Deadly Testimony (Safeguard #2)

“Most of what I’ve done wrong was limited to keeping quiet when I had knowledge of illegal activities. Other people actually committed the insurance fraud or the illegal dumping.” Kyle pushed himself up to a sitting position, swinging his legs down off the sofa and resting his elbows on his knees. “My silence was tacit support.”


“So you’re not testifying just because you cut a deal.” If so, she thought better of him for it. She touched the side of the glass fishbowl gently and Frederick swam over to investigate.

He shook his head. “Not just because, no. I’m testifying because it’s time to share what I know.”

She folded her arms across her chest considering him. “Insurance fraud and illegal dumping, even biohazard material, don’t seem to be enough to go through all the trouble we’ve seen over the past twenty-four hours.”

He huffed out a laugh. “I did not expect the level of spite my company has gone to.”

“But you were sure your life was in danger.” And neither she nor Gabriel Diaz had disagreed with his assessment. Those men sent after Kyle the night before had been too happy to draw their weapons to be planning to just intimidate him into not testifying.

Kyle finally raised his gaze to meet hers and the look in his eyes was bleak. “I was certain. And I am still afraid.”

She pressed her lips together. “It’s not just about getting to you at this point. Something about your testimony was worth firing on two police officers. They’re going to up their game coming after you and there has to be a better reason than what you’ve told me so far.”

Kyle surged to his feet and began to pace. “Take valuable chemical reagents intended for laboratory research and realize they’ve expired or gone past effective use date. Recoup the loss by having those supplies dropped overboard en route from Korea to the US and then file insurance claims for the purportedly valuable lab supplies ‘lost at sea.’ It’s repeated illegal dumping of biohazardous waste in ocean waters followed by insurance fraud. Those are incredibly serious criminal and civil charges with enough instances on record to bankrupt Phoenix Biotech. I have knowledge of each instance, the time they occurred and the resources assigned to those transport ships. I even have records on the shipping container numbers to identify them if they are recovered. All this, I knew about and tracked as an effective project manager, but I didn’t stop to think about whether it was ethical. Not until I realized I needed to look beyond my comfortable lifestyle and provide for someone else.”

It would be cheaper to eliminate the one witness providing testimony than pay the fines associated with each instance of the civil case. Plus, multiple instances meant executives involved could be facing enough back-to-back sentences in jail to miss the majority of their lives.

No wonder people wanted Kyle dead.

“Once those containers are recovered, I believe—even if I can’t prove—authorities will discover they were smuggling other goods.” Kyle dragged his hand through his hair. “I’m not sure what though, so there are further investigations going on. I don’t even know if this is the only trial I need to get through.”

There were a lot of red flags as far as she was concerned, enough to make her restless.

“Not knowing what you don’t know is dangerous. It could be key to keeping you alive.” She slipped past Kyle and headed for her duffel. Pulling out her slim tablet, she set it on the coffee table along with a small wireless router.

Kyle paused in his pacing. “For a person in what I considered to be a very physically focused job, you spend a large amount of time on technology. What are you doing now?”

“I’m firing up my personal mobile hot spot and logging in to Safeguard’s virtual private network.” It didn’t take long to get everything up and running. “I don’t like waiting around to see if someone is going to take a poke at me. I’m going to do some digging into your friends Tall, Slow and Grumpy from last night. Could be they were hired by the same interested party or could be there’s multiple contracts out on you. It’d be good to know who is active in the area and likely to be looking for you.”

He resumed his pacing. “I don’t suppose your research will be instantaneous.”

“Nope.” Though she was already sending an update to Diaz to let him know what she was doing and reaching out to a contact or two who might be able to run some queries in parallel with her own line of research. “I like to keep busy at times like this.”

“And here I thought you’d spend most of your time watching the door or the window.” There was no edge to Kyle’s words but he did have a hefty dose of sarcasm in there. “I really am not the type to watch movies.”

She paused. “Do you have experience in this kind of research? Background checks? Organizational contacts?”

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