Page 65 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

An hour passed, then two, then three. I didn’t find anything I didn’t already know, and I didn’t see any report I hadn’t already looked at a dozen times.

Frustration pounded through my body, igniting a dull ache in the back of my skull.

I needed a break, so I left the papers behind, opened the to-go box Pablo had given me earlier, and shoved a big bite of cheesecake into my mouth.

Summer-sweet blackberries floating in a rich, creamy vanilla-bean custard with a buttery graham-cracker crust and just a hint of cinnamon. So good.

I poured myself a glass of milk, then took my cheesecake and returned to the nest of papers and pictures on the floor.

I stared out over the haphazard mess, and a tired sigh escaped my lips.

As an analyst, I usually wanted more information, but right now I was drowning in facts, figures, and files.

I knew the solution was here somewhere, but damned if I could see it right now.

I sent you everything you needed to find the answers you’re so desperately searching for , Henrika’s mocking words filled my mind .

“Sure you did, Henrika.” I scoffed and shoved another bite of cheesecake into my mouth.

I sent you everything you needed to find the answers . . .

Sent you everything you needed . . .

Sent you . . .

My fork froze in midair. What had Henrika ever actually sent me?

As soon as I asked the question, the answer popped into my mind: the invitation to the Winterfest event at the Glittertop Resort.

Henrika had mailed the invitation, so I supposed that counted as sending me something. Either way, it had been one of the first dominoes to fall in this long, twisted chain of events, so I dug through the files until I found a Section report with a picture of the invitation.

I read through the invitation itself, but it was the same as it had been the day I received it, and no clues were hidden in Henrika’s snarky words.

According to the Section techs who had analyzed it, the invitation was exactly what it appeared to be—ink on paper, with no microdots, invisible messages, or anything else extra or suspicious.

So why would Henrika boast about sending me everything I needed?

I huffed in annoyance and tossed the photo aside. It landed next to the brown envelope the invitation had arrived in. My eyes narrowed, and my head tilted to the side. Wait a second. Technically speaking, the invitation wasn’t the only thing Henrika had sent me—she’d mailed it in a larger envelope.

Curious, I picked up the manila envelope.

The mailroom had already scanned it for toxins and the like before it had reached my desk, so I’d never given it to the Section techs for further analysis.

I carefully examined the envelope, but just like the invitation, it was exactly what it appeared to be—a plain brown mailing envelope with no microdots, invisible ink, or other hidden secrets.

Next, I reached out with my synesthesia, but the envelope wasn’t hazardous or dangerous, so my magic didn’t paint it in any bright warning colors.

The envelope wasn’t nearly as nice and fancy as the invitation was, and other than my name and the Section 47 address, the only other thing on it was the return address—

My eyes widened, and my gaze snapped over to the top left corner.

Seashell Imports was printed on the envelope, along with a logo of an open clamshell with a pearl inside.

A strange sense of déjà vu washed over me, and I remembered where else I’d seen the familiar symbol: drawn on the back of the photo of Henrika and her sick cousin Meg that had been in the penthouse library.

Henrika never did anything without a touch of treachery, and she hadn’t put the name and logo on the envelope by accident. It had to be a clue, although to whom or what, I couldn’t say—yet.

Excitement coursed through me. Desmond might like battling bad guys and stepping into the unknown, but deciphering clues and uncovering secrets was what I loved about being a spy.

I set the envelope aside, then dragged my laptop closer and typed Seashell Imports into the main Section database.

To my surprise, I got a hit right away. It was a shell company, no pun intended, that had been created roughly seventeen years ago—two years before the Mexico mission.

I frowned at the odd timing, but I kept digging.

Seashell Imports was the first of many such companies, all strung together like a daisy chain and all with offshore accounts, CEOs who didn’t exist, and everything else you would need to hide money, including where it came from, whom you were sending it to, and what they were doing with it.

Eventually, one of the outlying companies led back to Seashell Imports, completing the circle of corruption.

A frustrated growl rumbled in my throat.

Someone had set up this elaborate paper trail, but who?

Why? And why would Henrika point me in this direction?

She wanted me to find something, although I still didn’t know what it was.

I thought your mysterious benefactor took care of all your problems. Niles Perran’s snide voice sounded in my mind. You took full advantage of your big break.

My eyes narrowed. The biomagical chemist had made those snide remarks when we were in Henrika’s library, and Niles and Henrika’s rivalry stretched back to graduate school.

Maybe I was looking at the wrong thing. Or, rather, at the wrong time .

From my months of research, I knew all the universities Henrika had attended, and I went to one website after another, clicking through their news stories, pictures, and archives.

Thirty minutes later, I found what I was looking for. It wasn’t much, just a short article about grad students accepting medical research grants. Henrika’s name wasn’t mentioned in the news story, but Seashell Imports was among the companies that had doled out the money.

I was going to be the one to do it—to finally cure cancer, leukemia, dementia, and every other horrible disease that robs people of their loved ones. Henrika’s voice whispered through my mind. She’d been telling the truth about her intentions being good, at least when she’d started out.

I skimmed the article, but it was little more than a press release.

The truly interesting—and damning—thing was the accompanying photo.

The image was a bit grainy, but it was easy to recognize Henrika smiling wide and holding up an oversize check, proudly showing off her grant money, along with her mysterious benefactor.

