“Better,” he said.
I lowered the blade. “You seem surprised.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “I’m checking.”
“For what?”
“If a woman has made you stupid.”
That got my attention.
I stared at him.
He rested the training blade loosely against his shoulder. “So far, the answer appears to be only intermittently.”
I barked a short laugh.
I lowered the blade fully and slid it back into the cane with a quiet click. Hoka set his training weapon aside and waited, which was worse than if he had simply started asking questions. Silence was one of his favorite tactics. Let the room breathe long enough and the truth usually crawled out on its own.
I lasted perhaps ten seconds.
“I need you to look into someone.”
One dark brow lifted. “Oh?” Hoka reached for a towel and draped it around the back of his neck. “Don’t you have your own hacker for that? I’m disappointed.”
“I do.”
“And?”
I exhaled, already irritated by how this sounded. “He refused to look further.”
That actually made Hoka pause. “Refused?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Why?”
“He said he didn’t want someone’s death on his conscience.”
For one beat Hoka simply looked at me then he gave a low hum. “Smart man.”
“Well, if your teams had that type of moral compunction, they would be dead.”
Hoka laughed softly. “Indeed.”
I scrubbed a hand over the back of my neck, annoyed with myself for even being in this position. “She changed her surname from Gallagher to Hart. Derek found the change but wouldn’t go further. There’s something off about it. And she’s wary in ways that don’t match the answers she gives. She says she wants to stay in Boston for the break because of work, but I don’t believe that’s the whole reason.”
Hoka’s expression did not change, but his attention sharpened.
“And you are not fooled.”
“No.”
“Because you are perceptive,” he said mildly, “or because you are already looking for reasons she belongs to your future life?”
I looked at him flatly. “That’s not funny.”
“I didn’t say it to be funny.”
