A Sense of Danger

by Jennifer Estep

  The strike team member took up a position in the corner, while Gia sat down in the chair across from mine. She laid a thick stack of folders on the table, along with a white velvet tray that held what everyone had assumed was the Grunglass Necklace. The emeralds and diamonds sparkled and flashed under the lights as if they were real, but by now, everyone at Section knew that they weren’t.

  Gia opened her folders and shuffled some papers around. She didn’t speak, and neither did I. The worst thing I could do was start babbling to fill in the tense silence.

  Gia must have realized I wasn’t going to make that rookie mistake, and she quit fiddling with her papers. “It has come to my attention that you are deeply in debt, Charlotte.”

  No preamble about how this was a routine follow-up interview regarding the Redburn mission. No lies about how we just needed to clear up a few things. No obvious opening for me to try to spin things and dig myself in deeper. None of that bullshit. Gia was going straight for my jugular. Good. Soft-pedaling things was a waste of time.

  “Yes, I am in debt.”

  Gia waited, probably hoping I would elaborate and try to explain, but that would have been another mistake. I couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. Not in here. Not right now. Especially since I didn’t know exactly who was watching.

  “According to our information, you owe roughly five hundred thousand dollars to Gabriel Chase. A former cleaner, who left Section 47 in scandal and disgrace and who now operates his own private contracting firm.”

  Gia pulled out a photo and laid it on the table where I could see it. The picture showed Gabriel and me sitting inside the Moondust Diner. Judging from the peach pie Gabriel was eating, the image had been taken from out in the parking lot the night those four cleaners had attacked me.

  “Five hundred ninety-six thousand fifteen dollars and sixty-seven cents,” I replied. “Not counting monthly interest.”

  Gia blinked. “Why so exact?”

  “I just want to be precise. I know how much Section values that.”

  That last part was bullshit, but I did want to be precise. I had to be precise and choose every word I said very, very carefully, as though it were the difference between life and death. Because for me, it absolutely was.

  In addition to the camera mounted to the ceiling, other sensors were hidden in here, devices that were measuring everything from my heartbeat to my breath rate to how many times I blinked per minute. Outside the interrogation room, in a nearby office, a couple of synth analysts were no doubt watching, listening to my words and reaching out with their magic, trying to determine whether I was telling the truth. Standard Section operating procedure when dealing with a potentially hostile agent.

  Gia’s eyes narrowed at my flippant answer. She didn’t like me jerking her around. “And how did you become so deeply indebted to Mr. Chase?”

  I shrugged. “My grandmother was sick. There were lots of medical bills.”

  I didn’t mention inheriting my father’s debt or the missing ransom money from the Mexico mission. No doubt Gia had done her homework and already knew all about those things.

  Gia pushed aside the photo of Gabriel and me and replaced it with one of the Grunglass Necklace. She tapped her finger on the picture. “This is the Grunglass Necklace—the real necklace. Not the fake you handed over to Section at the Halstead Hotel.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I waited for her to get to the accusation I knew was coming next.

  “Here’s what I think happened. You asked to be assigned to any mission involving Henrika Hyde. You knew Henrika had her eye on the Grunglass Necklace, and when you realized she might try to swipe it from the hotel, you saw a way to pay off your debt. Steal the necklace, give it to your friend Gabriel Chase, and blame Henrika for the whole thing. Sometime during the general confusion of the mission and the subsequent explosions, you swapped out the real Grunglass Necklace for a fake, which you handed in to Section as though it were the genuine item. We’re reviewing the security footage right now, Charlotte. It’s only a matter of time before we pinpoint the exact moment you swapped out the necklace.”

  Gia leaned forward, an easy smile on her face, as though we were friends commiserating and sharing a secret. “All you have to do is tell me where you hid the necklace. That’s it, Charlotte. You do that, and you can walk out of this room right now.”

  “And straight into a Section black site,” I replied. “Right?”

  Gia didn’t say anything, but agreement flashed in her eyes.

  I barked out a harsh laugh. “Don’t try to bullshit me. My father was a cleaner, remember? Thanks to the infamous Jack Locke, I grew up seeing your playbook in action.”

  Gia leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest. “Then you know what’s going to happen if you don’t cooperate. Things can get very bad for you very quickly, Charlotte.”

  TRUTH, my inner voice blared out loud and clear.

  Gia meant what she said, and I knew what was waiting for me beyond the door. A trip to an interrogation room up on the fourth floor, where I would be tied down to a chair and more thoroughly, forcibly questioned using increasingly unpleasant methods, both magical and otherwise.

  I needed to do my best to prevent that from happening, so I leaned forward and tapped my finger on the fake necklace. “This is the necklace I lifted off Henrika’s bodyguard at the hotel, and this is the necklace I turned over to Section. If something else happened to the necklace tonight, then I don’t know anything about it.”

  Every word I said was true in letter if not spirit.

