A Sense of Danger

by Jennifer Estep

  My shoulder bag and laptop were perched there, along with my crystal mockingbird figurine. But there was a new addition to my meager possessions—a white dry-erase board propped up on a small metal stand.

  TRAITOR, someone had written in bold red letters with a giant red arrow pointing at my chair.

  As far as psychological warfare and insults went, it was pretty tame, but a hush dropped over the bullpen, and everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at me. Miriam shot me a nervous, concerned look, and even Trevor came out of his office to see how I would react. My esteemed colleagues were all too chickenshit to actually stand up and tell me which one, or more, of them had placed the sign on my desk. But that was okay because I had my own message to send right back to them.

  I grabbed the red pen from the ledge along the bottom of the board. I used the eraser on the top to wipe out TRAITOR and then the pen to scrawl a new word.

  HYPOCRITES.

  I stepped back, eyeing my masterpiece. There. That should add more fuel to the office gossip. Let my coworkers puzzle over my message. No doubt some of them wouldn’t understand what I meant, but I imagined a few people would.

  Especially the mole.

  I glanced around the bullpen. Everyone looked back at me, then slowly returned to their phones and laptops, while Trevor disappeared back inside his glassed-in office. The only one who gave me any sort of encouragement was Miriam, who nodded.

  “It’s good to have you back,” she whispered before concentrating on her monitor again.

  I nodded back at her, then sat down in my seat and opened my laptop.

  I had work to catch up on and reports to write.

  * * *

  The rest of the day passed by quietly. Actually, it was stone-cold silent, given the fact that no one so much as grunted at me, but that was okay. There was only one person there who I cared about.

  Desmond.

  Just before quitting time, I went down to the fifth-floor bullpen. All the cleaners and liaisons gave me nasty looks, just as they had this morning, particularly Joan, who looked as if she wanted to leap up out of her chair and strangle me with the cord on her landline phone. But I only had eyes for Desmond, who was standing by his desk, stuffing items into his briefcase.

  He looked up at my approach, but his face remained impassive, and I couldn’t tell what he was thinking—or, more important, what he was feeling.

  “Can we talk?” I asked, once again aware of all the eyes and ears on us.

  He snapped his briefcase shut, then stared at me, his gaze cold and remote. For a moment, I thought he might brush by me, but he jerked his head in agreement.

  I retreated back to the front of the bullpen. Desmond finished gathering up his things, then followed me out into the hallway. I went over to the dead-spot alcove, the same place where we had had our first real talk all those days ago. I glanced around, but I didn’t see any red hazes, and my inner voice didn’t whisper to me. Still a dead zone, although I had to be very careful about what I said to him.

  “Thank you for talking to me,” I said. “You must have a lot of questions.”

  Desmond shrugged. “Why bother with questions that you’re not going to answer?”

  Ouch. He had a point. I had to wait and see how things played out, and I wasn’t sure how he would react if I told him what I was really up to.

  Desmond kept staring at me, that dispassionate look still fixed on his face. The man I had gotten to know over the past couple of weeks, the one I had come to care so deeply about, seemed to be gone, and in his place was the remote, arrogant cleaner who’d first approached me in the cafeteria. My heart twinged, but I had no one to blame for the distance between us but myself.

  “What do you want to say, Charlotte?” he asked in a cold, clipped tone. “I have things to do.”

  For the first time, I noticed he was holding a duffel bag along with his briefcase. “What’s going on?”

  “Section has picked up some chatter that Henrika has been spotted in London,” he replied. “I’m going to check it out.”

  Realization punched me in the gut. “You’re leaving.”

  “Yes.”

  I was surprised by how much the information hurt. Then again, I had always known that he would leave. Even if we had gotten both Anatoly and Henrika at the hotel, Desmond was still a cleaner, one of Section’s best, and he would always be jetting off to some far-flung locale on the trail of yet another bad guy. This would probably be the last chance I ever had to speak to him, but now that the moment was here, I didn’t know what to say. I decided on the truth. Or at least most of it.

