Page 67 of A Touch of Treachery (Section 47 #3)

I drew in a breath and let it out. “That’s when you ordered my father to go to Mexico, infiltrate Feliciano Salvador’s compound, and kill Henrika. She was your true target, not Salvador.”

Silence dropped over the conference room.

Diego and Joan looked just as stunned as I had been when I finally put all the pieces together last night.

Gia was staring at Percy like she’d never seen him before, while Evelyn tapped a finger on the table, deep in thought.

Desmond kept looking back and forth between me and his father, and I still couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling.

General Percy pushed his chair back from the table, stood up, and yanked at his jacket. “I would be very careful what you say next, Ms. Locke. So far, I’ve endured your conspiracy theories, but I’m growing tired of your baseless accusations.”

He raised his bushy eyebrows in a clear challenge. Percy was giving me a final chance to back down, and we all knew it. I stared at the General a moment longer, then hit the clicker again. The sound was as loud as a gunshot in the tense silence.

A photo of my father filled the screen. Jack Locke was sprawled across the ground, his right arm underneath his head and his legs drawn up to his chest, almost as if he was sleeping in a fetal position.

But the bullet hole in his stomach and the blood that had pooled under his body ruined the peaceful illusion.

I had seen the photo countless times before, but the sight of it always punched the air out of my lungs.

“My father was taken hostage, and eventually, he was shot in the stomach. He bled out before the Section medics could reach him,” I said in a cold, clipped voice.

“I’ll probably never know who fired the fatal bullet.

If it was Feliciano or one of his guards or Henrika or even a Section cleaner mistaking my father for an enemy.

But I do know the three million dollars my grandmother paid in ransom money was never recovered. ”

I hit the clicker again, and another document appeared on the screen. The General grimaced.

“Six weeks after the Mexico mission, Seashell Imports wired three million dollars to one of Henrika’s companies,” I said, anger creeping into my voice.

“Somehow you got your hands on the ransom money that was supposed to save my father’s life and gave it to Henrika, probably to buy her silence about your plot to use Section agents to murder her. ”

My accusation hung in the air like a dark storm cloud about to shoot lightning at all of us.

“I didn’t kill Jack Locke,” General Percy snapped, his voice just as cold, harsh, and tight with anger as mine.

Truth , my inner voice whispered, although it didn’t lessen my anger.

“You might not have killed my father, but you sure didn’t help him either,” I snarled.

“Did my father figure out you were funding Henrika’s research?

And that you couldn’t control her anymore?

Is that why he didn’t kill her? Or did my father refuse because he knew it was a shitty order from a man desperate to cover up his own crimes? ”

General Percy slammed his hand down onto the table. “That is enough !”

Everyone else flinched, but I gave the General a cold look.

He didn’t scare me. Not anymore. In his own way, General Percy was even worse than Henrika.

The weapons maker never pretended to be anything other than what she was, unlike Jethro Percy, who would smile to your face even while he stabbed you in the back.

“It’s too late. I’ve uploaded the information to the Section servers, along with my report. You can’t erase it now, and you can’t get rid of me the same way you got rid of my father.”

General Percy’s fingers twitched as though he wanted to throw himself across the conference table and strangle me.

“You bloody Lockes. You just can’t let anything go, can you?

And you’re always so superior and self-righteous.

Your father killed people for a living, Ms. Locke.

Oh, we might pretty it up and call them cleaners at Section 47, but we all know they’re really assassins, weapons to eliminate whatever target they are aimed at. ”

A muscle twitched in Desmond’s jaw, and Gia’s fingers clenched into fists on the tabletop.

The General straightened up to his full height and peered down his nose at me. “I’ve had enough of your theories. You’re fired, Ms. Locke. Effective immediately.”

“Don’t bother,” I countered. “Because I quit . I don’t want to be part of an organization that would give you a free pass for turning on your own agents, the people you’re supposed to support and protect.

You failed my father. How many other people have you failed over the years?

How many other people have died to keep your secrets? ”

He shook his head, ignoring my accusations. “You’re finished, Ms. Locke.” General Percy waved his hand. “All I have to do is classify this briefing, and no one in this room will be able to breathe a word of your wild, baseless theories.”

Another heavy silence dropped over the room. Then Evelyn slowly pushed her chair back from the table and stood up.

“Charlotte might not be able to do anything about you, Jethro,” Evelyn said in a soft, dangerous voice. “But I certainly can.”

The General blinked, but his surprise and confusion quickly morphed into disgust and annoyance. “So you’re the mysterious Maestro. I should have known. You’ve always been a friend to the Lockes.”

“I’ve always been a friend to loyal agents who serve Section 47 for the right reasons,” she snapped back at him. “And I’ve known for a long time you were not one of those people.”

He glared at her. “We’ll see about that. The board of directors will back me on everything I did, then and now.”

Evelyn shrugged. “Maybe they will, and maybe they won’t. I have friends on the board of directors too, so I guess we’ll find out.”

General Percy looked from Evelyn to me and back again.

Then his gaze flicked over everyone else in the conference room.

Diego and Joan still looked stunned, but fury flashed in Gia’s dark eyes.

The General had gotten her fellow cleaners, her friends, killed, and she was just as pissed about it as I was about my father’s death.

General Percy marched over to the door and threw it open. Then he jerked his head at Desmond. “Let’s go, son. These people can’t hurt me, no matter what they think.”

Desmond slowly pushed his chair back from the table, stood up, and buttoned his suit jacket, a move I’d seen him do a hundred times. He dropped his hands to his sides and looked at me. Only a few feet separated us, but it might as well have been an ocean.

“Son?” General Percy said, a note of doubt creeping into his voice.

“You’re right,” Desmond replied. “We’re done here.”

He stared at me a moment longer, his face icy and unreadable. Then he spun around on his heel and left the conference room.