Page 37 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)
DESMOND
I escorted Charlotte down the steps to the ballroom floor, then glanced up.
Henrika was standing at the second-floor railing, her hands clenched around the glass as though she wanted to melt it the way she had melted the poker table’s felt. She glared down at us, then whispered something to Bryce, who nodded and moved over to speak to the guards.
I tensed, expecting Bryce and the guards to rush down the stairs after us, but they remained on the balcony.
Charlotte kept walking, her gaze straight ahead, not seeming to notice the other people in the ballroom.
We went right by Joan, who was still standing at one of the high tables.
Joan’s gaze landed on the Grunglass Necklace sparkling around Charlotte’s neck.
She raised her eyebrows in a silent question, but I gave a small shake of my head.
Henrika hadn’t sent Bryce and the guards after us—yet—so there was no reason for Joan to blow her cover.
Charlotte and I left the ballroom and slipped past the throngs of guests milling around outside.
Charlotte quickened her pace, veered around a column, and stepped into a room with dark wooden shelves filled with leather-bound books.
Several long reading tables took up the center of the public library, and chairs were clustered around a fireplace at the back wall.
No flames crackled behind the grate, and the air felt chilly after the heat of all the bodies in the ballroom.
Charlotte zigzagged around the furniture, then stepped into a small alcove tucked away in the back corner. No security cameras were embedded in the ceiling, and I didn’t sense the telltale tingle of any electronic surveillance.
“We’re clear,” I said. “This area is a security dead zone. No one is watching us.”
Charlotte blew out a breath, dropped her head, and braced her hand on a bookshelf. Tremors swept through her body, making the emeralds and diamonds sparkle around her neck.
After several seconds, Charlotte blew out another breath, straightened up, and released the shelf. “I am so glad that worked,” she confessed in a low, raspy voice.
I frowned. “You didn’t know you had the winning hand?”
She shook her head, and some more tension drained out of her body. “No. I knew Henrika had a strong hand, but I was running out of chips, and I had to make a stand. What’s the old saying? Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good.”
My chest tightened at just how close Charlotte had come to losing, but it was quickly drowned out by a wave of admiration for her gutsiness. “I would have done the same thing.”
“Really?”
“Absolutely. The Grunglass Necklace might be valuable, but it’s just a necklace, just gold and jewels strung together. Recovering the undercover list and protecting our agents is what really matters, and you played it all perfectly.”
Pride surged through me, and a smile spread across my face. “Have I told you lately how brilliant you are, Numbers?”
I grabbed Charlotte around the waist, lifted her off her feet, and spun her around. A shaky laugh tumbled out of her lips, and her aura blazed a bright blue from all the adrenaline pumping through her body. I spun her around again, then set her down and gave her a quick, fierce kiss.
Charlotte let out another laugh. She smiled at me, although her lips puckered, and her eyes quickly narrowed in thought.
“This gives us the perfect opportunity to divide and conquer. I’ll go meet Henrika and get the UC list. She should keep most of her guards and her attention focused on me.
That will give you a chance to slip out of the resort, infiltrate the woods, and see if you can find Henrika’s lab. ”
I shook my head. “No—no way. I don’t want you going anywhere near Henrika or Bryce. Not alone.”
Charlotte shook her head right back at me. “I’ll be fine. Henrika isn’t going to kill me in her penthouse. She still wants something from me, and I think you too, although I still haven’t figured out what it is.” She frowned, and those mental gymnastics filled her gaze again.
I stabbed my finger at the Grunglass Necklace. “What about that? Wearing the necklace in front of Henrika is like throwing chum in the water straight at a shark.”
Charlotte’s hand crept up, and her fingers stroked one jewel after another.
“Henrika can’t kill me, and she can’t take the necklace from me either.
If she attacks me, then she’s violating her own rules of engagement, and the other paramortals won’t stand for that.
” She dropped her hand from the jewels. “Besides, we can cover more ground if we split up. You know I’m right. ”
I did know, and she was right. We’d only been at the resort a few hours, and Niles, Steig, and Oriana were already impatient that Henrika hadn’t produced Redburn yet.
One or, more likely, all of them might decide to take matters into their own hands and try to force Henrika to turn over the formula.