  “I’m sorry. I never meant to hurt you.”

  He arched an eyebrow in disbelief. “Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  LIE. The force of my own falsehood slammed into my mind, but I ground my teeth and didn’t wince.

  Desmond’s eyes narrowed, and I willed my aura to be as calm and clear as my features were. If you could even do that to your aura.

  “Well, then, I suppose there’s only one thing left to say.” Desmond stared at me, his eyes searching mine. Then he abruptly turned away, as if he couldn’t stand to look at me any longer. “Goodbye, Charlotte.”

  He stepped out of the alcove and headed to a waiting elevator. He didn’t even glance at me as he stepped inside and punched the button.

  The door closed, cutting off my view and whisking him away from me.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Desmond

  I couldn’t figure out how she had done it.

  Try as I might, I just could not figure out how Charlotte had stolen the Grunglass Necklace right out from under Section’s nose, much less where she had hidden it afterward. But I knew she had taken it. I could see it in her aura, a faint flicker that almost seemed like regret to me.

  But the strangest thing was that I thought she must have had a good reason for stealing the necklace. Despite what Gia, Trevor, and everyone else at Section claimed, I didn’t think Charlotte had stolen the necklace to pay off her debt to Gabriel. If she had wanted to do that, she could have easily slipped him some insider info about upcoming missions, or people in need of protection, or a dozen other things he could have turned into a hefty payday for his contracting company.

  No, Charlotte had some other reason for stealing the Grunglass Necklace, although I couldn’t imagine what it was. But she wasn’t my concern anymore. Tracking down Henrika Hyde was. Still, I was having a hard time forgetting about everything that had happened between us, which was why I was currently sitting in a bar a few blocks from the main Section building, nursing my sorrows and stupidity over a glass of bourbon.

  “I wouldn’t have taken you for a bourbon drinker,” a low, familiar voice rumbled.

  Gabriel Chase slid onto the stool beside me. He glanced at me, as though he was worried I was going to protest. Or punch him in the face. Tempting as that last idea was, I merely shrugged. I didn’t care that he was here. After all, he wasn’t the one who’d fooled me.

  Gabriel ordered his own bourbon, purchasing an entire bottle of liquor that was far more expensive than what I was drinking.

  “Feeling flush tonight?” I asked in a snide voice.

  He grinned, his teeth glinting like pearls in his face. “Something like that. Cheers, Slick.”

  Gabriel clinked his glass against mine, then downed his bourbon and poured himself another round. We sat there in silence, drinking, for the better part of five minutes. Finally, I couldn’t stand the quiet any longer.

  “Why are you here? Come to rub my face in how clever you and Charlotte are?”

  “Nope. I came here to tell you to quit being an idiot.”

  “About what?”

  He gave me a look, like it was patently obvious. “Charlotte, of course.”

  I grunted. “And here I would argue the problem is that I’ve been a complete idiot about Charlotte ever since I met her. She pulled a fast one on me, on all of Section. And you helped her do it. I�
�m surprised they haven’t hauled you in for questioning.”

  “Oh, your friends Gia and Trevor tried to bring me in, but my lawyer told them in no uncertain terms that I have more than enough dirt to bury some of the Section higher-ups, so they have decided to let me be. Except for the watchers, of course.”

  Gabriel jerked his thumb over his shoulder at a woman sitting in the corner booth. She was nursing a drink and trying not to stare at him. “They’ve been up my ass all week. I guess they think I’ll be stupid enough to lead them to this necklace that everyone is so hot to get their hands on.”

  “Don’t you have it?”

  “Nope. I don’t have it, and I never sold it, if that’s what you’re thinking. I never made a dime off that necklace, and neither did Charlotte.”

  I couldn’t automatically tell whether Gabriel was lying, not like Charlotte could have, but his aura remained a bright, steady gray, and his voice rang with conviction and just a touch of righteous indignation. Best guess? I thought he was telling the truth. About this, at least. Then again, I hadn’t been the best judge of character lately.

