Page 18 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

DESMOND

C harlotte helped Pablo while I finished my smoothie. It truly was delicious, but I had too much weighing on my mind to properly enjoy it. Pablo promised to close the diner for Charlotte, so she grabbed her coat and her purse, and the two of us left.

We walked for about two blocks before Charlotte broke the silence. “How was your meeting with your father?”

“You already asked me that.”

“How was the meeting with your father really ?”

I huffed. “I suppose I have to tell you the truth, no matter how ugly it is. You’ll know if I don’t.”

She slipped her hand into mine. “I want you to tell me the truth because you want to. Not because I can magically hear it with my synesthesia. But if you don’t want to talk about it, I understand. I have plenty of issues with my own father.”

“Yes, we are certainly a matched pair in that regard,” I murmured.

In some ways, Charlotte and I had the exact same problem with our fathers in that the two of us had never factored much into their decisions. Jack Locke had been devoted to Section 47, while Jethro Percy was devoted to himself.

I shook my head. “I do want to talk about it with you.”

“But?” Charlotte asked.

I sighed. “But talking about it won’t change anything. The General will never change. I’ve had thirty-six years to come to terms with that fact, and yet I keep hoping that someday things will be different between us—that he’ll be different.”

“I felt the same way about my father,” Charlotte confessed in a low voice.

“I always hoped when Jack returned from his latest Section mission that he would finally decide he’d had enough blood, death, and danger.

That he would cut back, stay home, and spend more time with Grandma Jane and me instead of immediately taking another assignment. But he never did.”

She rasped out the last few words, and the blue aura around her heart flickered and dimmed with hurt and sorrow.

I squeezed her fingers. “Perhaps the saddest thing is that my father used to be different. Well, not different , but a slightly better version of himself. At least until my mother died.”

Charlotte eyed me. “You don’t talk about your mother very much. I don’t think you ever even told me how she died.”

I drew in a breath, then let it out. “Iylena died of a rare form of blood cancer that only strikes paramortals. I haven’t mentioned it because I didn’t want to dredge up bad memories of your grandmother’s illness.”

This time, Charlotte squeezed my fingers. “You can talk about anything you want to, Desmond. I’m always here for you.”

Her aura burned bright and steady, and I tightened my grip on her fingers.

“That means more to me than you know. As for my mother, well, Iylena was the glue that held our family together. She was one of the few things my father and I had in common, and she kept the peace between us.” I paused, trying not to drown in all the good, bad, and painful memories of the past. “Although I have to give my father credit. When my mother got sick, he cut back on his Section duties and spent as much time with her as possible. The General attacked her illness like he did everything else. New therapies, experimental medicines, clinical trials. He got her all that and more, but in the end, it just wasn’t enough. ”

I had to stop and clear a hard knot of emotion out of my throat. “He really did love her.”

Charlotte didn’t say anything, but we kept holding hands, and we walked for the better part of a block in silence. I drew in one breath after another, just absorbing the calm, soothing blue of her aura.

“But enough about my mother. You asked about my meeting with my father. It was a bit more . . . unpleasant than usual.”

I told Charlotte all about my talk with the General, including his threat to fire her.

Charlotte’s face remained calm, but her aura sizzled with anger, the emotion hot enough to warm my cheeks, despite the chilly night air.

An answering amount of anger filled me. Why did my father have to be such an egotistical jackass?

Why couldn’t he simply admit Charlotte was an excellent analyst and that we never would have gotten this far without her expertise?

“I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn’t,” I confessed in a low voice. “I didn’t want him to make things even more difficult for you. It’s bad enough he banished you to the third level.”

“It’s okay. I got the impression during the debriefing that arguing with General Jethro Percy is a losing proposition.”

I laughed, but it was a hollow, bitter sound. “You have no idea.” I rubbed my pounding head. “And if the day wasn’t miserable enough, Joan, Diego, and I reviewed all the security footage from the Vault building and the surrounding area, but we didn’t find anything new on Bryce or Henrika.”

Charlotte’s eyebrows lifted. “I thought you weren’t supposed to tell me anything about Henrika.”

“I don’t care what the General says. You’re the best chance we have of tracking down Henrika. You’ll find her, Charlotte. I know you will.”

