Page 53 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

A bright white light flared, and lines of black code filled the screen, forming the distinctive shape of a mockingbird, complete with the creature’s jaunty tail. The screen abruptly went dark again, then the main Section home page appeared, with a message: Welcome, Mockingbird .

I hissed out a relieved breath, flexed my fingers, and started typing.

First, I looked at the reports and updates that chronicled the search for Desmond and Henrika.

The Section agents were following several leads, but none were promising.

No surprise there. Henrika was quite clever, and she would love nothing more than to lead the agents on a merry chase while she thumbed her nose at General Percy.

Next, I reviewed the photos and videos Section agents had taken in and around the hotel, as well as their reports about Henrika fleeing across the lake, driving up the mountain, and taking off in a helicopter.

I drummed my fingers on the tabletop, even as my mind whirred with possibilities. Depending on the helicopter, Henrika could have taken Desmond anywhere in the eastern U.S. Since I couldn’t figure out the route, I turned to the second part of the equation: the destination.

If Henrika wanted to discover how Desmond had survived the Redburn explosions, then she would need supplies and equipment for blood tests, imaging scans, and other medical procedures.

She must have taken him to a lab, maybe even the same lab where she was storing the Redburn formula.

I just needed to figure out where it was.

I pulled up all the information I’d collected over the last several months about Henrika’s production plants, office buildings, and other properties, including the Glittertop Resort. Then I sat back in my chair, reached for my synesthesia, and let the laptop monitor fill my field of vision.

I went through everything again, document by document, line by line, word by word.

Every time a glimmer of gray or a pop of pink caught my eye, I stopped and studied the information, but they all turned out to be typos and addition errors.

Nothing nefarious or sinister appeared, and I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know.

Frustrated, I rocked back in my chair, making the wood groan in protest. Henrika was smart and dangerous, but she was a creature of habit, just like we all were.

Out of all the rooms in the hotel, I’d come to the library because I had always loved being surrounded by books and Desmond had comforted me in here last night.

Henrika was no different. She would go someplace she felt safe, someplace she thought no one would find her.

But where ? Where was that?

Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted several curls of dark gray smoke sliding along the wall. Familiar footsteps sounded, and a shadow fell over me.

“It’s about time you got here,” I groused.

Gabriel slid into the chair across the table from me. “You’re the one who warned me off in the lobby earlier. I would have been happy to confront Jethro Percy and give him a piece of my mind.”

“As much as I would have enjoyed seeing that, it wouldn’t have helped anything. Besides, I didn’t want you to get caught up in my mess any more than you already are.” I sighed. “I’m sorry for snapping at you. What I should have said was thank you for coming.”

Gabriel tipped his head, accepting my apology. “No worries, Char. You always get cranky when you’re concerned.”

He fell silent, but his eyes darkened with worry. Gabriel had been a cleaner for a long time, and he knew exactly what someone like Henrika was capable of and just how much she could hurt Desmond.

I jerked my chin at the closed library door. “What’s been happening out there?”

He waved his hand. “General Percy stormed out through the front door about thirty minutes ago. Most of the Section agents and techs followed him, and so did Gia, Evelyn, and Diego. A strike team is still searching the woods for Niles Perran and Oriana Luzzo, but they’ll probably stop soon.

It’s clear the other paramortals are long gone.

” He gestured at the papers spread out in front of me. “Find anything?”

I shook my head. “Nothing new. According to the Section agents, Henrika set off a bunch of bombs to cover her tracks. By the time they got across the lake and followed her up the mountain, she had boarded a helicopter and flown away. The agents are trying to track the chopper, with no luck so far.”

Gabriel arched an eyebrow. “I hear a but in your voice.”

“But . . . something about this whole situation doesn’t feel right. Henrika’s escape seems too . . . easy .”

“You think planting bombs on two sides of a lake and decimating half a mountain to cover your escape route seems easy ?” His eyebrow arched a little higher. “I would hate to hear your definition of hard .”

“No, not easy for Henrika—easy for us , for Section. It’s like Henrika laid out a trail of breadcrumbs, only those breadcrumbs ended in explosions.” I rubbed my aching head. “I feel like this is all part of Henrika’s plan and that she is leading General Percy exactly where she wants him to go.”

“Through the woods to Grandma’s house?” Gabriel quipped.

I snorted. “More like away from her super-secret weapons lab.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll figure it out, Char. You always do.”

I flashed him a grateful smile. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

Gabriel stared at me, his gaze steady on mine.

“It’s not a vote of confidence. It’s the truth .

I believe in you, and so does Desmond. Wherever he is, Slick knows you won’t stop searching until you find him.

I’ve been in similar situations, and knowing someone is looking for you .

. .” His voice trailed off, and he shifted in his chair.

“Well, it helps more than you know. With all sorts of things.”

Once again, hot tears stung my eyes, but I blinked them back. Gabriel’s calm, unwavering belief made me feel like I could find Desmond after all. I grabbed his hand and squeezed his fingers. “You’re a good friend.”

