He chuckled. “Do you think I’m an idiot? Of course, I know. The moment you first walked through that door, I knew.”
“You never said anything.”
“Why should I? I liked what I saw. You were eager to please, enchanting and, well, you’re not bad to look at. Why ruin it by breaking your cover?”
She huffed. “Not bad to look at? And yet you’ve already moved on to another girl. I think my ego might be bruised slightly.”
“I have no doubt your ego is intact, my love. This new little diversion has nothing on you.”
“How sweet of you to say,” Sonya dryly said.
“This young ingénue is as innocent as they come. She’s a talker, excited and unrestrained when it comes to yapping about silly and insignificant things. But I suspect she could spill everything she knows about Songbird quite easily. Just a little prodding and she’ll be an open book.”
Songbird? What could he possibly want to know about that?
“But her big sister,” he went on. “She’s more tightlipped.”
He believed Yolanda was her sister. That was interesting.
“She’s a real cold fish. Her life is a closed book, and that’s what makes her all the more interesting.”
Cold fish? Okay, that was harsh. She pushed the insult aside and wondered what Zwick wanted to know about her.
“Songbird,” Sonya said with a bored yawn. “What do you want her for? She’s just a singer. There doesn’t seem to be much to see there.”
Zwick let out a laugh, then turned stern. “Nice try, Rhonda, but I know you Americans would love to find out. You and your agency. You always need to know what foreigners are up to.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Don’t play the stupid blonde, Rhonda. You’re smarter than that. Stop thinking that I’m a Russian spy. I’m not. You’re tracking the wrong person. Don’t get me wrong. There is, indeed, a spy in our midst, but it’s not me.”
Sonya remained silent. A spy. Who? Was that what Rhonda had been tracking? A spy?
“Agents from the Bureau like you always think Russians are spy. Some of us do have regular jobs, you know. Some of us do have other talents.”
“So, you think we should be looking at the Chinese instead of the Russians.”
“Give it a try and get back to me.”
Sonya bit down on her lip. Rhonda was an FBI agent, and Zwick thought the Songbird was a spy.
How interesting.