  Gia sighed. “I’ve always liked you, Charlotte. You should make this easy on yourself. Given the extenuating circumstances, I can probably work out a deal for you. A short sentence in a minimum-security Section prison. Not a black site. But I have to recover the necklace to make that happen. You know that Section never gives something for nothing.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Another bit of bullshit, but my words made Gia sigh again. “Let’s go over the mission from the beginning…”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Desmond

  I stood in front of the one-way mirror and watched Charlotte’s interrogation.

  Gia hammered Charlotte over and over again, asking about her debt, Gabriel, the mission, and especially the Grunglass Necklace. But Charlotte remained cool, calm, and composed through the whole thing, claiming she didn’t know what had happened to the real necklace. In a strange way, I was proud of her. Most people would have already cracked, but not Charlotte, and I knew that she wouldn’t. Gia might be an enduro, might be able to question Charlotte for hours on end, but she was wasting her time.

  I scrubbed my hand through my hair. “You really think Charlotte stole the Grunglass Necklace to pay off her debt to Gabriel Chase?”

  Beside me, Trevor shrugged. “That’s the working theory, and it’s the one that makes the most sense. Besides Henrika and her bodyguard, Charlotte was the only other person who handled the necklace during the mission. We checked the security footage. Henrika and her guard left the hotel grounds without the necklace. Which leads us back to Charlotte.”

  Trevor and I were standing right outside the interrogation room. Farther down the hall, in an observation room, several synths and some other paramortal techs were examining Charlotte’s vital signs and all the other information they were recording and leeching off her. The whole process disgusted me. Or maybe that was because an hour ago, I was begging Charlotte to let me touch her. And now, I had to deal with the very real possibility that she had been using me this whole time.

  Just like you were using her, a snide little voice whispered in the back of my mind. I quashed that unwanted twinge of conscience and focused on Charlotte again.

  For the most part, she kept her eyes focused on Gia, but every once in a while, her gaze would dart to the side, almost as if she knew I was standing out here spying on her. I was surprised how guilty that ma
de me feel, like I was betraying her simply by watching Gia question her.

  I never betrayed you, Charlotte’s voice whispered in my mind.

  Remembering how earnest she had been in that moment, how sincere and serious, and especially how brightly her aura had blazed, increased my own guilt, but I pushed that aside too. Even I couldn’t help Charlotte out of this mess.

  Trevor turned to me, a sympathetic look on his face. “I know you like her, Dez, but you know as well as I do that people are never what they seem, especially inside Section.”

  His words made me feel like an even bigger fool, but I jerked my head, nodding back at him. I didn’t trust myself to speak.

  Trevor hesitated, then stepped a little closer to me. He glanced up and down the hallway, but the two of us were alone, and everyone else was watching from the observation room. “Did Charlotte ever say anything to you, Dez? About how deep in debt she was to Gabriel Chase?”

  I never betrayed you, Charlotte’s voice whispered in my mind again.

  “No. I knew she and Gabriel were friendly, that they grew up together, but she never said anything about her debt to me.”

  If Charlotte had been here, she would have immediately said, Lie.

  “Okay,” Trevor said. “What about the Grunglass Necklace? Did she ever say anything about it? During mission prep, did she ever seem more interested in the necklace than she should have been? Did she ever do or say anything unusual? Anything you found suspicious?”

  I flashed back to when I followed Charlotte to the diner where she met with Gabriel. That padded brown envelope he gave her could have easily contained a copy of the Grunglass Necklace.

  “No, she never said anything about the necklace to me.”

  That much, at least, was the truth. Charlotte hadn’t told me what she was planning, which was something else that made me angry. If she’d told me, I might have helped her. Or tried to talk her out of it. Or just given her the money myself to pay off her debt. Anything to keep her safe.

  “Well, if you think of anything else, you’ll tell me. Right, buddy?” Trevor asked.

  I stared at Charlotte through the glass again. “Absolutely.”

  LIE.

  * * *

  Gia questioned Charlotte for more than an hour before getting to her feet, stepping outside the interrogation room, and closing the door behind her.

  “She’s not saying anything useful,” Gia said to Trevor and me. “She keeps sticking to her story about not knowing anything about the necklace being a fake.”

  I peered through the glass. Charlotte had her left elbow propped up on the table, resting her head in her hand, while she idly ran her right fingers over one corner of the wood. She seemed completely calm and unconcerned about her dire circumstances. Charlotte had encased herself in ice, and Gia’s interrogation hadn’t so much as chipped the surface.

  “What are you going to do with her?” I asked.

  “She’ll spend the night in one of the holding cells on the fourth floor, and then we’ll try again in the morning,” Gia said. “In the meantime, we’ll review the security footage, every single second. Henrika knocked out some of the hotel cameras, but we have enough footage, angles, and witnesses to piece everything together and build a timeline of who had the necklace, when, and for how long. If Charlotte did steal the necklace, then we’ll figure out how she did it and where she hid it. Once we know where the necklace is, Maestro will take over and decide Charlotte’s fate. Stealing anything from Section, even evidence, is a serious crime. She’ll definitely spend some time in either a Section prison or a mortal one. For her sake, I hope that it’s a mortal prison.”

  “And if she’s innocent?” I asked.

  Gia looked at me as if I’d just sprouted another head. “I’d prepare yourself for the worst, Desmond. I’ve already told Charlotte to do the same.”