Gabriel squeezed my hand back and flashed me a grin. “Correction. I’m a terrific friend.” He pulled out his phone. “Speaking of friends, I have a pilot buddy who owes me a favor. Let me see what she says about flying choppers in this area.”

“Thanks, Gabriel.”

He winked at me. “Anytime, Char.”

Gabriel murmured into his phone, calling one person after another, while I went through all the information on Henrika yet again.

And once again, I didn’t see anything different.

Even with my synesthesia, I didn’t find any typos, errors, mistakes, or outright lies that told me where she had taken Desmond.

Frustrated and more than a little desperate, I pushed the laptop aside and studied the maps of the resort grounds and surveillance photos of the surrounding area.

I looked at one building, then another, then another, but the maps and photos didn’t change, and they all showed the same things as before.

Think, Charlotte, think!

I swallowed a growl, leaned back in my chair, and glared at the ceiling.

After a few seconds, I closed my eyes and drew in several deep breaths, cleansing the anger from my system, just like I would do on my yoga mat.

Calmer, I opened my eyes, sat up straight, and went back to the beginning, reviewing all the facts yet again.

Bryce had knocked out Desmond, then a guard had carried Desmond to the dock, where he’d been put on a boat.

Henrika, Bryce, and their men had used the boat to cross the lake and land on the opposite shore.

After that, Henrika had set off several bombs to keep the Section agents from immediately following her up the mountain.

Henrika, Bryce, and their men had abandoned their SUVs at the top of the mountain, gotten into a helicopter, and flown away.

Gabriel was still murmuring into his phone, so I sighed and clicked through the photos again, going through them one by one and reviewing the accompanying reports by the Section agents . . .

A photo of a dirt road leading up the mountain appeared. I started to click past it, but then I remembered something Diego had said during the briefing before the mission: The resort covers several thousand acres . . . Not much else is around it . . . Lots of dirt roads and hiking trails . . .

Henrika had used one of those dirt roads to reach the top of the mountain, but something about the information nagged at me.

I sat back and stared at the screen, letting my synesthesia flare to life, but no telltale grays, pinks, or reds appeared on the photo or any of the other information.

It was all true, correct, exact, and didn’t contain any typos, mistakes, or outright lies.

My frustration bubbled up yet again, but I pushed it down and called up the video Henrika had sent demanding a full pardon in exchange for Desmond’s return.

I hadn’t noticed it before, but the video jostled ever so slightly.

A moment later, I realized why: Henrika had shot the video in the SUV that had hauled her up the mountain.

I frowned. Why would she have made the video while she was driving up the mountain? Why not do it in the helicopter when she was flying away? Or after she had reached a secure location?

My eyes narrowed, and I focused on the photo of the dirt road again.

That was the last place any of the Section agents had actually seen Henrika.

Just because the agents thought she had flown away didn’t make it a fact .

No one had witnessed Henrika actually boarding the helicopter.

She might have used another form of transportation to escape .

. . or she might not have gone anywhere at all.

As soon as the idea popped into my mind, everything tilted on its axis, and all the disparate pieces of the puzzle rearranged themselves into an entirely new pattern.

My heart pounded, and I leaned forward and started typing, my fingers flying over the laptop keys like I was playing a piano concerto.

Gabriel noticed the sudden burst of noise and motion and lowered his phone. “Charlotte? You find something?”

I ignored him and kept typing and clicking, scrolling through one document and photo after another after another, until I found what I wanted.

There —there it was.

“Coal mines,” I whispered.

Gabriel frowned. “What? What are you talking about?”

I spun the laptop around so he could see the topographical map on the screen. “In our briefing before the mission, Diego mentioned that this area is riddled with abandoned coal mines. That’s one of the reasons Henrika was able to buy so much land so cheaply. No one else wanted it.”

Gabriel shrugged. “Okay. So what?”

I clicked over to a spreadsheet listing the expenses for the construction companies that had worked on the resort. “Henrika spent a fortune upgrading the hotel and the resort grounds. This is all the money she doled out to bring everything up to code.”

Gabriel frowned again, still not seeing it, so I tapped on a couple of the lines on the screen.

“But these building materials didn’t come here to the hotel. See the delivery address? It’s on the same road as the resort, but the materials were delivered to another spot—an address with a number that comes before the resort.”

“You think Henrika had the construction crews work on something else in the area.” Gabriel shook his head. “But there aren’t any other buildings around for miles. At least, none that Section hasn’t already checked out.”

“There aren’t any other buildings we can see ,” I replied.

“Henrika has to have a secret lab on the resort grounds, but Desmond and I couldn’t find it, and neither could the other paramortals.

That’s because we’ve all been looking for the wrong kind of space.

Henrika didn’t need a giant warehouse out in the open.

She has other labs that fit that bill. She just needed a private place away from prying eyes where she could brew up Redburn and her other biomagical weapons. ”

Understanding dawned on Gabriel’s face. “Like an abandoned coal mine.”

I shot my thumb and forefinger at him. “Exactly. Henrika didn’t fly away on a helicopter. She ducked into her abandoned coal mine hidey-hole and waited for the Section agents to move past her location. Henrika has been on the neighboring mountain this whole time.”