Deadly Testimony (15 page)

His tone was light but there was an underlying hesitation there. Maybe she imagined it but she knew better. It was a worry she’d experienced herself.

She turned to him, smiling. “I’m hungry. And I figure this might be a long day, so I was going to get us something to eat.”

He returned her smile. “I see. Do you already have our next meal planned, then? Or are you willing to entertain orders?”

“I was thinking room service.” She retrieved the hotel’s menu from the dresser and tossed it onto the bed before bending to sort through the random articles of clothing to grab hers.

“I thought your rules stated there would be no room service.” His voice took on an edge.

Temper, temper.

Though to be fair, she hadn’t explained that particular rule fully. “No room service to this room, no. And you shouldn’t order it at all. But I think I mentioned I have more than one room booked in this hotel.”

Bundling her clothes and tucking them under her arm, she grabbed her laptop from the sitting area and brought it all to the bed. This was new for her, but she’d been working with Kyle rather than near him and she didn’t want to put the distance between them at the moment.

Bringing up her surveillance, she selected the room located in the same hotel as them and made the streaming video full screen.

“No one’s been in there and no one’s knocked on the door.” She tapped the screen. “I’d put the do not disturb sign on the door and every time I’ve left the hotel, I’ve made sure to stop in and move a few things around. No maid service, same as what we’ve been doing in here. But I can head down there and call for room service, then bring the meal back up here for us.”

He studied the screen. “And there’s more than one room on your surveillance.”

Wariness made her respond slowly. “Yes.”

She’d been checking the other security feeds throughout the night, even though they’d been indulging in each other.

He held up his hands. “I admire the thought you’d put into all of this. There was every possibility we could have stayed in that original apartment, if I am correct?”

She nodded.

“But you had all of this in place. Alternatives. Backup plan after backup plan.” He shook his head. “And you had less than twenty-four hours to set it all up.”

When he put it that way, it sounded like a lot more than it was. Her cheeks heated and she busied herself getting her pants back on. “I like options. You can’t be sure there will always be choices so leaving yourself with as many as possible makes sense.”

“It does,” he agreed. After a moment, he tapped the menu. “Rather standard fare here. A few specialties by the restaurant attached to the hotel. I think the lamb burger looks the most interesting with the whipped feta cheese and olive tapenade.”

Yum. “Actually, that sounds really good.”

He grinned. “Would you like to share and get an appetizer too? I find I prefer to order several things so I don’t get bored halfway through my meal.”

Considering the traditional Korean meal Maylin had taken the time to send them before, she wondered if it was a cultural thing. Could be, though there were other cuisines that encouraged a broad variety of tastes and textures in a meal. She loved tapas and small plates, for example. Whether it was a preference born of his background or not, it suited her very well.

Sharing small bites of food with Kyle on the bed had its own range of tempting possibilities.

“They’ve got the usual starters, don’t they?” She slipped her bra straps over her shoulders and leaned forward to peer at the menu as she settled herself into the bra cups and hooked the back. Actually, the restaurant menu was fairly eclectic. She paused to take in the choices and really consider the options.

When she glanced up, his gaze was on her cleavage and filled with heat. As soon as he noticed her watching him, he met her eye to eye. Her heart rate kicked up and a low heat grew in her lower belly with a hunger of a different kind. She licked her lips.

It was Kyle who eased them back from the brink of jumping all over each other. He tapped the menu again. “I think we’d enjoy each other better if we have fuel to sustain us.”

True. And she had more work to do, ensuring they were still safe here. She was hungry enough to gnaw at random things at this point and while she did plan to have her mouth on various parts of him again later, she didn’t have any desire to do him damage while she did it. Exactly the opposite.

“How about the truffle fries? There’s a little store in Pike Place Market that had samples out with some of their white truffle-infused salt and I’ve been thinking about it ever since. The fries sound fantastic.” Her mouth was watering just thinking about it.

“The burger does come with fries already so I imagine we could request a substitution.” He was seriously considering the menu.

This was an odd situation. Sure she’d tumbled with her share of partners. And she’d lingered with them if she could deal with their company past the pillow talk stage. But this comfortable chatter was different. The chemistry between them was still going strong like whoa but it was unhurried, simmering. As if Kyle had every intention to enjoy her over the course of many hours.

Her chest tightened and expanded at the same time, if that was possible. It was a warm, fluttering tickle. She liked it.

