Page 39 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

CHARLOTTE

I rode the elevator to the penthouse. By the time it stopped, I had settled my nerves and sharpened my resolve. I’d won the first round in the game Henrika was playing, and I had to be on my toes for round two.

The elevator arrived with a loud ding that made me flinch. The door slid back, and I stepped into the foyer. To my surprise, no guards were waiting in the space. I didn’t hear a whisper of sound, and the elevator remained open behind me.

Curiosity propelled me over to the double doors that led into Henrika’s penthouse, and I cautiously tried them. Locked. I glanced around, wondering if this was a test—or trap—but I didn’t see any security cameras embedded in the ceiling, and my synesthesia wasn’t muttering about any hidden dangers.

I bent down and took a closer look at the doors, which were locked with a numbered keypad.

None of the white paint on the numbers was chipped or smudged, so I couldn’t figure out the code that way.

Next, I ran my fingers over the buttons, jiggling and pressing them.

Three of the buttons felt looser than the others, as if they were the only ones that were ever touched.

I chewed on my lower lip, thinking about the numbers, along with everything I knew about Henrika. After a few seconds, I rolled my eyes and punched in the numbers 724—July 24, Henrika’s birthday.

The light on the keypad flashed green, the lock clicked, and one of the doors popped open. I snorted. A birthday code? Seriously? That was even more obvious than Desmond using 007 as the code for the wall safe in his apartment.

I glanced back over my shoulder, but the elevator was still open and waiting. It didn’t seem like a guard was going to suddenly appear, so I pulled the door open a little wider and stepped through to the other side.

The same telltale staticky tingle that had fried my comms jewelry earlier in the day swept over my body again.

I shivered at the uncomfortable sensation, moved past the expensive furniture and pricey knickknacks in the front of the suite, and went over to Henrika’s library.

These doors were also locked, although they required an actual key instead of another code.

I plucked a small brown bobby pin out of my purse.

Unlike the other hair accessories Joan had packed, it was just an ordinary bobby pin, with no knockout needles or other gadgets hidden inside.

I bent the pin into the shape I wanted, then stuck it into the lock.

It took me less than thirty seconds to coax it open.

I stuck the bobby pin into my purse, twisted the knob, and stepped through to the other side.

Lights blazed in the library, but no one was inside, and Henrika wasn’t hiding behind the furniture waiting to jump out and yell boo!

My heart kicked up into my throat, but I swallowed it down. My gaze flicked over to Henrika’s desk. Her laptop was open, and the screen was unlocked. My fingers itched with the urge to start tapping away, but I resisted the temptation.

Henrika might have let me into her inner sanctum seemingly unsupervised, but I was willing to bet she was watching me through a security camera, and I wasn’t about to fall for such an obvious trap.

Besides, I doubted Henrika kept anything of importance on that laptop or the scientist’s worktable in the corner.

No, her real secrets would be tucked away with the Redburn formula, wherever it was stored.

I marched over to the shelves that lined one wall.

Just like with a person’s desk, you could tell a lot about someone by the mementoes they kept, but nothing jumped out at me.

The books were classic titles bound in supple leather and stamped with foil, the kind of books people bought but never actually read, while the framed photos were posed shots of Henrika smiling and shaking hands with famous folks.

The jewelry inside the glass cases was pretty, but none of the pieces was as expensive, dazzling, and ostentatious as the Grunglass Necklace I was still wearing.

Frustration pounded through me. Henrika could come here any moment, and I had nothing to show for my snooping.

I spun away from the shelves and stared out over the space again.

Henrika’s desk, the scientist’s worktable with beakers and vials filled with who knew what, the fireplace, the fancy furniture spread across the equally expensive rugs underfoot.

Once again, I didn’t see anything unusual or out of place. More frustration pounded through me, so I drew in a deep breath, then slowly let it out, just like I did on my yoga mat whenever my muscles were shaking from holding a difficult pose and I needed to steady myself.

Calmer, I took another look around, and I noticed something was slightly . . . off .

I drew in another breath, then slowly let it out and reached for my magic just like I would lengthen my arms and legs in a yoga pose to get that tiny bit of extra stretch. I studied the library through the lens of my synesthesia, but nothing happened.

More frustration simmered in my veins, but I kept reaching out with my magic.

I wasn’t looking at a document or a spreadsheet, so there were no typos or addition errors to find.

I needed to shift my perspective and search for things that were .