  My stomach clenched, but I didn’t say anything else. I couldn’t, not without revealing how much I cared about Charlotte, even after she had seemingly betrayed Section and apparently played me for a fool.

  Gia summoned a couple more strike team members, who went into the room, grabbed Charlotte’s arms, and hauled her to her feet. The men escorted her out into the hallway, and Charlotte’s gaze immediately locked with mine.

  Even though I knew it was against protocol, even though I knew it was a mistake, I stepped forward, stopping right in front of her.

  “Did you do it?” I asked in a low, strained voice. “Did you steal the necklace?”

  Charlotte’s aura flickered, but her face remained calm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  We both knew it wasn’t a real answer. Gia waved her hand, and the strike team members fell in step around their prisoner.

  I watched while they marched Charlotte to the end of the hall and escorted her into the waiting elevator. She turned around to face front, her gaze once again locking with mine. My chest squeezed tight again, but I couldn’t help her. Right now, I didn’t know if I even wanted to help her.

  But I couldn’t tear my eyes away from hers, and she stared at me until the elevator doors closed, cutting us off from each other and leaving me with nothing but questions.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Charlotte

  My interrogation lasted a week.

  At least, I thought it was a week. It was hard to tell. During the day, I was shuffled from one interrogation room to another, and questioned by person after person about everything I had ever done before and during my time at Section. Gia, Trevor, and several other enduros all took cracks at me. They even sent Miriam in to try to charm the answers out of me, but I told her the same story I had told everyone else. Consistency and reasonable deniability were the keys to my survival.

  Then, at night, I was stuffed back into a holding cell on the fourth floor. I was given the bare minimum of food and water, but there was no torture, which surprised me. Then again, they had no real proof I had done anything wrong.

  It was harder than I expected it to be, mostly because I kept thinking about Desmond and the disbelief, doubt, and devastation on his face when he had confronted me outside the interrogation room that first night. I’d wanted to reassure him, but of course I couldn’t do that. Not with so many eyes and ears on us. So I’d given him a vague answer, just like all the ones I’d given to Gia. Then I’d walked away from him, forcing myself not to look back.

  I didn’t see Desmond after that, but I could have sworn I felt his energy, his aura, hovering around, as if he were just out of sight but still watching over me. Sometimes, when I was getting bored with the constant questioning, I would daydream about him standing in front of me in the locker room, when he’d been inches away, asking for all the things I wanted to give to him.

  Then my current interrogator would ask me another stupid, pointless question, interrupt my fantasy just when it was getting to the good part, and drag me back to the here and now.

  Despite the bit of enduro magic I had, the endless, circular questioning quickly wore me down, and more than once, I thought about confessing my scheme. But if I did that, then the mole would get away scot-free, and I had suffered through too much to let that happen. And so had Desmond.

  So every time I got tired, every time I wanted to give up, I forced myself to picture that image of Desmond I still had on my phone, the one of him clutching Graham’s lifeless body to his chest. I also thought about the anguish that flickered in his eyes every time he talked about his best friend’s death, and I especially thought about his screams and choked sobs ringing out when he was thrashing around in bed, caught in the throes of his latest nightmare.

  And just like that, my resolve would harden, and I would keep on chugging along, talking in nonsense circles just like I’d been doing all along.

  Finally, one day when I was bracing myself for yet another round of questioning, the door to the fifth-floor interrogation room opened, and Trevor strode inside.

  “Congratulations, Charlotte,” he said in
a neutral voice. “You have been cleared to return to active duty. Effective immediately.”

  I blinked. “What?”

  “You heard me. You are to report to your desk on the third floor as usual this morning. That is all.”

  Trevor exited the room, as did the guard in the corner, who left the door open behind him. I sat there staring at the open door, my mouth gaping, and my mind whirring with this new development. But this was exactly what I’d been hoping would happen, so I slowly pushed back from the table, got to my feet, and shuffled outside into the hallway.

  A clock on the wall said it was just after nine in the morning, and people were streaming from the elevators to the bullpen to get started on their day’s work. A few folks gave me cold looks as they walked by, including Joan Samson, but no one spoke to or tried to shove me back into the interrogation room.

  Section 47 was really letting me go—or so it seemed.

  I hadn’t had a shower since the night of the Redburn mission, so the first thing I did was head to the fifth-floor locker room. I turned the water up as hot as it would go, scrubbed myself from top to bottom three times, and washed my hair twice. When I was clean, I opened the locker I had been using before the mission. A fresh set of clothes was sitting inside, right where I had left them. I eyed the garments, knowing that Section had probably embedded some microtrackers in my cardigan, T-shirt, and cargo pants, but I put them on anyway and threw my other clothes in the trash. I never wanted to see them—or smell their sour, sweaty stench—ever again.

  Once that was done, I went up to the third floor and walked over to my usual desk in the analyst-and-charmer bullpen. For a few seconds, no one noticed me. But then Ronaldo looked up, then Helga, Mika, and Kaimbe. In an instant, everyone was staring at me. I ignored the curious and angry glares and headed over to my desk.