Deadly Testimony (Safeguard #2)(56)

“Nope. In the crowd, we’re as safe as we can be. They’re probably above us. They can’t take a close look at people’s faces on the street level. Otherwise, they’d have taken a shot at you by now, or at least sent more thugs to get you isolated. Muscle can snag us from the edge of the crowd in this kind of panic. It’d be a lot harder with us in the middle.”

She didn’t need to tell him not to look up. He’d already absorbed that lesson earlier. The sirens were getting closer, different kinds. He wondered if she could tell the difference between police and emergency response vehicle sirens.

“Any chance they don’t know my face?” Amazing he hadn’t asked her yet. She’d constantly made him wear sunglasses of varying shapes and sizes whenever they’d been outside. But they were here, out in the open, and he had a wild hope.

“They know it. It’s easy to find as part of a background check.” A pause. “Most biotech companies require photo ID on employee badges. They’d have the picture from your employer at least. Could get it from the DMV too, assuming you have a driver’s license.

Fear wrapped around his belly and squeezed tight. “Do you ever lie to make someone feel better?”

“You can hold your shit together.” She sounded sure. He wasn’t. “You’ve never had to before. Not like this. But you can. Just another couple of minutes and we walk away with the other rubberneckers. Wait for the police to come and secure the area. When they tell people to move along, we will.”

He wanted to run down the street, indoors, go anywhere. “Can’t we just get in a police car? Let them take us someplace safe.”

“What if they’ve paid off some of the police?”

Cold ran through him with Lizzy’s question. He kicked himself for not having thought of it before, especially when she so obviously had.

“You’re safe in the crowd. Don’t make eye contact. Don’t bolt. Go with the flow of foot traffic.”

Police arrived, finally. They got out of their squad cars and started waving people on by. Lizzy kept her hand on his arm and led him away.

As they walked, she raised a mobile phone to her ear. It wasn’t the smartphone she’d been using earlier.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m making a call while we’re on the move.” Lizzy was amazingly calm. “We’re taking a big loop around the block.”

“Seriously?” He mentally scrambled trying to see how any sort of phone call made sense when she had insisted on no contact until now.

“Part of the info we just received is enough to shock me and I’ve seen a lot of horrible things in my time. We’re going to want to keep walking if we’re going to talk about this.”

*

“Hello?”

The man on the other end of the call sounded both disgruntled and eager. Then again, she’d balanced her brief chat with the administrative assistant to both bully the poor girl and bait Kyle’s former employer into taking her call.

“Mr. Douglas, I’m glad I was able to reach you.” She kept her tone pleasant, bland. Next to her, Kyle missed a step as they walked and glared at her.

“Who is this?”

Lizzy allowed her smile to come through with her words. “An interested party. I was able to uncover your contact information in conjunction with the trial coming up shortly involving a certain biotechnology company.”

There was a pause. “I don’t speak to the press.”

“The press doesn’t have access to you, Mr. Douglas, and you know your administrative assistant wouldn’t have connected the call to you if I was a journalist.” Lizzy chuckled. “I’m an independent contractor aware of the very sloppy work some of your current associates have been leaving all around downtown.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Douglas harrumphed.

“You do.” Okay, she’d managed nice for enough of this exchange. Victoria would be proud of the practice she put in. “You’re looking for Kyle Yeun and I have him. You want him bad enough to dangle that woman and her kid on TV for him. I think you’ve got deep enough pockets to pay me for this phone call and my help.”

Another silence as Douglas obviously considered. “How much do you want?”

“Ah, ah.” Lizzy glanced over at Kyle and rolled her eyes. The gesture took a fraction of tension out of his shoulders and he continued to walk and occasionally pause so she could look in the reflection of the glass storefronts. “I have a reputation to maintain and he believes I am on his payroll at the moment. I can convince him that I’ve arranged for a trade. Him for his family. Once the trade is complete, I’ll simply fail to rescue him from you. In terms of compensation, I want double the fee you’re currently paying your sniper from Edict.”

“Done.” Douglas answered too quickly. “How did you know about Edict?”

“I have a former colleague in the organization, you can check with her as a reference if you’d like. Her name is Jewel.”

Douglas let out an impatient huff. “Not someone I’m familiar with but I’ll put in an inquiry.”

“You might want to provide feedback about the lack of finesse your current man has while you’re at it.” All right, that wasn’t necessary. She had a mean streak to her and she also didn’t have the opportunity to taunt her opponent directly. But she was both irritated and appalled by the explosion and the collateral damage it might’ve incurred.