34 Unhindered stop

Naomi took a step back and laughed sheepishly even as his hand fell down from her shoulder. "Sorry about that. I should be more used to all-nighters at this point."

"Stay then." Jack smiled charmingly at her. His eyes seemed to be trying to communicate something else to her. "You've nearly finished your workload for the week anyway."

"Is that so?" She glanced uncomfortably down and to the table of people who were listening to their interaction. Naomi caught Helen's sharp gaze, silently begging for help.

With her gaze always flitting from painting to painting coupled with having worked in customer service, Helen was as expected quite observant to details. She immediately came to her rescue. "Leave the poor girl alone. She's already had a few drinks and with her weight, I think she won't be able to handle all that more." She waved a hand airily to the table, showing off Naomi's one glass and a couple of others that actually belonged to Helen. "Right?" She asked with a laugh, inviting people to join in on the joke. Ryan chuckled and nodded sagely.

Naomi scratched her arm in embarrassment. "That obvious?"

"Girl," Helen started, stopped, then solemnly repeated, "obvious."

The laughter spread to the whole table now and Naomi joined in. Jack watched on, smile twitching as if in humor. His eyes were steadily darkening though, and she caught their attention once more before he could act on it.

"Alright, alright. Stop laughing! I'll just call it a nigh then. Have fun on my behalf, will you?" Naomi waved before leaving Sidoh's, cheerily calling out a, "Good night!"

She heard him echo the sentiment along with the more energetic send-off Ryan shouted. The moment she was far away enough she could be certain nothing and no one had followed her, she sucked in a deep breath before slowly allowing it to escape her clenched teeth.

Could have been better. Then again, Naomi thought as she began moving to the park, could have been worse.

Her apartment was bugged to the teeth so that place was foreseeable gone in regard to privacy. If she had any sort of luck, they won't or had at least yet, to place any surveillance on her usual hunting grounds. There wasn't anything incriminating on her movements, but she preferred the freedom it would give her.

Once again, she stopped by a place that sold burner phones and retreated to an area with dim lighting and none of the cameras that usually plagued the modern city environment. It took but a moment for her handler to pick up after she did the song and dance of telephone codes.

"Did something happen?"

The urgent voice made her wince, a hand coming up to rub the back of her neck. She had forgotten that their scheduled call was a few days off. "Ah, nothing wrong, I assure you."

"... Is that so?" Milton couldn't quite hide his relief under his dubious comment.

"I'm sorry. Did I interrupt anything? I'll just hang up –"

"No!" His shout made them both pause before he awkwardly cleared his throat. She heard some clothes ruffling and she could imagine him pressing the phone to his chest as he mumbled some excuses to his co-workers. The noise gradually disappeared, and she figured he had moved away for privacy. "It's alright," he began again, more softly. "You're always welcome. You know that."

She looked around the park instead of answering that loaded comment. Outside of the small enclosed area was the usual late-night crowd; tired people going home from work, peppy youths going to the bar scene or workers going to their night job. No one bothered to loiter in the park like she was doing, so she was quite alone. It suited her just fine.

She blew out a breath. "Any news?" She asked Milton. "Anything at all?"

"Some. I've narrowed down the location to where Hunt's wife is staying, and I believe we will have it any day now." He paused, adding after an awkward cough, "I'm sorry I couldn't provide you with the codes needed to access our offshore intelligence network."

She closed her eyes. That had been hard to hear, but she had suspected that would be the case. She couldn't exactly say that she was thrilled with the news, though. At least she had Rick the informant. As eccentric as he was, he was also very good. And she needed good right now.

"No problem," she assured him.

"Ah. Well. Yes." Milton sounded uncomfortable despite this. He took his job as a handler various seriously, and she could only be sympathetic what kind of situation this put him. He cleared his throat and continued in a lighter tone, "There's also a money trail that I'm tracking from a smuggler with a supposed connection with Borque. It looks promising so far."

"Smuggler?"

"Of weapons," he clarified, a bit grimly. "Military grade handheld weapons, most likely guns but could also be knives."

"Ah." She thought back to their night together and she closed her eyes at the accompanying memory of Ky it invoked. "It seems like he carries a knife with him. He showed me while he was in the middle of showing off. A similar one from our training. Could be a one-time occurrence, but somehow I doubt it."

"A knife?" Milton spluttered.

"Yeah. Switch knife, but definitely military grade."

The silence on the other end was very telling.

She continued before he could speak, almost blurting out the words in her hurry, "Also, the contact in City Y I mailed you about? We met. Eccentric for sure but he managed to gather more tidbits of information than we could do in the last month. His network might be larger than your access to our Agency, now that I think about it. There was a worrying lack of information on Blake's disappearance this month, but I'm sure a few more meetings with him will solve that. Additionally, I've had confirmation towards Hunt's trip to the north. He picked up a fondness towards vodka, his words not mine, and I think –"

"Rene."

She stopped cold.

"Don't call me that."

"Rene –"

Naomi flickered to life in her body, a smile spreading her lips even as she looked up at the sky and tried not to scream. "That's not my name and you know it. Not anymore."

"I – I won't." The silence on the other end of the phone was stifling. It broke with a sigh. She refused to feel guilty. "You're avoiding the issue. Just... Please take it easy."

"I am."

Her fingers curved into a tight fist, the phone a solid resistance against her grip. It was a distraction against her tears, and she hated that she knew it. She bit her lip, willing everything to stop. This wasn't the time, place or occasion for it.

Not now. Not ever.