. . out of place . . . and just . . . didn’t belong with the immaculate furnishings.

So I drew in a third breath, then let it out, like the others.

Calmer, I turned in a slow circle, examining every single part of the library with my synesthesia, and a few muted grays flickered in my field of vision, like bulbs that couldn’t quite decide whether they had enough juice to fully light up.

I focused on the first flare of gray, then another, then another, studying everything my synesthesia was pointing out.

The corner of a rug that was flipped up.

A long, ugly scratch on the side of a table.

A cracked pane of glass on one of the lamps.

I studied each imperfection in turn, then moved on to the next one.

Eventually, my gaze settled on the shelves closest to Henrika’s desk, and two tiny flickers of gray caught my attention. Curious, I headed in that direction.

Two framed photos were sitting together on a shelf to the left of Henrika’s desk, and both pictures were positioned so that they would be in her line of sight while she was working. My heart quickened with excitement, and I bent down and studied them.

The first photo was in a silver frame, but a crease ran down one side of the image, and the bottom right corner was torn off. My synesthesia had picked up on the flaws, but the truly unusual thing was the photo itself.

Unlike the posed shots on the other shelves, this photo showed a teenage Henrika smiling wide at the camera, her arms wrapped around another smiling teenage girl.

Henrika was the picture of young, dewy health, but the other girl was obviously sick, with pale skin, sunken eyes, and a bald head.

My stomach clenched, and memories of Grandma Jane floated through my mind.

I was willing to bet this girl, whoever she was, had also had some form of cancer.

Besides Petra Halstead, Henrika didn’t have any other known siblings, so who was this girl?

A cousin, maybe? A friend from school? The girl must have been important for Henrika to still have her photo all these years later.

Or maybe Henrika was playing another game, letting me think I had gotten some revealing glimpse into her psyche when the photo didn’t mean anything.

I thought about it for a few more seconds, then discarded the idea.

Displaying a photo of a sick kid just to mess with your enemy was a shitty thing to do, even for Henrika.

Besides, my synesthesia would have warmed to a bright pink if the photo had been doctored.

No, this was a real photo, and Henrika had been friends with the sick girl once upon a time.

I plucked my phone out of my purse. The device didn’t have a signal, but the camera was still working, so I snapped a shot of Henrika and the sick girl.

I didn’t know how—or even if—the photo might help me or the mission, but it was always better to have as much information as possible, especially about an enemy.

Once that was done, I turned my attention to the second photo, which was another posed shot showing Henrika shaking hands and smiling at a man in a dark business suit.

Instead of an office, the two of them were standing on a terrace with a colorful sunset and glimmering ocean in the background.

I snapped a photo of it as well, then tucked my phone back into my purse.

I started to turn away from the picture, but something about the man’s wide, toothy smile caught my eye, so I took a closer look.

Dark brown hair and eyes, light brown skin, a nose that was slightly crooked from having been broken multiple times. Shock spiked through me, and my breath caught in my throat.

The man in the photo was Feliciano Salvador—the cartel leader who had captured my father during the Mexico mission. Why would Henrika have a photo of him ?

Nausea roiled in my stomach, but I examined every single inch of the photo. Henrika and Feliciano were standing on a stone terrace that overlooked sparkling waves. More nausea bubbled up in my stomach. I’d studied enough Section surveillance photos to recognize Feliciano’s seaside villa.

More shock spiked through my body. Henrika wasn’t lying. She really did know what had happened to my father because she had been there . Henrika had been in Mexico, at Feliciano’s villa, when Jack Locke and the other cleaners had been sent to eliminate the cartel leader.

Once again, I reached out with my synesthesia and studied the photo.

No grays appeared, no pinks, no reds, no colors of any sort.

Just like the photo of the sick girl, this image was also genuine.

Not only that, but the way Henrika was looking at Feliciano .

. . well, it reminded me of the way I looked at Desmond.

How had I not discovered this in my research? Had Henrika and Feliciano been involved? Was that why she had been at his villa? Or had Henrika had other business with the cartel leader?

Behind me, a door creaked open. Footsteps scuffed on the rugs, and a whisper of air flowed through the library, kissing the back of my neck like an unwanted lover. I froze, still bent over the two photos.

“I was wondering where you’d run off to,” a familiar voice drawled. “I should have known you would have come straight here to collect your winnings.”

I straightened up and turned around. Henrika stood behind me, along with Bryce and two guards, all of whom had their hands on their guns.