“Agreed. We’ll get them to substitute the truffle fries for the regular fries with the lamb burger.” She sighed. “Oh, they have poutine.”

His eyes held a twinkle of amusement as he glanced at the appetizer and back to her. “Duck confit poutine, no less. Sounds delicious. You do have quite the palette.”

“I’m going to take that as a compliment.” She straightened. Maybe he didn’t notice, or maybe it was habit, but his tone had taken a teasing edge. It was still warm, inviting her to smile with him, but she’d heard him add dry sarcasm to a compliment before. Sweet words could quickly turn cutting.

Gah. She just had to go looking for things to be cautious about, didn’t she?

“It’s meant to be a compliment.” That came quietly, earnest and with sincerity.

He was back to watching her again. Intense without pressure. Open desire tempered by patience.

The man definitely knew how to make a girl feel wanted.

It wasn’t that she didn’t appreciate it. But while falling into bed with him was a reasonable risk, falling for him wasn’t. A breather would do her good. She could get her head right, then come back and enjoy him the way he was probably hoping to enjoy her.

Uncomplicated. No expectations. No strings attached. None of this overthinking shit. Suddenly she was caring too much about something that wouldn’t matter in a few days’ time.

If she kept this up, she’d ruin the good the deliciously sweaty exertion had done her and just be stressed again.

She shoved her feet into her boots. “I’ll be back in a few minutes. Did you want to pull up something to watch on the laptop while we eat?”

He chuckled. “Do you think we’ll be paying attention to a movie if we play it?”

She grinned at him. “It could be background noise.”

“I’ll take a look.”

Chapter Sixteen

Lizzy returned to the room balancing the room service tray laden with stacked plates on one hand, her backpack slung over her back to keep one hand free. She scanned the room as she entered and closed the door behind her.

The atmosphere had changed.

Kyle sat on the bed staring at her laptop, his face twisted with anger.

No, he’d gone past that and well into cold rage. It was the kind of thing she’d seen before, when men were pushed to a point where they were willing to do anything—kill—because of whatever caused it.

“Hey.” She set the covered plates on the side table. Better to have free hands. If he was about to go out on a rampage, she’d need to stop him. Based on their light match earlier, it was doable but not as easy as stopping most people. She’d have to be careful or they could both end up seriously hurt in the process.

But Kyle’s voice when he spoke was calm, neutral, quiet. “Would you please come watch this?”

Warning bells clanged inside her head. The quiet ones were always the ones to watch.

She crossed the sitting room to the bedside cautiously, giving herself time to react if he decided to try to surprise her. “I’m guessing I’m not going to like what I see.”

His lips pressed together in a grim line. “Watch. Tell me what you perceive and I hope I am simply paranoid.”

Maybe. But paranoid wasn’t necessarily wrong. In her experience, it was about a fifty-fifty chance as to whether there was a legit reason to be. Trick was, knowing which side of the fifty you landed on in a given situation.

She stood patiently, still just outside of easy reach, while he tapped the touch pad to start the streaming video.

It was a news interview, streamed live early this morning based on the logo and time stamp displayed at the corner of the feed. “We’re here live with Jaime Douglas, Vice President of Research and Development, biochemical division, at Phoenix Biotech as he welcomes the latest sponsored family. Phoenix Biotech, and Mr. Douglas’s department in particular, has begun an initiative to support charities this year.”

The pretty news correspondent beamed at the silver-haired man in the expensive suit as he tugged self-consciously at his jacket hem. Not a man comfortable in front of a camera.

“Yes.” He cleared his throat and tried for a stronger start. “We at Phoenix Biotech believe in making an impact not only in life sciences, but with humankind. And so we polled our employees to determine what charities mattered to them, taking a vested interested in their cares, their hopes for their families.”

Grand words but they dripped with honey. Lizzy narrowed her eyes. Not all sweet things were actually good for you. Antifreeze, for example.

The man continued with his goodwill-toward-all-men speech until the news correspondent asked him directly about the slender Asian woman and teen standing to one side. “Ah yes, this is the first family of several we’ve extended the hand of sponsorship to. The young man has key talents and will be attending a university here in the US on scholarship. His mother has accompanied him. We’re hoping to reunite them both with his uncle, her brother, once we’re able to locate him. They’re wonderful people. I’m sure it would just kill them if we’re not able to find him. “

Uh-huh. Cue dramatic music. Three guesses on who they were looking for, considering the way Kyle surged to his feet and started to stalk around the bed. Since he stayed in the bedroom area and didn’t seem to be heading to the door, she didn’t stop him. But she did stand up and move into the sitting area to give him room, and give her time to respond if he did decide to go charging out of here.

