Deadly Testimony

by Piper J. Drake

  No.

  “You stay here.” Not a request.

  “You need answers and we both need them fast. There’s only a couple of days to the trial.” He raised an eyebrow. “I would like to stay alive both to testify and to walk away afterward. My best chances seem to be remaining with you, at all times. I mentioned that a few minutes ago and will keep doing so until it sinks in. Besides which, helping you find the person or persons trying to kill me seems as if it would increase my probability for survival. I don’t want to walk out of the courthouse only to be shot from a distance.”

  She gritted her teeth. “That could happen before the trial if you try to tag along with me.”

  “You’ve already shown me how to navigate the streets, blending and changing my appearance as we go.” He tapped the tip of his index finger to his temple. “While I didn’t enjoy the wig, I found the endless change of hats and shirts you seem to have in your backpack wildly entertaining. A couple walking the streets of downtown doing a bit of afternoon shopping is much less likely to draw attention than a lone woman circling a corporate building looking for a way inside.”

  He had a point. Worse, she was inclined to agree with him.

  “The point behind you being under my protection is to keep you safe and hidden.” She sighed. “You seem to have a serious problem with hiding.”

  He gave her a sharp smile, one that made her the slightest bit uneasy. Oh, he wasn’t threatening. But it wasn’t a soft civilian smile either. He was his own kind of dangerous. “I don’t take well to cages, even gilded and especially when I can’t order room service. I am also safest when you are with me or I am with you.” He rolled his shoulders and slipped his hand into his pocket, the overall effect managed to look both relaxed and incredibly sexy at the same time. The man should be on the cover of a freaking magazine. “Besides, I’ve been in the building before and I can get us both in again with minimal effort. It gets you your answers faster and keeps me from sitting here wasting away from boredom.”

  Interesting proposal. “Won’t they know you’re not working for your old company anymore?” Worse, wouldn’t they report having sighted him? “It isn’t exactly keeping a low profile walking up to a security desk and handing over your ID.”

  He tipped his head to one side, considering. “Perhaps but unlikely. Phoenix Biotech is notorious about keeping communication with our vendors to an absolute minimum need to know. I can recall several projects where the vendors weren’t aware our internal resources had moved off a particular project or left the company. They weren’t involved in my most recent projects so there’s no reason for them to have found out I’m no longer there.”

  It was convenient, which made her suspicious. Maybe she was leery of Phoenix Biotech after having been blown up leaving one of their facilities not too long ago. And perhaps the current line of conversation was blurring the line between Kyle Yeun as a client versus Kyle as a partner.

  There were too many questions. She needed to start finding the answers. And considering who his previous employer was, she felt more inclined to keep him close.

  From a practicality perspective, she was out of contact with Safeguard and her team members. Solo. Their police detail and US Marshal counterparts were also probably not fond of her at the moment or likely to suddenly coordinate in her choice of investigation. His suggestion would save time and in this scenario, the faster she could enter, investigate and exit, the better.

  “Okay, we’ll head out about lunchtime.” There’d be more foot traffic with businessmen out to lunch. “Your idea was good, but you’ll need to be dressed for work to make your visit look good. We’ll do a change or two en route, but you’ll walk into the building in your own suit.”

  Risky. But if they kept moving, it should still work well.

  He nodded. “I presume we’ll be working out the details for the next few hours to lunch?”

  She nodded.

  “Well then, I’ll heat up some of the leftovers for us to snack on as we chat.” He stepped toward the refrigerator.

  “I know I skipped breakfast, but aren’t you eating kind of often?” Not that she minded. She could eat, right about now.

  “It is very healthy to eat small portions throughout the day. I prefer to eat five or six times, every two to three hours, if possible.” With one large box in the microwave, he was taking out the various boxes and stacking them in some sort of order. It reminded her of when Victoria lined up her guns for cleaning. Meticulous and precise. Orderly.

  “You’re enjoying this.” She couldn’t see his face but he straightened and ran a hand through his thick black hair.

  “This is constructive. I enjoy planning, preparing and ultimately executing a well-laid-out project.” He turned to face her, leaning back against the table with his hands braced on the table edge on either side of him. “This is much better than sitting still, watching streaming videos, waiting for people to come kill me.”

  “They will try.” She didn’t know why she needed to add the qualifier. There was a flat, resigned look in his eyes. He was selling himself short.

  On some missions, mentality meant the difference between being trapped or getting out alive. If you believed you were going to die, you generally did.

  For his part, Kyle seemed to warm at her correction. “People will try to kill me. At least in this, I am living before we find out if they succeed.”

  * * *

  “What exactly are you looking for out here? I thought you had a specific place in mind for lunch.” Insisting on coming with her had seemed a good idea at the time. He wouldn’t take it back. But he hadn’t anticipated how exposed he’d feel out in the open again.

  A reminder the danger was very real and they had no true guarantee that he was safe.

  At all.

