Deadly Testimony (Safeguard #2)(54)

“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 you 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.

He shook his head, still not getting it. “Why not get to know—”

“Because if I’m getting to know someone in their spare time, it’s probably because I’m hunting them.” Fine. She’d tell him directly. “I’m a sniper, Kyle. If I’m not providing cover for my team from a distance, I’m working on my own and I have a target. Getting to know someone is research for me. It’s still work and generally, my target ends up dead. Because I’m good at what I do.”