The longer I looked, the more colors started to appear.
To anyone else looking at my screen, the words and numbers were still in plain black type. But to me, they morphed from that absolute flat black into varying shades of gray, along with some light pinks and even a few bold, bloody reds.
I followed the gradation of colors, starting with the words and numbers in black—the ones that were true, correct, precise. From there, I moved on to the light grays—the ones with small typos and addition errors. Next came the pinks—the letters and numbers with more significant faults. And, finally, the reds—the large, glaring errors where someone had either made a serious mistake or had deliberately entered the wrong information and committed an outright electronic lie.
My left index finger hovered over the laptop screen, following the shifting colors. With my right hand, I jotted down notes on a pad. Almost everyone at Section 47 had some magical ability, and mine was an unusual form of synesthesia. I could see typos, mistakes, and errors that people made, whether they had accidentally transposed digits and written down a wrong phone number, knowingly fudged their expense reports, or deliberately committed fraud by submitting false information to a financial institution. My synesthesia took other forms as well, but I mostly used it to make my work as an analyst a little easier.
Not that anyone cared. Thanks to Gregory Jensen’s dislike of me, most of my reports were either solely attributed to his supposed brilliance or given cursory looks at best before being filed on the Section electronic databases, never to see the light of day again. Jensen wasn’t the only one stuck in middle management. I was thirty-five and had been working at Section for roughly ten years, ever since I had finished grad school. I should have already been promoted to a senior analyst position, instead of keeping the general analyst designation that I’d had for the past five years.
Part of my lack of upward mobility could be attributed to my father’s mistakes at Section, but Jensen hadn’t done me any favors by giving me one poor performance review after another. He’d wanted to keep me under his thumb, if only so he wouldn’t have to do any heavy lifting himself. I didn’t wish ill on the dead, but maybe my new supervisor, whomever that turned out to be, would appreciate and take my work more seriously—or at least give me proper credit for it.
Either way, I needed to finish and file this report, so I clicked through a few more screens and documents.
“May I sit with you?”
I kept staring at my screen, following the trail of gray, pink, and red letters and numbers that only I could see…
Someone cleared his throat. “May I sit with you?” The words came out a little louder and more forceful than before.
For the first time, I noticed that someone was standing on the opposite side of the table. I looked up from my laptop.
Him. The assassin I’d spotted earlier. The one with the bright, daring powder-blue tie. He was holding a large mug and a newspaper and staring at me, an expectant look on his face.
Up close, he was far more handsome than I’d realized. He was around six feet tall, with dark blond hair that was somehow sleekly styled and artfully messy at the same time. Golden stubble clung to his strong jaw, making him seem as though he’d just tumbled out of bed, although I imagined that he took as much care with his facial hair as he did with the rest of his appearance.
His light gray suit was perfectly cut and tailored, showing off his broad shoulders and lean figure. He wasn’t bulked up with muscle the way so many cleaners were, but an obvious, effortless strength radiated from his body. He also carried himself with supreme confidence, as if he knew without a doubt that he was the biggest badass in the room. That same confidence glinted in his eyes, which were the same light powder-blue as his tie. Miriam had been right. Hubba-hubba indeed.
“May I sit with you?” he asked for a third time, snapping me out of my stupefied reverie.
His easy tone and small smile were probably meant to be innocuous and disarming, as were his mug and newspaper props, but he still pinged my internal radar.
In addition to seeing mistakes, my synesthesia also warned me about threats to my own personal safety, often gilding those dangers in the same colors I would notice in typos in a document. A wet, slippery floor might register as a light gray for a minor hazard, while a car rolling through a stop sign would be a hot pink for a more serious risk. This guy? No colors currently surrounded him, but cleaners always merited a bright, bloody red on my spectrum.
My gaze cut left and right. It was after two o’clock now, so the cafeteria was largely deserted, except for a few late-lunch stragglers. There were plenty of empty tables where he could have sat and enjoyed his beverage and newspaper. So why did he want to sit with me?
He kept staring at me, clearly expecting an answer.
“Suit yourself,” I muttered.
“Excellent. Thank you.”
What was that faint accent in his voice? Not English, not European, but…Australian. I had to hold back an appreciative sigh. Accents did me in every single time. Hence my unfortunate affair with a minor Spanish diplomat back before my grandmother had gotten sick. I’d liked the diplomat’s musical accent so much that I hadn’t noticed what a cheating scumbag he was until I’d shown up early for one of our dinner dates and caught him canoodling with another woman.
The cleaner set his mug and newspaper on the table and pulled out the chair across from mine, the one Miriam had vacated a few minutes ago. He unbuttoned his suit jacket, slid it down his arms, shrugged out of the garment, and draped it across the back of his chair all in one fluid motion. Underneath, he was wearing a vest, along with a silver pocket watch on a lengthy chain. The light gray vest and the matching shirt revealed even more of his lean, muscled body, adding to his appeal. In addition to accents, there was nothing I found sexier than a well-dressed man, and James Bond had nothing on this guy.
