioned smuggling before and I refused to be even tangentially involved. I wanted my nephew to be able to trust and respect me when he came to live with me here.”

  He fell silent then, letting the babble of the tourists cover over the silence between them.

  Finally, Lizzy spoke, “What I think about what you did isn’t important right now. There’s still a piece missing. They could be smuggling drugs but that’s a stretch. There are much closer suppliers. It doesn’t add up yet.”

  She continued her train of thought. “The level of effort they’re putting into flushing you out into the open is way beyond that. Something about what you’re going to prove in your testimony is worth a whole lot more.”

  “Yes.” He paused. “And once we find out, it will be helpful in getting my family to safety, I hope.”

  “The trick is figuring it out, not waiting for it to become obvious. Timing and context are everything when it comes to intel.” Lizzy pulled him into the chocolate store with the rest of the group. “You need to think harder. Beyond you and exactly what you’re going to testify. What could you be tangentially related to?”

  Her hand was still firmly on his arm. There was no rejection in her touch, her posture. She was still focused on helping him. Admittedly, he’d been afraid she’d pull away from him right out there in the open. But she hadn’t.

  And he was grateful.

  As the crowd pressed them together, he ducked his head and pressed a kiss against her temple. “Biohazardous materials dumped in the ocean repeatedly and there’s something worse. What could be worse?”

  * * *

  The store was small so space was tight once they stepped inside. As the tour group gathered around the counter, she led Kyle past to the chocolate bar at the back.

  The employees were all occupied but her package wouldn’t have been left with any of them. A human could get confused, give it to the wrong person, or worse, get curious all on their own.

  Lizzy passed her hand under the customer-facing side of the bar, far enough from the edge that a random hand wouldn’t encounter it. She found what she was looking for stuck to the underside, almost against the base behind a disgusting couple of pieces of gum.

  “Ugh.” She grimaced. Nguyen had his own ways of sticking it to a person when they gave him attitude. She had to give him that.

  “Not the usual sound you make in relation to drinking chocolate.” Kyle leaned casually against the bar next to her, studying the daily specials board. “So this is where you get your drink of choice.”

  “Recently, yes.” She studied her prize.

  Not a flash drive as she’d expected. It was a package wrapped in waxed paper.

  “We’ll be with you in just a moment!” One of the employees called over from the main register. They were still buried under tourists as they handed out samples of chocolate truffles.

  Kyle flashed a charming smile and gave them a wave in acknowledgement.

  Lizzy huffed out a laugh. “You’ve got the cool and calm covered. But you’ve got a handicap.”

  “What do you mean?” Kyle’s brows drew together in his confusion. “And what is that?”

  “I mean it’s great to put people at ease, be immediately likable. But you’re too memorable. We’re not going to come back here again.” Keeping the package under the counter, out of view, she unwrapped it. “And this stuff is something a friend uses to line boxes when she’s packing sandwiches or candies.

  “Maybe whoever left that for you is a baker.” Kyle was trying to be all sorts of helpful.

  She scowled at him.

  He raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  She opened her mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I guess, it’s just a weird idea.”

  “People have lives outside their day-to-day jobs,” Kyle said. “They have hobbies, things to take their minds away from their work.”

  “Sure they do.” She was barely paying attention to their conversation at the moment. She’d finally gotten past all the waxed paper to reveal a microSD card. Clever Nguyen, she didn’t need to wait until she had access to her laptop.

  She pulled her smartphone out of her pocket and pressed the tiny memory card into the reader slot. Thank goodness she didn’t have to pop the back open and yank the battery to get to the microSD access.

  “Okay then, what do you do?” Kyle’s question cut into her thoughts. “Aside from collecting cute sunglasses, hats and scarves, what do you do in your free time?”

  “I don’t have free time.” She didn’t like the direction this conversation was going.

  There were multiple files on the memory card. First was the ballistics report she’d requested. Skimming through, she looked first for the particular piece of confirmation she needed. She’d read in more depth when they were back at the hotel. The report told her the key thing she needed to know.

  “How is it you don’t have time to yourself? Or would it be called off duty?” Kyle persisted with his questions.

  “I’ve been with y
ou 24/7. This is the way contracts work sometimes.” She lifted her gaze and scanned the room.

  Still full of tourists, all the same faces she’d noted as they’d entered. Nothing on the street to be seen out the windows. They’d leave around about the same time as the tour continued on its way unless another convenient grouping of passersby turned up.

  “What about between contracts? What do you do for you?” A hint of concern had entered his voice.

  Anger sparked, flared up. “Look. I don’t have hobbies. Not normal ones. I maintain my firearms. I spend time on the firing range. I make sure I’m always on my game.”

  “You work, even when you’re not working.” He studied her for a long minute and then looked out at the tourists. “You do other things, if you think about it. You have your indulgences.”

  “So why do you keep asking?” They were lingering too long and she wasn’t thrilled about the current conversation.

  It felt too much like the idiot small talk guys used when they were hitting on her at a bar. They always wanted to know what she did for a living, what she liked to do in her spare time, where she came from. Anything to give them an opening to ask her out and try getting into her pants.

  She opened up one of the other files and started to skim through the data.

  “Because you had a hard time imagining a person with something else to do besides their work.” Kyle chuckled. “You are so confident in your area of professional expertise, so focused on work. I’m fascinated with the way you shy away from imagining people in their spare time.”

  She sighed. “It’s not that I can’t, I prefer not to.”

  He opened his mouth but she held her hand up.

  “Don’t ask why. It’s just weird. And the only time I need to get into anyone’s head that way...it’s because I need to do a lot more than meet them in the light of day for a job.”

  She’d already said too much. It was something she could be very good at. But she didn’t like who she was when she was getting inside someone else’s head. To find them. To get ahead of them. Possibly to take them out of the picture.