  “I’m not looking for anything specific, just keeping my eyes open for interesting things along the way.” Lizzy continued to hold his hand casually as they walked, for all the world like a tourist enjoying downtown with her boyfriend.

  Come to think of it, he’d never explored downtown on a date. Relationships weren’t a priority so he’d rarely dated a woman more than a few times before she figured out he put work before pleasure.

  She’d taken him on a winding route to this street, stopping in two different cafés for a quick change. It was amazing how little people noticed of the comings and goings of other customers in those places. Had circumstances been different, he’d have never given credence to the precautions. Surely, someone would notice the ridiculous behavior.

  But no. People moved about their day on the streets and didn’t look twice at either Lizzy or him. Like ants, rushing along their paths, not even acknowledging his existence unless he stepped directly into their path. What Lizzy had taught him was to look, see and blend into the rush so that those searching for him wouldn’t find him amid the sea of faces.

  There was comfort in the anonymity of crowded places. A new perspective for him.

  “Okay.” The smile spread across his lips without effort, really. Tense as he was, the idea of Lizzy enjoying a simple pleasure like running around a city sightseeing appealed to him. He kept his volume to a murmur so it’d be hard for anyone not walking directly with them to overhear. “So what amorphous something would convince you to take a detour from our current plans?”

  She shot him an irritated glance and he returned it with a raised eyebrow. Neither of them was trying to make a scene and the banter probably looked very normal to anyone not actually listening to the content of their conversation.

  She huffed out a breath. “I’m looking for the hiding spot, the vantage point the shooter chose when he, or she, took a shot at our friends.”

  “Ah.” Well, it explained why she was spending so much time looking up. “I assume we would end up on a roof somewhere?”

  Lizzy
shook her head. “Not likely. Possible. But if that was where our shooter decided to set up, it’ll tell me a lot about them.”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “And if your original lunch spot is still the best choice?”

  “The location will tell me a lot regardless, but if they were careless enough to choose an exposed position like those rooftops on either side of this street, they were likely sloppy enough to leave a few presents behind too.” She paused and glanced in a shop window or two.

  He noted she didn’t look into the chocolate store, which was across the street, but she did peer into the glass window directly across from it. Tricky girl using the reflection. Still, she really did love her drinking chocolate. He wouldn’t mind trying more.

  It was a sensual pleasure. Perhaps Lizzy didn’t think of it that way, but it was an easy progression from imagining sharing a hot cup with her to tasting the chocolate directly from her lips.

  She might not appreciate his imagination at the moment.

  “Talk to me about vantage points, then. I’m in the mood to learn.”

  Her head whipped around and she pressed her lips together. “Do you actually want to know? Or are you just chatting with me to keep me distracted?”

  He considered for a moment. “I’m actually curious. Though, I will admit, I enjoy the absentminded tone your voice takes on when you’re sharing information with me. It becomes rather husky, very sexy. So please, do share.”

  Maybe too much. It’d been truth though and he rarely held back on such candor. Few women believed it anyway so there was little sacrificed in being honest. It made it easier to avoid discussing other things he preferred not to.

  Still, Lizzy didn’t like it when he laid it on too thick, so to speak. And that last had been a bit heavy-handed in the delivery.

  After a moment, she stepped forward and tugged him to get him to move with her. As he did, she released his hand and slid her own higher up his arm in a loose hold. She was warm against his arm and the semiembrace—just his arm—sent chills through him, exciting him. He surreptitiously adjusted his belt and the fit of his briefs.

  “A good vantage point is crucial.” She muttered as they walked. Her volume had dropped even lower and her gaze swept across the street and up the buildings. “The choice isn’t just about effectively eliminating your target.”

  “No?” He took the opportunity to lean his head close as they walked. His lips brushed her hair but she didn’t seem to notice. Or if she did, she was allowing it to pass. He’d prefer the latter rather than the former even if the former was more of a challenge. For some reason, being close to her was a heady thing, irresistible.

  “It’s not like on television or in the movies where the barrel of the gun is right up against the edge of a roof or windowsill. We’re looking for cover when we choose a position, with enough depth for us to shoot from. Preferably one with a broad view of the area we’re targeting.” She leaned her head against his upper arm then and it struck him how petite she was.

  Oh, he’d been around her for over twenty-four hours by this point but her sheer presence was larger than life.

  “So a rooftop isn’t the first choice. Understood.”

  “Well, not here, in any case.” She used her free hand to point out a few buildings with particularly interesting architecture as they walked. Just another pair of tourists. “There are too many taller buildings around them. We like areas with a lot of potential spots to choose from because it makes it harder to figure out which one we’re actually shooting from, but we don’t like to choose anything where there are other nearby points from higher ground.”

  “Too exposed?” It seemed like a reasonable guess.

  She paused, fixing her hair as she used her reflection in another storefront window as a mirror. “If there’s another shooter nearby, the one with the higher ground tends to come out of the situation alive.”

  No need to guess about the fate of the other.

