Page 41 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

CHARLOTTE

I maintained my position by the shelves, not daring to move, silently cursing my own recklessness.

As soon as I realized Henrika wasn’t in the library, I should have backtracked and waited in the foyer.

Not waltzed right in like I owned the place and let Henrika snap her trap—or whatever this was—shut behind me.

Henrika’s gaze locked onto the Grunglass Necklace around my throat. I’d known it was a risk to wear the necklace, but it was one of the few things she coveted, and I was hoping the sight of it might throw her off her game just a little bit.

Hunger creased Henrika’s face, and she drew in a sharp breath.

I tensed and curled my fingers around my purse a little tighter, remembering what Joan had said about the bag being lined with explosives.

If Henrika ordered Bryce and the guards to take the necklace, I’d twist the rhinestone clasp, toss the purse bomb at them, and duck behind the closest table.

Henrika opened her mouth, but then her gaze flicked past the necklace and landed on the two photos on the shelf. A shadow passed over her face, but she jerked her head at Bryce and the two guards. “Leave us.”

“Are you sure that’s wise?” Bryce asked, his hand still on his gun. “Given who she works for? She might try something stupid.”

“It’s fine,” Henrika replied. “Charlotte and I have an understanding, and she is far from stupid. It’s one of the things I admire most about her.”

Truth , my inner voice whispered, although a chill slithered down my spine at the compliment.

“I’ll be right outside if you need me,” Bryce said.

Henrika smiled, then reached up and cupped his cheek in her hand. “Of course, darling. You always take such good care of me.”

Bryce took her hand in his and pressed a soft, gallant kiss to her knuckles, playing the part of a debonair gentleman. Henrika’s smile widened. I’d thought Bryce was just a hired gun, but he and Henrika were obviously much closer than that.

Was there any genuine affection between them? Or were they just convenient lovers for each other? Hard to tell, and for once, even my synesthesia was quiet on the matter.

The two guards left the library. Bryce eyed me, then strode through the opening and shut the doors behind him.

Henrika swept past me and headed to the refreshment tables, which had been replenished since the previous meeting. She poured a flute of champagne, then gestured at an empty glass. I shook my head. Henrika slugged down that drink and poured herself another one. Then she finally faced me.

We regarded each other in silence. The seconds ticked by one after another, and the longer I stared at Henrika, the more my synesthesia flared to life, painting her in a bright, bloody red light.

Oh, I didn’t get the sense that she was going to physically attack me, but she seemed to know just as much about me as I knew about her, which made her a serious threat.

I had a feeling Henrika Hyde would always be a threat.

Henrika used her champagne flute to gesture at the photo of her and Feliciano. “That’s one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.”

“I didn’t realize you were involved with Feliciano Salvador.”

She shrugged. “It started out as a business arrangement, but it soon turned into something more, as things like that so often do. Just like you and Desmond, I imagine.”

I bristled. “Desmond and I are nothing like you.”

Her red lips flashed a small smile. “We’ll see about that.” Her smile vanished, and she shrugged again. “Feliciano and I kept our personal relationship very discreet. Most of the people in our inner circles didn’t even know about the two of us. At least, not until after Mexico.”

“This photo was taken at Feliciano’s villa. You were there when the Section cleaners tried to kill Feliciano. That’s why you claim to know what really happened to my father.”

“Something like that.”

“You could just tell me,” I snapped, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of my voice.

Another small smile played across her lips.

“Why would I do that? It’s so much more fun to watch you scurry around, desperately searching for clues about what happened to dear old Dad.

Bryce bet me twenty bucks you wouldn’t notice the photo, but of course, I easily won that bet.

Charlotte Locke is nothing if not observant. ”

So letting me break into the library and nose around had been a test. Anger simmered through my veins, but I kept my face calm and blank.

“Back at the Halstead Hotel, you claimed you didn’t care what happened to your father, that Jack Locke always put Section missions before everything else, even you, his own daughter.” Henrika raised her eyebrows in a questioning look.

“My father did put Section 47 before everything else. I always expected him to get killed on one mission or another.” The anger in my veins boiled up, the way it always did whenever I talked about my father’s death.