“So are you the kid’s real uncle?” Could be his son. There was family resemblance in the lines of the kid’s face, his bone structure.

“Yes.” Kyle was apparently still struggling with his responses because he’d gone terse. She sort of missed his lengthier conversational habits. It wasn’t often she got to be around a man who could converse with more than four-letter words and the occasional grunt.

Not fair. The Centurion Corporation, her fire team in particular, tended toward the more intelligent. But they’d all developed a habit of short sentences.

“Did you know they were in the States?” Keeping him talking was the best idea for now. She needed to know what he wanted to do, whether she was going to have to subdue him to keep him safe, and what could be done about them. If there should be something done.

Even family could betray a person.

“No.” He stopped and dragged his fingers through his hair. “Not yet. I knew they were requesting visas. I was helping them prepare to come here. They were supposed to wait until after all of this was resolved and I could make permanent arrangements for us all to live together.”

Part of her melted a little. The battle-ready part of her tensed. All the more reason for him to go rushing out there to attempt a save he wasn’t equipped to manage.

And damn but Phoenix Biotech had some serious reach if they could find and pluck his family out of a different country to use them as bait.

“This is a trap. You understand that, right?” She was sure he did, but best to get it out in the open. Sometimes forcing a person to speak the words out loud helped them think more rationally. He wasn’t doing badly so far.

He only nodded at first. “Douglas worded his message to be incredibly obvious. I imagine he’s expecting me to call the office, contact him via his direct line. I have it.”

Tempting. “Let’s wait until we talk through the options first.”

“We?” Hope made his voice crack. “I had expected to have to argue with you, find some way to get past you to help them.”

Not a bad guess. “I haven’t said I’m letting you go anywhere. But we can talk about what options there are too because I’m not the sort to leave the situation as it is. First, do you really think they’d kill your family?”

He stood perfectly still.

“Think. Rationally. As public as this interview was, nothing could happen immediately. Someone would notice somewhere that the two of them disappeared.” Most likely.

“Not so.” He resumed pacing. “It might be a national news channel, but this was broadcasted for the local feed. Hard to say what level of exposure the cast had gotten outside the Seattle area. Truly, fairly few people will remember this beyond the brief feel-good moment any other charity news spot would engender. Even fewer would think to inquire or research what happened after the moment in the spotlight.”

He had a point. A reasonable one. This wasn’t reality television and there wasn’t a follow-up episode to see how the people were doing a few months later. Some news stories had follow-ups but plenty didn’t.

“This is the type of short public relations clip to fade into obscurity.” He waved a hand at the laptop. “What actually happens to my sister and her son will matter very much to me, but isn’t going to be noticed by anyone else.”

“All right. Then we need to know more.” These situations sucked. Hostage, kidnappings, these had a nasty chance of going badly. And the last time they’d had to deal with one, there’d been a lot of explosions and gunfire involved.

“What else can I tell you?” Agitated. And rightly so.

She needed him to calm down. “Walking out there to trade yourself for them is relatively stupid. Thank you for not doing that while I was gone.”

Actually, the relief she felt about that was something she should probably think about later. It was almost dizzying.

Kyle blew out a breath and sat on the edge of the bed. “What can I tell you that will help?”

She opened her mouth, but he held up a hand.

“These are people, good people, better than me. I want you to think of them as such.” His gaze bore into hers with his determination to make her believe his words. “They deserve a safe and happy life far more than I do.”

“You said they were applying for visas. I’m not going to make assumptions or guess.” She didn’t relax but she did give him a small nod to acknowledge his message. “Where were they and why did they want to come here?”

A small smile flashed across his lips. “I am slightly surprised you ask why. Many would simply assume that of course people would want to come here. In truth, my older sister was very happy in Korea. She chose to stay with her husband when my family moved here.”

“Okay.” Well, Korea was not one of the countries she’d ever been to. Being able to recognize people from different parts of the world was one thing, and a useful skill, but actually having traveled there was a completely different life goal.

Kyle continued, “My sister’s marriage was
seon
—a type of arranged marriage in Korean customs.”