A pleased blush pinkened her cheeks. Every word I’d said was true, and I believed in Charlotte more than I believed in anyone else.

“What about Iris Berriston?” Charlotte asked. “What is she saying?”

“Nothing useful. She was contacted through anonymous channels and told to get you alone and steal the Grunglass Necklace. Iris thought the other thieves were there to back her up. She claims she didn’t know they were going to break into one of the Vault storage lockers, much less hack into the Section servers. ”

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed in thought. “Did the three thieves who broke into the locker say what they were after?”

“The thieves claimed they were told to steal any weapons related to the Tannenbaum mission. Guns, explosives, and the like. They didn’t mention Redburn by name.” I paused. “They were also told to plant a bomb in the locker to destroy any weapons they couldn’t take with them.”

Charlotte tensed, her fingers gripping mine a little more tightly. “Did the thieves have any vials of Redburn with them?”

“No. Although Arnold, the fake businessman, had a brick of C4 hidden in the lining of his briefcase. The plan was to leave the bomb in the locker, shut the door, and detonate it.”

“So Bryce didn’t tell the thieves what they were really after, and he wanted to make sure all the Tannenbaum evidence—especially any vials of Redburn—was destroyed,” Charlotte said.

I nodded. “That’s my conclusion too.”

Charlotte’s eyes narrowed a little more, and I could see those mental gymnastics going on in the depths of her gaze. “What’s so special about Redburn that Henrika was willing to risk sending thieves into a Section facility to neutralize any samples of it?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about your friend?” Charlotte asked. “The paramortal scientist studying Redburn?”

I’d taken seven vials of Redburn from Tannenbaum Castle. I’d given three to Charlotte for safekeeping, which were currently stashed somewhere inside the Moondust Diner. Three other vials were stored at my safe-house apartment, which was located above an art gallery close to Section headquarters.

Last week, I’d sent part of the seventh vial to a scientist friend so she could analyze the formula, although I hadn’t told her what it was. Letting someone else examine even a small sample of a Redburn was a risk, but we needed to know more about it.

“My friend identified a few chemicals commonly found in other explosives, but there was one main component she couldn’t identify. Based on her analysis, the mystery component is what makes the formula so much more powerful than other explosives.”

More frustration pounded through me. I’d hoped by finding out what was in the formula, we could either neutralize it or at least come up with a way to defend ourselves against it.

“Tell me about Bryce Finkley,” Charlotte said.

I grimaced at the change in subject.

“I saw how you reacted in the lobby at the Vault building. You know him. And you were very familiar with his tactics during the debriefing.”

“What did Gabriel tell you? He knows Bryce too, although not as well as me.” I muttered the last few words.

Charlotte shrugged. “Just that Bryce was a Section cleaner who would do whatever it took to get the job done and wasn’t concerned about pesky things like collateral damage or exposing paramortal powers.”

I nodded. “That’s about right. Bryce came up through the ranks with me, Graham, and Trevor Donnelly, although I didn’t work with him as much as I did with Graham and Trevor.”

“What happened?” Charlotte asked.

I raked a hand through my hair, trying to slough off the memories flickering through my mind.

“Bryce and I were on a mission in Malta. We’d been assigned to eliminate a guy named Ellis, a paramortal terrorist who bombed an art museum and swiped a fortune in jewels to further fund his activities.

We tracked Ellis to a rented villa and infiltrated it.

We must have tripped an alarm, because Ellis figured out we were there and took a hostage, a private chef he’d hired to cook his meals.

He was using the woman as a human shield when Bryce and I cornered him in the kitchen.

I was standing down, trying to reason with Ellis, but Bryce didn’t follow my lead. ”

“What happened?” Charlotte asked.

“Bryce fired a shot with no warning. He put a bullet through the hostage’s neck to get her out of the way. The hostage dropped, and then Bryce dropped Ellis with another shot.”

Charlotte blanched. “And the hostage?”

It took me a moment to unclench my jaw. “She died too.”

Charlotte blanched again, disgust and anger crinkling her face. “Bryce killed an innocent woman?”

My head jerked in a short, sharp nod. “Yes. Like it was nothing .”