Charlotte and I needed to find any Redburn samples before that happened.
“All right,” I agreed in a reluctant voice. “But I want you to be extra careful around Henrika.”
Charlotte used her index finger to draw an X over her heart. “I promise. Maybe by the time I leave the penthouse, you’ll have located Henrika’s lab, and we can call in the Section strike teams to take her down, capture the other paramortals, and end this game once and for all.”
C harlotte headed to the penthouse to meet Henrika, while I returned to the honeymoon suite. I swept the area, but no one had bugged our rooms while we’d been gone.
Satisfied that no one was watching, I stripped off my tuxedo and changed into a long-sleeved black tactical shirt and matching cargo pants.
I threw on a black fleece jacket and made sure I had all my usual weapons.
A black knit winter hat hid my blond hair, and for a final touch, I slid my hands into a pair of thick gloves and my feet into the heavy boots Joan had picked out in the armory.
I could have left the suite, gotten into the elevator, and returned to the ground floor, but Bryce and the guards were certain to spot me on the security cameras, so I stepped out onto the balcony.
By this point, it was creeping up on midnight, and this side of the hotel was bathed in shadows. Conversation and laughter drifted up from the ballroom below, along with music. Casino Night was still going strong. Good. Chattering crowds and ambient noise were often a spy’s best friends.
Each room on this side of the hotel had a similar balcony, although the ones on the floors below were much smaller, since they fronted less expensive rooms. I swung first one leg, then another, over the balcony railing, digging my toes into the two-inch stone ledge to help with balance. Then I clicked my heels together.
Snick. Snick. Snick.
Tiny spikes popped out of the toes, heels, and soles of my boots.
Next, I reached out, placed one hand on the exterior hotel wall, and tapped my thumb against the stone three times in rapid succession.
Snick. Snick. Snick.
Small hydraulic noises sounded, and tiny spikes embedded in the palm and fingertips of my glove punched into the wall, giving me a good, sturdy grip. I placed my other hand on the wall and repeated the activation process.
Snick . Snick . Snick.
More spikes punched into the stone. Now came the moment of truth. I let out a breath, slowing my racing heart, then stepped off the ledge, putting all my weight—and trust—in the spiked gloves to keep me from falling and being splattered all over the ground hundreds of feet below.
I hung in midair, the winter wind whistling around my body and whipping my legs back and forth, like I was a spider suspended on a silken strand.
I grunted and dug the spikes a little deeper into the wall.
A few chips of stone sprayed out and sliced across my cheeks, but I didn’t dare massage away the small stings.
The wind shrieked in my ears for a few more seconds, then died down. My legs stopped swinging, and I punched the spikes on my boots into the wall, further anchoring myself to the stone.
And then I started climbing down.
I’d used the spiked gloves and boots many times before, usually to scale cliffs when a target had ensconced themselves in a mountaintop hideaway and there was no other way to reach them.
But the stone was much slicker than I expected, and the wind gusted in unpredictable patterns.
Hard bits of snow also battered up against my body and stung my eyes, making it hard to see.
Plus, going down was always harder than climbing up.
I had to reach and step down with one hand and foot at a time without losing my grip on the wall completely.
More than once, my hands and feet slipped, and I had to clench my entire body to stop my rapid slide and keep from plummeting to my death.
I made a mental note to do more yoga and Pilates with Charlotte, who was always talking about being anchored in her powerhouse.
Well, my powerhouse could certainly use some more anchoring right now.
It took me the better part of two minutes, but eventually, I scaled down the wall.
I dropped the last few feet to the ground and landed in a low crouch behind some evergreen hedges that ran along the side of the hotel.
I quickly retracted the spikes on my gloves and boots, then cupped my hands over my mouth to muffle my loud, rapid breaths, as well as the resulting clouds of frost. I also shook out my trembling arms and legs and twisted my torso from side to side to ease the burning in my abs.
The conversation, laughter, and music from the ballroom was much louder here on the ground level, although no guests were outside, given the gusty wind and increasing waves of snow.
A few guards were roaming along the terraces, but they were sticking to the upper two levels, close to the hotel.
Their heads were down, and they were all walking quickly, trying to stay warm.