  After a moment, she took his hand again and they continued to the corner. As they crossed the street, she remained silent, tense. They walked at the same steady pace but there was a vibrating sort of excitement to her touch now.

  “Here we go.” He bent his arm so that her hand rested in the crook on the inside of his elbow.

  Her fingers squeezed his arm lightly in response.

  As they entered the building, Kyle let his expression settle into a lazy, mildly friendly smile. It was generally a good idea to be on good terms with security. It made getting to business meetings smoother.

  A disgruntled security person could make the visitor badge and check-in process draw out until there was no hope of reaching a meeting on time.

  “Mr. Yeun, it’s been a while.” An older man stood up from his seat behind the small security desk.

  “Too long. I’m glad to be working on a new project.” Kyle widened his smile and reached for his wallet, pulling out his driver’s license.

  “Oh, no need, Mr. Yeun. I’ve got you in the system. Will you be here all day?” The man busily snagged a label from the miniature printer and assembled a temporary badge.

  “No, this is just a quick visit before we have an official project kickoff. I was in the area on other business and decided to stop in.”

  The security guard’s gaze took in Lizzy and returned to Kyle. The older man gave him a wink. “Ah, well then, why don’t I put together a visitor badge for the lady as long as you promise to be her escort.”

  Kyle solemnly placed his right hand over his chest. “You have my word.”

  The guard laughed. “I trust you, but, miss, you should watch out for this guy. He’s a tough catch.”

  Kyle raised an eyebrow. He didn’t refute the commentary. It was a familiar type of bantering. Minutes later, they were through the security gate and headed for the elevator.

  “I’m guessing I’m not the first lady you’ve had with you when you’ve ducked in for a quick meeting?” Lizzy’s tone was teasing, in line with her role as his date.

  For the day.

  It was who he was and not anything he’d ever hidden. He had many companions and never committed to one. A day, an evening, mutually enjoyed but with no strings attached. It was how he preferred his liaisons and he had no regrets. And yet, her question was one he was loath to respond to, even as a joke.

  Finally, he murmured quietly, “Work always takes priority. If someone wants to spend time with me, it is a required understanding that occasionally these things happen. However, this is distinctly different and I am following your lead. You are a completely new experience for me in any number of ways.”

  He cocked his head at an angle and watched for her reaction. For her part, she glanced away before he could spot the telltale blush he was coming to hope for.

  As they approached the elevator, Lizzy recovered and applied slight pressure to his arm as she spoke at normal conversation volume, “If you don’t mind, I’m trying to hit my step goal on my fitness tracker. Could we take the stairs? Please?”

  Chapter Twelve

  It didn’t take long to climb the flight of stairs up to the fourth floor, but Lizzy took them farther up to the top of the building. By the time they’d finished the quiet climb, Kyle’s thighs were burning and he resolved to add stairs at least once a week to his workouts.

  The contrast between the developed third floor and this one hit him first when air rushed past as they opened the heavy fire door from the stairwell.

  “Promising,” Lizzy murmured.

  He wasn’t sure if it had been to herself or him but he rather thought it was the latter since she didn’t seem prone to unnecessary dialogue. He rather liked that she was communicating with him unprompted. “How so?”

  “Windows. There are some missing. That would be key.” Lizzy touched his chest. “Let me clear the floor fir
st.

  And so he waited as she did a sweep of the mostly open expanse of space. The building developer was remodeling this floor but apparently progress was halted for the time being. Supplies had been dropped off on pallets toward the center of the room and covered with clear construction plastic but there were no signs of workers.

  Lizzy lifted her arm in a beckoning motion and then proceeded on another tour of the floor while he caught up with her.

  He glanced around. “It doesn’t seem as if anyone has been up here.”

  “Mmm.” Her gaze swept across the floor slowly, her head turning as she studied every corner. “Not necessarily.”

  “No?” He watched her as she cast back and forth, admiring the intensity of her concentration.

  “Did either of us leave any footprints on the way in?” She tossed the question to him over her shoulder as she crouched to take a closer look at the stacked pallets and a nearby shop vacuum.

  He glanced back. “Actually, no.”

  It seemed like an easy thing to check for and a detail he should’ve been able to take note of earlier. It simply wasn’t something one looked for in day-to-day life.

  Lizzy stood, the light from the windows framing her hair in a halo effect.

  Well, not his life. Hers, he was coming to learn, involved different details. Her awareness of the world around her existed on multiple levels from the inconspicuous minutia to the broad perspective.

  “There should be dust all over the floor, but it’s blown to the edges of the room.” Lizzy pointed to the places where the walls met the floor all around them. “It could’ve been the gusts of air coming in from the open window frames, but it’s too thorough and too even. This floor was cleared on purpose.”

  “I see.” And he did, now that she’d pointed it out.

  She pulled gloves out of her backpack and put them on.

  “Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised but do you often carry gloves with you in that bag of yours?” He bit the inside of his cheek to suppress a chuckle.