A Sense of Danger

by Jennifer Estep

  I shivered and closed the photo. Desmond might be a fellow Section agent, but I didn’t want to gawk at his pain any longer. Still, I couldn’t quite push the image out of my mind—or stop worrying about how the cleaner’s rage might impact me.

  Chapter Six

  Charlotte

  I spent the rest of the morning working. I might have finished the Henrika Hyde report, but I always had more bad guys to track. Besides, sticking to my usual routine was the smartest—and probably safest—thing to do.

  Someone at Section might want me dead, but I doubted they would be bold enough to try to murder me at my desk. Despite his seemingly innocuous note, there had been no sign of Desmond, and no one had come to whisk me away to an interrogation room to question me about Rosalita and the other dead cleaners. In some ways, it was like last night’s attack had never happened—

  “Charlotte! Hey, Charlotte!” a low, masculine voice called out, startling me out of my troubling reverie.

  I looked over my shoulder. Trevor Donnelly, the charmer supervisor, was standing outside his office at the back wall of the bullpen.

  I wasn’t the only one who perked up at his voice. Ronaldo, Helga, Mika, and Kaimbe all turned around in their seats and started glancing back and forth between the two of us.

  “What does he want?” Miriam murmured, sitting at her desk beside mine.

  “He’s probably just checking on the report I sent him yesterday.”

  Trevor had seemed a bit more impressed with my work than Gregory Jensen, but Trevor was swamped trying to oversee his own agents along with Jensen’s, and he would most likely just rubber-stamp the Hyde report and say that no further action needed to be taken at this time.

  “Charlotte!” Trevor repeated. “In my office!”

  He waved at me, then stepped back inside the glassed-in space. I stood up, grabbed a pen and a notepad off my desk, and headed in that direction. I strode past the other cubicles, but my coworkers had already returned to their own work, so they ignored me.

  I walked toward Trevor’s office at a steady pace, but my mind kicked into overdrive, as various worries, fears, and scenarios zipped through my brain. Trevor probably wanted to talk about the Hyde report, but what if this was about the cleaner attack? I wouldn’t put it past the Section higher-ups to pretend like everything was fine in hopes of lulling me into a false sense of security before they dropped the proverbial hammer on my head. Even though I had been attacked, more often than not it was guilty until proven innocent here, and more than one agent had vanished into a deep, dark Section hole, never to be seen or heard from again.

  Even though he had summoned me, I still knocked politely on the open glass door. Trevor waved me inside, and I sank into one of the two chairs in front of his desk. He had already taken his own seat on the opposite side of the desk, which featured several inches of papers haphazardly shoved into brightly colored folders.

  Trevor Donnelly was in his mid-forties with ruddy, freckled skin, light brown eyes, and wavy black hair generously sprinkled with silver. He was wearing a dark gray suit with a matching shirt and tie. No surprise, given his status as a former cleaner. Both his jacket and his shirt strained to cover his chest, which was all hard, ropy muscle, thanks to his vigorous running regimen. Trevor might not be killing people anymore, but he was in as good a shape as any active cleaner.

  He was also an enduro, a paramortal with incredible endurance. Thanks to his magic, Trevor could run for miles, fight for hours, or surveil a target for days without needing to stop, sleep, or take any sort of break. His magic also probably served him well in his current office job, given the mountain of paperwork cluttering his desk. My father had also been an enduro, and I had a touch of that magic myself, although it seemed to help me concentrate, more than anything else.

  Despite the fact that he was only about ten years older than us, Miriam often referred to Trevor as a silver fox. I didn’t see it, but he had an easy smile and a low, soft voice that gave him a likable, mellow vibe. He also wasn’t a pompous, overbearing, know-it-all jackass like Jensen had been, and he didn’t berate me and mock my work at every turn, which were two definite points in his favor.

  “Give me a minute. I need to send one more email…” he murmured.