General Jethro Percy.

The General was clutching the other end of the check and scowling at the camera as if he could melt the lens with the sheer force of his icy gaze. Below the photo, a caption read: Scientist receives grant money from Seashell Imports for cancer research project .

For several seconds, I just sat there in shock, staring at the screen with wide eyes and a gaping mouth.

I did one double take, then two, then three, but the image never changed or wavered.

I couldn’t believe this was right out in the open on the Internet for anyone to find.

The story and photo weren’t even protected by a paywall.

My shock wore off, and my mind started whirring again. Armed with this new information, I went back to Seashell Imports and its daisy chain of other shell companies. It took me another thirty minutes, but I finally found the magic number I was looking for: three million dollars.

The same amount as the ransom demand for my father all those years ago. That money had never been recovered, and now I knew why. It had been deposited into one of Seashell Imports’ many accounts and then transferred into an account that belonged to Henrika.

General Percy had used my father’s ransom money to pay off Henrika Hyde.

As soon as I found the payment, more puzzle pieces clicked into place in my mind. I still didn’t know exactly who had done what and when, but I had a pretty good idea how things had played out in Mexico—and how they were still playing out to this day.

I sat on my yoga mat for a long time, stunned, simply stunned, by what I’d discovered. In some ways, I couldn’t quite believe it was real, but in other ways, it made perfect sense.

General Percy had ordered Desmond to eliminate Henrika because she was a threat, but not to Section 47, not really. No, Henrika was a threat to the General himself. Because if their past relationship ever came to light, it could spell the end of Percy’s career.

This information could change everything at Section 47.

I never had any intention of killing Charlotte. Ms. Locke still has her part to play in this little drama . Henrika had said that in the clearing when she’d kidnapped Desmond, and now I knew exactly what she meant.

Henrika had hired Bryce because she knew the former cleaner would get under Desmond’s skin.

She’d also used Bryce to steal the Section undercover agent list to lure Desmond and me to the resort, but she’d never wanted either one of us dead.

Henrika had wanted to capture Desmond and experiment on him in hopes of improving her Redburn formula, but she’d had something much more clever and subtle in mind for me.

Henrika wanted to use me to destroy Jethro Percy.

She’d put the Seashell Imports name and logo on the envelope because she wanted me to investigate the company and discover who had set it up and why.

When we’d met in her penthouse library after Casino Night, Henrika had dropped all those tantalizing little hints about the Mexico mission to keep me engaged and on the hook.

Then, last night, she’d visited the diner to remind me that I hadn’t picked up on all the clues she’d dealt out like cards in a poker game.

Henrika could have leaked the info and tried to take down General Percy herself, but no one would have believed someone on Section 47’s most-wanted list. No, the info had to come from someone else, someone who could follow elaborate electronic and paper trails, someone who could put all the puzzle pieces together, and maybe, most important of all, someone who wouldn’t back down from Jethro Percy no matter what.

Me, Charlotte Locke, analyst extraordinaire.

A bitter laugh burst out of my lips. I’d known Henrika was smart, but the way she’d set all this up was nothing short of spectacular .

My mind whirred again as I considered the biggest question of all: What was I going to do with the information?

I scooped my phone up off the floor. First things first. I had to tell Desmond what I’d found . . . or did I?

My finger hovered over the call button, then wilted down to my side.

Ever since the Winterfest mission, Desmond and his father had been getting along better.

Oh, they weren’t best friends by any stretch of the imagination, but Desmond didn’t tense every time the General stepped into a room, and Percy didn’t always take a superior I-know-what’s-best-for-you tone with his son.

The General had even been, well, not polite, but less hostile to me.

I didn’t want to ruin Desmond’s thawing relationship with his father. And more selfishly, I didn’t want to drive a wedge between Desmond and myself by blowing the whistle about General Percy’s past sins.

Could I do this? Could I really keep quiet about Percy’s old partnership with Henrika? Could I really forget I’d finally figured out where the ransom money had gone? Money that had taken years for Grandma Jane and me to pay back to Gabriel and his father?

Those questions and a dozen others swirled through my mind. I reached out with my magic, trying to find a solution, the way I had so many times before, but my synesthesia was deathly quiet. This was one danger, one hazard, one minefield I would have to navigate on my own.

My gaze drifted over to the blue recliner by the windows. The chair had been an early Christmas present to myself as I slowly refurnished the apartment, although I’d been so busy working that I hadn’t sat in it more than a dozen times.

But in my mind’s eye, it was Grandma Jane’s favorite recliner, and she was firmly ensconced in the seat, while I perched on the left arm.

Grandma Jane was clutching a crystal mockingbird figurine and slowly rocking the two of us back and forth as we waited for news about my father and whether he was coming home from Mexico—or not.

For a moment, I could hear the soft, steady creak-creak-creak of the recliner, see the crystal glimmering in my grandmother’s wrinkled hands, even smell the faintest whiff of her rose perfume.

I blinked. The image, the memory, faded away, but my heart wrenched in my chest.

I knew what I had to do, no matter what it might cost me.

I drew in a deep breath, then let it out and set my phone aside. And then I leaned forward and started typing again, working on a brand-new report about Henrika Hyde—and General Jethro Percy.