The cleaner stepped forward, sat down in the chair, and picked up his mug, once again all in one continuous, easy sequence. He seemed to have a natural, almost liquid grace, and I got the sense he did everything with that same smooth, effortless motion, as if one action just naturally, continually, inevitably flowed into the next, whether he was doing something as mundane as brushing his teeth or as brutal as bludgeoning someone to death.
Most people probably would have thought it elegant, but I recognized the graceful ability as belonging to a natural predator. No doubt he was the sort of cleaner who could sidle up behind you and snap your neck before you even realized he was within striking distance. Sometimes, when presented with a particularly serious threat, instead of colors, my synesthesia took the form of an inner voice, and right now, that voice kept whispering danger-danger-danger over and over again.
The cleaner fussed with his newspaper, then picked up the string attached to the tea bag swimming in his mug. He dunked the bag in and out of the steaming water for a few seconds before sitting back in his chair and taking a sip. A faint whiff of the tea tickled my nose, smelling warm, green, and citrusy. No doubt it was the sort of brew that was probably really good for you and really disgusting to drink.
“Nothing like a cup of hot tea on a cool fall day, eh?” he said in a pleasant tone, like he was just making conversation, although his sexy accent made the innocuous words seem to hold a multitude of hidden meanings.
I made a noncommittal sound and looked at my laptop.
I still had to finish my report, so I focused on the words and numbers, trying to pick up the trails of grays, pinks, and reds again. Even though I had been investigating and tracking this particular individual, Henrika Hyde, for more than three months, and filing reports all along the way, I felt like I was finally on the verge of discovering something big, something that would tell me exactly where all this money was going and what horrible thing it was financing…
“Say, I’m new in town,” the cleaner said. “Do you have any tips on good restaurants?”
I kept staring at my screen, clicking and
following the color trail from one document and spreadsheet to the next. “If you like barbecue, Mama Flo’s on the next block is pretty good,” I murmured, still trying to track the words and numbers to their inevitable wrong and sinister conclusions.
“Sounds great. How about I take you there for dinner tonight?”
A moment passed before his words penetrated my work fog and sank into my brain. My gaze snapped up to his. The cleaner still had a pleasant smile fixed on his face, but there was a tightness to his jaw and a watchfulness in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.
Danger-danger-danger, my inner voice whispered, louder and more insistent than before.
As I sat there, digesting his unexpected offer, a faint snicker caught my attention. I glanced to my right to see Anthony from accounting looking at me, with his phone clutched in his hand. Anthony and I had gone out on one disastrous date back before my grandmother had gotten sick. We both realized we had zero in common and that neither one of us liked the other—at all. Ever since then, Anthony had been my office nemesis, always denying my supply requests, even if all I was asking for was a lousy ream of printer paper.
I focused on the cleaner again. He was gazing at Anthony, who stared right back at him. Suspicion shot through me.
“Did Anthony put you up to this?” I asked. “Is this another one of his lame practical jokes?”
Anthony also had an annoying habit of getting his office buddies to ask me out, even though they had as little interest in me as I did in them. For some reason, Anthony and his friends thought it was hilarious to pretend like we were all in seventh grade again.
The cleaner’s eyebrows drew together, and he looked confused. “What? Who is Anthony?”
I kept staring at him, and he shrugged.
“I’m new in town. I’m trying to meet people. Make some connections. That’s all.” His words once again seemed innocuous, although his accent and the way he purred connections made it sound as though he’d just offered to indulge in a night of wild sex with me.
“So you thought you would hit on the first woman you saw in the cafeteria? Aw, how romantic,” I drawled.
He had the decency to wince, but not the common sense to give up. “I just thought we might have some fun together.”
I glanced at the clock on the cafeteria wall. I only had fifteen minutes left on my lunch break, and I wasn’t going to let this idiot waste any more of my time.
“Listen, Crocodile Dundee,” I snapped. “I don’t care what Anthony or anyone else told you about me. I don’t work in accounting, so I can’t pad out your expense report or validate your parking or whatever it is that you really want.”
He jerked back, as though he was surprised that I was speaking to him this way. Yeah, berating a cleaner for hitting on me—or whatever he was doing—wasn’t my smartest move. Then again, I’d never been known for my diplomatic tact. If I had, I would have played the office politics a lot better and probably been much higher up on the food chain than I currently was. Unfortunately, my temper often got the better of me, a trait I’d inherited from my father.
Oh, yes. I probably should have made some excuse, grabbed my things, and gone back to my cubicle, but he had come over to me, so he should be the one to leave.
“If you don’t work in accounting, then what do you do?” he asked.
This time, I jerked back. His question surprised me, although the fact that he was still sitting here wasting my time made even more anger bubble up in my chest.
“I write reports that no one reads,” I snapped again. “And I have one to finish before the end of the day. So why don’t you take your tea and your newspaper that you’re not reading and go bother someone else.”
Anger sparked in his eyes, making them flash an even brighter silver-blue, and a muscle ticked in his jaw. I’d pissed him off. Good. Maybe that would finally get him to leave me alone.
