He would not smile. It was hard not to with Lila. Even with the serious investigation and someone wanted her dead; she could make him laugh. And she had done it on purpose, from the sparkle in her eyes.
“So, you originally came over here to work for Jin,” Miko said.
“No. I was working on the mainland. Sort of a virtual assistant kind of thing.”
“Let me get this straight,” Miko said. “You are considered one of the best analysts the CIA has ever had, and you were working as a VA?”
She shrugged. “She needed help more with organizing research and doing the research. I am very good at both.”
“So that first brought you here, the investigation.”
“No, some dumbass was targeting her, and they tried to kidnap me. They were stupid. I mean, I hid on the roof of the house and they couldn’t find me. I helped her out and then mostly stayed here.”
That caught his attention. He had wondered how often she’d left the island.
“What were you doing this last year?”
“I told you. Investigating and looking for Doi.”
“What aren’t you telling me? What else were you doing during the last year?”
“Nothing to do with the investigation.”
“You don’t know that.”
Her spine straightened and she crossed her arms beneath her breasts. And, of course, that brought is gaze down. Ian would be the first to admit that he was a slave to his need for her—a first for him.
“I do.”
“Lila—”
“Ian, we don’t have time for that,” Miko said interrupting the spat, her calm voice rubbing up against his senses. She looked at Lila. “Can you give us an idea of why you left the island?”
She sighed. “It’s an old source but I wasn’t asking questions. He’s in a home and I visit from time to time. I haven’t been back in months though.”
There was a shimmer of truth in her words, but he knew she as lying about something. Or at least shading the truth to fit the discussion. He gave her a pointed look to let her know they were not done with this.
“Well, we do have a problem. Something changed recently, something that made your target ramp things up. He’s tried to snatch you.”
“Why would he do that? It would be easier to kill me.”
The way she said it, her tone steady and her entire demeanor calm. It was like she was talking about the chance of a big winter storm kicking Oahu’s ass.
“He doesn’t know what you know. He also doesn’t know who you told.”
There was a long beat of silence following Jenner’s comment. Ian glanced at Miko, who didn’t hide her surprise. The former medic shrugged.
“You’ve been saving Ian’s ass the last few months. That might have nothing to do with him and everything to do with you.”
Ian glanced at Lila, who shook her head, but when Ian looked around the room, he realized they were starting to agree with Jenner.
“That can’t be true,” she said, her words tinged with horror.
“When did you sense you were being followed?” Ian asked.
“Always,” she said, then sighed. “But it seemed to get really bad the last six months. I think part of that had to do with El.”
“What was that?” Miko asked. Being new she didn’t know all of their backgrounds yet. He was sure she had a dossier on each of them and would know more too.
