Page 88 of Lethal Game

“You sound like a commercial.”

She sighed. “Max made me talk in front of one of those Senate committees in order to get the funds to pay for it. I hated every second.”

“I don’t doubt it. Not many politicians have a good grasp of what’s a good investment these days.”

“Max said my being young and pretty helped more than my testimony did.” Her voice dripped disgust and anger.

A strong reaction. “Did anyone come on to you? Those bastards can be pretty handsy.”

“No. I just talked with big words and they eventually went away.”

“You scared them away with big words?Seriously?” How stupid had the political population gotten?

“It works surprisingly well,” she said in a chipper voice that told him she was happy to have this little defense mechanism. “I’ve done it before.”

“It’s good to know that you do that to people who irritate you. Gives me something to look out for.”

She paused in her work, tilted her head to one side then said, “Yes. If I start talking with really long, complicated vocabulary, you can assume I’m unhappy or irritated.”

“Cool. Let’s set up a couple other secret codes.”

Her response was a semi-happy shrug.

“How about if you want to warn me about something dangerous,” he said. “Let’s decide on specific words or maybe a sentence. What would you say?”

“Okay,” she said with a small smile. “Dangerous situation equals bad allergies acting up.”

“Good one,” Con said. “My turn. For an urgent message, we’ll say it’s time for your medication.”

She laughed. “I like that. What about an enemy that’s pretending to be a good guy, or a good guy pretending to be an enemy?”

“How about, I could really use an ice water with a twist of lemon.”

She glanced at him, a full blown smile on her face. “You’ve been watching too many James Bond movies.”

“Hey, I loved those as a kid. I watched them with my dad. His movie heroes were John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Sean Connery.”

“My dad loved John Wayne too.”

Con lowered his voice and adopted a drawl. “We’re burning daylight.”

She laughed and her happiness hit him between the eyes like someone had shot him point blank.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made someone happy.

“What’s going on over here?” Len Zobel asked as he swaggered up to the tent. “You twoenjoyingyourselves?”

Con was watching Sophia’s face when Len stressed the wordenjoyinga little too much. Her nostrils flared and her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t miss a beat. She looked down her nose at him, hard to do when she couldn’t be taller than five foot two, and said in a tone that could have done a high school math teacher proud, “A little frivolity lowers blood pressure and cortisol levels, and boosts the immune system. Something every individual in this camp could use, don’t you think?”

Len blinked, opened his mouth, then frowned and closed it. “Uh, yeah, I guess.”

“Excellent. Why don’t you take that advice and relay it to Dr. Blairmore.”

There might have been awhyat the beginning of her last sentence, but it was nothing less than an order.

“Sure,” Len said slowly. He looked at Con. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

He nodded and they walked a few feet away.

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