The cleaner shot to his feet, grabbed his suit jacket, and shrugged into it, once again doing all of that in one long, smooth, fluid motion. Then he scooped up his mug and newspaper, spun around on his heel, and strode away.
I watched him leave the cafeteria. The second he vanished from my line of sight, I should have relaxed. But even though the cleaner was gone, my inner voice kept right on whispering, as if my magic knew something important that I didn’t.
Danger-danger-danger.
Chapter Two
Charlotte
I kept eyeing the cafeteria entrance, but the cleaner didn’t return, so I forced my unease aside. Maybe he was just a creeper trying to pick up the first woman he spotted. Some cleaners were notorious for having a booty call in every Section station around the world. No way to know for sure, so I pushed him and his sexy accent out of my mind.
I typed in some more information for my report and saved my work. Then I drained the rest of my mocha, grabbed my laptop and shoulder bag, and left.
The Section 47 cafeteria was part of a three-story pedestrian mall housed in an old train station that took up an entire city block. Stone stairs were located in all four corners of the enormous rectangular space, with large escalators in the middle of the first and second floors. Several upscale restaurants, bakeries, and coffee shops were housed on the first floor, although their prices were much higher and their food was far inferior to what could be found in the cafeteria. Luxury shops selling everything from designer suits and handbags, to fine jewelry and expensive perfumes, to organic teas and gourmet chocolates, lined the two upper levels, which were ringed with low glass walls topped with silver handrails.
A steady stream of people flowed through the revolving doors at both the front and the back of the building and headed into the shops and restaurants on all three floors, walking side by side with Section agents. Most mortals had no clue that magic actually existed, or that certain people had amazing abilities that could be used to help or hurt others.
According to Section estimates, paramortals only made up about one percent of the world’s population, and most folks smartly hid their powers so as not to be ostracized, ridiculed, used, abused, or worse. But it was pretty easy for paramortals to keep their magic under wraps. These days, everyone—mortal and paramortal alike—was focused on their phones, and people were far more likely to see someone using their powers in a supposedly fake online video rather than realize someone with magic was reading their thoughts—and stealing their credit card info—while they were standing in line at the grocery store.
Normally, I would have taken a moment to admire the gleaming gray stone as well as the black wrought iron chandeliers hanging from the high vaulted ceiling. I might have also done a little window shopping, which sadly was the only kind of shopping I could afford. But I needed to get back to my cubicle to file my report, so I ignored the glass-fronted stores and restaurants and headed toward the raised, round dais sitting off to one side of the first floor.
A sixty-something woman with cropped black hair, silver glasses, and ebony skin was sitting behind a curved marble counter on the dais, watching the monitors mounted in front of her as well as the nearby keycard reader and metal turnstile. Her stylish pantsuit showed off her tall, trim body, and the bright teal fabric was a welcome splash of color among all the dark-suited agents moving past her. Evelyn Hawkes had been manning the front desk for as long as I could remember, calmly directing traffic into Section 47 while gently steering away mortals.
Section might allow clueless mortals to shop and dine inside its building, but the pedestrian mall was as far as common citizens went. To the outside world, this building housed mindless drones for the Section 47 Corporation, which did very important government things, although no one could quite explain what those very important but deliberately vague things were. Still, it was just another office building, one of hundreds in D.C., and no one batted an eye at the paramortals scanning their ID cards, pushing through the metal turnstile, and heading toward the private elevators embedded in the wall.
I started to wave at and go r
ight on by Evelyn. The cleaner and his unwanted conversation had put me behind, and I should have been hustling toward the closest elevator, but I thought better of it, moved to the side, and stopped. I leaned my elbow on the smooth, glossy counter, which was covered with tourist brochures, restaurant guides, and other slick, shiny things to distract the mortals.
“Hello, Charlotte. To what do I owe this honor?” Evelyn’s voice was soft and deep, which my synesthesia often translated into cool blue musical notes floating around in my mind. One of the few more pleasant aspects of my power.
Normally, I would have asked Evelyn how she was doing, perhaps even brought her a coffee, which sadly was the only kind of bribe I could afford. But since I was running late, I decided to get right down to business.
“Do you know anything about a new cleaner being in the building?” I asked. “Blond guy, lean and muscled, slight Australian accent. He was wearing a light gray suit with a powder-blue tie.”
Evelyn bobbed her head. “Oh, yes. A transfer from the Sydney station, brought in for a special mission. His name is Desmond, although I don’t think he has officially reported for duty yet.” She winked at me. “Not that you heard that from me.”
I pantomimed zipping my lips shut. “Of course not.”
Evelyn Hawkes was like a spider sitting in the center of a web, with strands of shoppers and spies constantly flowing all around her. She saw everyone who came through the doors, and she picked up an enormous amount of gossip just by sitting out here in the open, doing her job. My grandmother had warned me to always be nice to Evelyn, and the advice had paid off. Evelyn had given me details on more than a few people and missions during my time at Section.
Evelyn grinned, but the expression slowly faded from her face, and her dark brown gaze locked with my blue one. “How are you doing? I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been meaning to check on you.”
A Sense of Danger Page 2