“But what really pisses me off is the mess that came after my father died. The worst part wasn’t his death.

Oh, no. It was watching my grandmother drown in debt and work her fingers to the bone trying to pay back the ransom money.

How does three million dollars just disappear into thin air? ”

Henrika’s left eye twitched. I wondered at the small show of emotion, but she didn’t respond, so I answered my own question. “It doesn’t. Which means someone either screwed up the ransom exchange, or stole the money, or both.”

“Mmm.” Henrika made a noncommittal sound and took another sip of champagne.

My eyes narrowed. “You really do know all about it, don’t you? Everything that happened in Mexico. Who screwed up and why my father died and got blamed for everything.”

Henrika nodded. “Yes, I know all that and much more. But your assumptions are all wrong, Charlotte.”

“What do you mean?”

“No one screwed up on either side. Everything that happened on the Mexico mission was a very deliberate act.”

Truth , my inner voice whispered. Henrika wasn’t lying.

Oh, her information might still be wrong, or be only part of the story, but she truly believed whatever she knew.

That was the tricky thing about my synesthesia.

It could tell me whether someone was lying, but it couldn’t always tell me exactly how correct—or not—they might be.

“What kind of deliberate act ?”

Henrika tapped a finger on her lips, as though she was thinking of just the right description. “Arrogance, with more than a little desperate self-preservation and a touch of treachery.”

“You’re one to talk about acts of arrogance,” I muttered.

“How so?”

I threw my hands out wide. “This whole auction for your Redburn formula. It’s all just a game .

You brought Desmond and me here, along with the other paramortals, and pitted us all against one another.

Now you’re just waiting to see which of us dies and who manages to live through the weekend.

You do everything with more than just a touch of treachery. ”

She shrugged. “What can I say? It’s an amusing game.”

Henrika wasn’t going to tell me anything. No, she preferred to dole out cryptic clues one at a time and watch me frantically race around like a mouse in search of the next morsel of cheese that was only going to lead me even deeper into her maze.

Well, it was time to squirm out of Henrika’s trap and start playing my own game.

I gestured at the photo of a teenage Henrika with the sick girl. “That’s one of your cousins, right?”

Henrika blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “How do you know that?”

“The two of you have the same eyes. Same shape, same size, same color green.” Now that I’d had time to think about it, the research I’d done into Henrika’s family tree floated through my mind. “What was her name?”

I snapped my fingers a couple of times. Henrika flinched at the sharp sounds.

The answer came to me, and I snapped my fingers a final time. “Ah! Her name was Meg. She was your first cousin. The daughter of your mother’s sister.”

Henrika flinched again. Then she set down her champagne, walked over, picked up the framed photo, and smoothed her hand over the glass.

“Meg was the only one of my cousins who didn’t look down her nose at me and my mother when my father kicked us out of his life.

Meg and I were best friends—until she died. ”

The raw emotion in her voice surprised me, and I took another look at Meg’s pale face and bald head.

Of course. I could have smacked myself for not putting the pieces together sooner.

“Meg is the reason you host the charity event every year. You really do care about raising money for cancer research.”

Henrika returned the photo to the shelf, nudging it back into place with her index finger. “Meg is the reason I got into science, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, all of it. I didn’t want anyone else to lose their best friend the way I had.”

Her voice was calm, but a shadow of sorrow darkened her face, and I didn’t need my synesthesia to know she was telling the truth.

But the longer I looked at her, the more I thought of another image: Desmond clutching Graham Walker’s body on a blackened beach, their skin burned, blistered, and a shiny, unnatural shade of red from Henrika’s devastating explosive.

“And yet here you are, trying to sell a biomagical weapon to the highest bidder. Funny how your priorities have shifted over the years,” I said in a snide voice.

Henrika barked out a laugh, but it was a sharp, bitter sound.

She spun toward me, anger sparking in her eyes.

“Do you think I started out making weapons? That I just woke up one day and began plotting the best way to hurt people? Don’t be an idiot, Charlotte.

I had the same grandiose dreams as everyone else. ”

“What dreams ?”