  Trevor started typing, so I studied his desk. Grandma Jane had always said you could learn a lot about a person just by looking at their personal effects. In addition to the mounds of papers and folders, a framed photo was perched on his desk of Trevor with a beautiful woman I assumed was his wife and a teenage boy with a sullen expression who had to be his son. The picture surprised me, since office gossip claimed that Trevor was going through a nasty divorce. Maybe he hadn’t gotten around to disposing of the picture yet—or at least cutting his soon-to-be ex-wife out of the image.

  My gaze flicked over the other items on his desk. A wooden paperweight shaped like a giant sneaker. Pens jumbled together in a mug bearing a logo for a recent 10K run. A half-eaten protein bar sitting on a white napkin. A sports drink with condensation sliding down the side of the can. A round crystal candy dish filled with individually wrapped peppermints, chocolates, caramels, and sticks of gum. Nothing too interesting or exciting.

  I clutched my pen and notepad on my lap and tried to look unconcerned, even as my mind churned. This was most likely about the Hyde report, but if Trevor sucker-punched me and started asking questions about last night, then I needed to be ready. The best course of action would probably be to play dumb and claim I had never seen Rosalita and the other cleaners. I doubted Section could prove otherwise, since there were no traffic or security cameras around the Moondust Diner or on the street outside my apartment building.

  When in doubt, keep your mouth shut, Grandma Jane’s voice whispered in my mind. If you absolutely have to talk, don’t be stupid enough to lie. Instead, tell just enough of the truth to keep yourself alive.

  Grandma Jane had excelled at Section mind games, office politics, and telling people exactly what they wanted to hear. Even though she hadn’t had the charisma magic for it, I had always thought she should have been a charmer instead of an analyst. In some ways, Grandma Jane’s lessons about how to deal with people had been far more useful than anything my father had taught me about how to physically defend myself.

  Trevor clicked his mouse, then leaned back in his chair and gave me a sheepish smile. “Sorry about that. But you know how it is. Everyone wants everything done right this second.”

  “No problem.”

  “I’m also sorry we haven’t had a chance to chat about your work, but I’m handling Jensen’s caseload until they get another analyst supervisor in here, and things have been crazy.” He swept his hand over the mounds of papers and folders on his desk.

  “No problem,” I repeated.

  Trevor nodded. “But something’s come up, and I wanted you to hear it from me first.”

  My stomach clenched. This was it. The start of all the questions about last night that I didn’t know how to answer—

  “You’ve been reassigned.”

  Surprise spiked through me, and I gulped down the denial dangling on the tip of my tongue. “Reassigned?”

  He nodded again. “Yes. As of this morning.”

  “To which department?”

  Trevor looked past me, smiled, and waved. Annoyance filled me that I didn’t have his full attention because he certainly had mine. I started to glance over my shoulder to see who he was waving at, but Trevor fixed his gaze on me again.

  “Downstairs. To the fifth floor. With the liaisons.”

  “Wait. What?”

  I was an analyst. I had always been an analyst, and I should have been getting bumped up to a senior position here on the third floor, not transferred to a completely different level. Oh, it wasn’t unheard of for analysts and charmers to be loaned out to other departments, but it didn’t happen all that often, and it had certainly never happened to me before.

  “Well, it’s not my place to reveal the det
ails,” Trevor said in his mellow voice. “The folks down on five will fill you in. All I can say is that you’ve been reassigned to participate in an active mission.”

  I nodded, as though this was perfectly normal. But me? Participate in an active mission? Analysts, well, analyzed. They safely spied on bad guys from afar. They didn’t usually do field work, which was one of the main reasons I’d decided to become an analyst in the first place. I had wanted to be as far away from the action—danger—as possible. Thanks to my father, I had been exposed to more terrorists and criminals during my childhood than I cared to remember. But now, despite all my efforts to insulate and protect myself from that world, it seemed as though someone had booked me a ticket on an express train right back to Dangerville.

  A knock sounded on the open glass door behind me, drawing Trevor’s attention. He smiled and waved again. “There you are. Come on in. I was just telling Charlotte about her new assignment.”

  “Good,” a familiar voice sounded. “I wouldn’t want to miss that.”