“They still do that kind of thing?” Normally, Lizzy bit her tongue about things like this. Different cultures had different customs. With Kyle, she tended to let herself go a little unfiltered. For good or bad, it was what it was for the time being.

He held up his hands. “In South Korea, marriage is considered to be a merging of two whole bloodlines. Such a decision involves the families of both the bride and the groom. Often, parents encourage and arrange a meeting for the two intended in the hopes of a match but the decision is ultimately theirs. For my sister, there were several
seon
with different suitors before she actually married.”

“Ah.” Lizzy didn’t know what to say. It seemed less arranged and more like parental involvement. Which, if she thought about it, could be a different kind of pressure but just as tough to live with.

“Our parents were, of course, eager for her to choose her husband. He and his family were a good match for ours. He, in particular, seemed a good balance for her in personality, achievements and appearance.”

“Of course.” Okay, maybe her tone had gone dry, deadpan, whatever.

Kyle’s gaze found hers again and he smiled, but there was sadness in his eyes. “When any dating can start, here or there or anywhere, what can anyone go on but such things? And of those three characteristics, only two are actually quantifiable. Parents do their best, but there’s no way to know for sure. They can only hope. It is not unusual to hope our loved ones can be happy, I think.”

She could give him that. But she wasn’t going to say anything for the moment. Family interference in her choices hadn’t ever been something she’d been willing to accept—not in childhood or as an adult.

“In any case, my sister dated her husband for a year before they married. It’s not so different from the way it works here in the US.” Kyle shrugged. “If anything, in such arranged marriages, there’s less chance of strain during the actual marriage. Since parents are involved in the choosing, there is significantly less chance of family opposition to the union.”

Familiarity. Culture. What a person grows up with and considers normal. It’d be an interesting conversation to explore under other circumstances.

“I can imagine.” She rolled her shoulders, trying to ease the tension out of them and stay loose. “I’m not sure I’m good with the tradition itself. It’s something to think on when there’s more time to consider the context, but I’m to going to go with it for now. If she was happily married, then why are she and her son here now, on their own?”

The sadness spread across his whole face now. His shoulders slumped. “I’m not sure. I only know her husband decided on a divorce a year ago. She was going to tell me why when she and her son arrived here.”

“Was his family in agreement with the divorce? Was yours?”

He tipped his head. “You were listening.”

She resisted the urge to tap her foot. For a man in a rush, he was telling a long story. Or maybe he didn’t know how to tell it when he was still trying to unravel it himself. “Yes. I was listening. I’ll process my own opinions on it later. Right now I’m taking mental notes on what might matter to help you with your current problem.”

He nodded. After a moment, he started up again. “Our family came here to establish a presence in the US while her husband’s family saw to the combined family business interests back in Korea. My father did well enough starting a software company to support life sciences. I learned some of what I know of the industry from him. But the stress of it, of living in a place so different from where you grew up, of trying to make a name. It overwhelmed him. He died of a heart attack. And with him, the US presence of the family business was gone, as well. My mother got sick and passed away not long after. So for my sister, there is only me left here. Our extended family fell out of touch with me when I didn’t try to resurrect the family business here.”

His recounting had become flat, his voice distant. He’d compartmentalized his feelings about those times and he wasn’t willing to feel right now.

She didn’t blame him. While the background information was necessary, the confusion brought on by old angst wasn’t useful. “And his family?”

“I would guess they were eager for him to make a connection with a new wife, most likely with a family to provide more valuable networking for the business in Korea.” Still delivered with a flat tone, sparks of anger were showing up in his gaze now. “Either way, once the divorce was final, he saw to it they had some funding but there was little to hold them in Korea. My nephew has a potential for a bright future here, doing something he loves.”

And Kyle was reinventing himself and his lifestyle to provide for it.

She didn’t know this woman or her son. But the man who was her brother, the kid’s uncle, she was starting to see some incredible things about him.

“All this means no one to come looking for them if something happens to them. I get it now.” Thus his agitation when she’d returned. The danger to them was very real if Phoenix Biotech could easily make them disappear.

“There is only me.” Kyle was quiet, his pride completely set aside. What was left sitting in front of her was a man determined to do what it took to make his family safe. “Please, Isabelle, let me go get them.”

“No.” She’d have given the same answer even before she’d known the nature of the leverage Phoenix Biotech had on him. “Whatever it is you’re going to testify is enough to be worth not just your life, but theirs too. So no, you are not going to run straight to them.”