  His low, amused tone curled around my chest like a boa constrictor, squeezing the breath out of my lungs, even as it filled my heart with even more worry and dread.

  Desmond strolled into the office, grabbed the other chair in front of Trevor’s desk, and angled it toward me. Then he gracefully dropped into the seat and gave me a wide, knowing smile.

  “Hello, Charlotte,” he purred. “It’s so nice to finally meet you.”

  * * *

  Surprised. Flummoxed. Bamboozled. Incredulous.

  No, I decided. Stupefied. That was the only word that adequately described how I was feeling.

  Out of all the things that could have happened, Desmond strolling into Trevor’s office and sitting down right beside me had not been on my exceedingly long list of paranoid worries.

  But here he was, smiling like nothing was wrong and he hadn’t killed four other cleaners last night. I thought of that sticky note he’d left in my apartment.

  See you tomorrow.

  Well, at least now I knew what he’d meant. I had been right before. He was most definitely a psycho.

  Desmond’s smile widened, and his silver-blue eyes actually twinkled, almost as if he could hear and was highly amused by my turbulent thoughts. His smug expression burned through my stupefied state, and anger exploded like a grenade in my chest. I didn’t know what was going on, but I would not allow him to use or humiliate me, or jeopardize my position and career at Section.

  He wanted to play mind games? Well, buckle up, Buttercup. Because I could throw down with the best of them, cleaner or otherwise.

  “And you are?” I asked in a cool voice, matching his supposed politeness and pretending like I had never seen him before.

  Surprise flickered in his eyes, although it vanished in an instant. “Desmond.”

  He held out his hand, and I had no choice but to shake it. His fingers were warm, firm, and strong against my own, which felt like brittle chunks of clammy ice. One wrong move, one wrong word, and my cool façade would shatter to pieces.

  Desmond held on to my hand a few more seconds than was polite, although he didn’t do the macho alpha thing and squeeze my fingers to prove how much physically stronger he was. If he had, I would have dug my nails into his skin in my own alpha show of strength.

  He stared at me the whole time, and I did the same thing to him. Once again, I felt like we were engaged in some childish staring contest. Only this time, I had the small satisfaction of seeing him blink and look away first. He dropped my hand, and I resisted the urge to wipe the feel of his skin off on my cargo pants.

  Desmond was once again wearing a light gray suit, although he had left his jacket somewhere, revealing the vest and matching shirt underneath. His wing tips were an expected glossy black, although his tie was once again that bright, rebellious powder-blue and patterned with small silver dots. I tried not to notice how perfectly the color matched his eyes. Instead, I focused on the watch nestled in his vest pocket. No blood stained the timepiece, and the silver links gleamed brightly, as though its chain had been recently polished. He probably shined it up after each and every kill. Oh, yes. Complete and utter psycho.

  Trevor beamed at the two of us. “Excellent! I always think it’s more comfortable for folks to meet like this before everyone gets down to business.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, even though I had a sinking feeling I knew exactly where this was going.

  Trevor gestured at the cleaner. “Well, again, I can’t get into mission specifics right now, but, Charlotte, you’ve been assigned to be Desmond’s liaison.”

  Even though I’d been expecting the words, they still punched me in the throat, and I had a sudden urge to vomit. My gaze snapped back to Desmond, who gave me another smug smile. A second, larger grenade of anger exploded in my chest, burning away my nausea. He thought he could just waltz in here and get me to do his bidding? Not a chance.

  “Well, Desmond, as nice as it is to make your acquaintance, I think there’s been some mistake.”

  He arched a golden eyebrow. “Really? Why is that?”

  “Because I’m an analyst, not a liaison. Surely, there are other people at Section who are better qualified to assist with your…mission.”

  We both knew I was really talking about his twisted agenda regarding me. Trevor frowned and looked back and forth between us, not quite sure what was going on. Well, that made two of us.

  “No mistake,” Desmond chirped in a cheery tone. “I asked for you specifically, Charlotte.”

  “Yes, I got the email from your father a few minutes ago,” Trevor chimed in. “Do me a favor, Dez, and put in a good word for me with old man Percy. I could really use a raise.”

  Trevor snickered at his lame joke, but Desmond was not amused. The cleaner frowned at Trevor, who winced, as though he suddenly realized he’d said something he shouldn’t have.

  I seized on the name Trevor had mentioned. “Old man Percy? As in General Jethro Pearson Percy? On the Section board of directors?”

  Desmond grimaced and shifted in his seat, not nearly as smug as before. “Yes.”

  I kept my face blank, although I couldn’t help but wish that the floor would open up and swallow me whole. This just kept getting worse and worse.

  I might be a Legacy, but the Percy family was the closest thing Section 47 had to royalty. The Percy family had been one of the driving forces behind the formation of Section in the nineteen forties, and various members had been involved in its operations ever since. I thought of all those military-school records in Desmond’s file. He hadn’t been brought up to be just a common cleaner—he’d been groomed since birth to carry on the Percy family tradition at Section.

  I eyed his blond hair, blue eyes, and handsome features. Not just any Percy. “You’re Jethro Percy’s son,” I spat out.

  “Yes.” Desmond’s face hardened at my cold, clipped tone. “And you’re Jack Locke’s daughter.”

  The words—and the old, ugly accusations that went along with them—landed in between us like a ton of invisible bricks. Our fathers had absolutely despised each other. Hatfields and McCoys, Montagues and Capulets, and other feuding families, both real and fictional, had gotten along swimmingly compared to Jethro Percy and Jack Locke.

  More than once, my father had come home from a mission ranting and raving about how that idiot Percy had screwed up this or that, or how the General had put his political, financial, and other ambitions above what was best for Section agents and the innocent people they were supposed to protect. Not to mention everything that had happened on my father’s last, ill-fated mission in Mexico.

  And now here I was, sitting next to Percy’s son, who seemed determined to screw me over just as badly as his father had mine.

  “Listen, I know your two families have some…history,” Trevor said, trying to play peacemaker.

  Desmond and I both shot him icy glares.

  Trevor cleared his throat and tried again. “But the fact
is that this mission requires both of your expertise.”

  “And what expertise would that be?” I asked through clenched teeth.

  He gave me an apologetic look, but he didn’t answer my question. “Now that Charlotte has been informed of her change in assignment, the two of you need to head down to the fifth floor for the initial mission briefing. Dez, maybe we can catch up later? And raise a glass to Graham? One last toast for the Three Musketeers?”

  A muscle ticked in Desmond’s jaw, but he nodded. “Sure.”

  Three Musketeers? I suddenly remembered another tidbit from Desmond’s file—that he, Graham, and Trevor had worked together on several missions, back when Trevor had still been an active cleaner. The three of them must have been much closer than I’d realized, although Trevor didn’t seem to know that Desmond and I had met before or anything about the other cleaners attacking me. I wondered why Desmond had kept that info from his fellow Musketeer.

  The two men got to their feet and shook hands, and Trevor leaned forward over his desk and thumped a friendly fist against Desmond’s shoulder. I also stood up and took a step back, putting some distance between myself and Desmond.

  “Okay, then,” Trevor said. “See you later.”

  “Sure,” Desmond repeated in a flat, toneless voice. “It’ll be great catching up and talking about Graham and the good ole days.”

  Lie, my inner voice whispered. Not only did my synesthesia let me see errors and mistakes on papers and screens, but I could also hear them, and my magic told me that his dead friend Graham was the very last thing Desmond wanted to discuss. So he was a liar, as well as a manipulator. I would expect nothing less from the spawn of General Jethro Percy.

  Desmond turned to me and held out his hand, gesturing at the open glass door. “After you, Ms. Locke.”

  “Oh, no. After you, Mr. Percy,” I replied, my voice just as cool as his was.

  He smirked at me, then strode out of the office. As much as I wanted to ignore him and storm back to my desk, I had been reassigned, and I had no choice but to follow Desmond Percy, most likely to my own doom.