  I downed the rest of my bourbon, then turned the empty glass around and around in my hands. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Charlotte Locke is someone else’s problem now. I’m supposed to leave in the morning.”

  “New mission?”

  “Yep. Related to an old mission. The one that got Charlotte into so much trouble.”

  Gabriel nodded. “So there’s a personal element to it then. Something you can’t let go.”

  Graham’s burned face flashed before my eyes, along with his fading green aura. Saying that the Blacksea mission was personal for me was putting it mildly. But Gabriel was right. Adrian Anatoly might be dead, but the Section mole was still out there, and Henrika Hyde was my only lead as to who had sold out me, Graham, and all those other murdered agents. I wouldn’t rest until both Henrika and the mole were as dead as Anatoly.

  “Charlotte didn’t tell you all my dirty little secrets?” I asked in a snide voice.

  “You should know by now that Charlotte doesn’t kiss and tell about anything. She plays her cards closer to the vest than anyone I’ve ever met.” Gabriel paused. “It’s going to get her in trouble.”

  Something in his voice made me take a closer look at him. “Are you saying that she’s in trouble now?”

  “Charlotte works for Section,” Gabriel replied. “That means she’s in trouble all the time. I’m surprised nothing serious has come up before now, especially given who her father was.” He paused again. “But I guess you have your own set of daddy issues.”

  I snorted. “You could say that.”

  “I knew Charlotte’s old man. He helped train me when I was first starting out as a cleaner. She would never admit it to anyone, but she’s a lot like him—stubborn, determined, tenacious. Section might not realize it, but she’s far more dangerous than Jack Locke.”

  “And why is that?”

  Gabriel shrugged. “Because Charlotte is a whole lot smarter than her daddy ever was.”

  I thought of all those mental calculations constantly going on behind Charlotte’s eyes, and the way that she carefully examined other people, as if she were seeing all their secrets, all the dark things they wanted to hide from everyone, including themselves. She hadn’t even had to do her mental gymnastics on me. I had stupidly told her everything there was to know, which was probably the thing that rankled me the most. I had trusted her, laid myself bare, and she had left me out in the cold.

  “Clever Numbers,” I muttered.

  Gabriel frowned. “What?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  He downed another bourbon, then pushed the bottle across the bar to me. “Consider this a going-away gift. If you’re still going somewhere.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His eyes locked with mine. “Just because Section sends you off on a mission doesn’t mean you have to go. You’re a Percy. You could pull some strings and stay in D.C. if you really wanted to.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  Gabriel chuckled. “If I have to tell you that, Slick, then you really are an idiot.” He gave me a hard look. “I guess you have to decide who and what you believe in more—Section 47 and your mission, or Charlotte. Good luck either way, whatever you decide.”

  He held out his hand, and I shook it. Gabriel dropped some money on the counter, winked at his watcher in the corner booth, and left the bar. The woman quickly paid her tab and followed him outside.

  I could have told her not to bother. That Gabriel Chase wasn’t going to do anything to incriminate himself. But the watcher wouldn’t have listened to me, so I didn’t even bother trying to flag her down. Besides, this fine, mostly full bottle of bourbon wasn’t going to drink itself.

  So I poured myself another round and tossed it back. As the liquor slid down my throat, I kept turning Gabriel’s words over and over in my mind.

  Obeying Section orders, or listening to my own instincts. Avenging Graham, or getting to the bottom of what Charlotte was really up to. Following my father’s legacy, or creating my own.

  I sighed and poured myself another drink. I was going to need a lot more alcohol to answer such lofty questions.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Charlotte

  Life slowly returned to normal.

  Well, as normal as it could get, given the fact that Section 47 was spying on me. Someone was watching me from the moment I left my apartment building in the morning until I returned there late at night, after my diner shift ended.

  After my week-long interrogation, I had returned to my normal routine, crappy waitress job and all. The only reason Section had let me go was because Gia and Trevor thought I would be stupid enough to lead them to the Grunglass Necklace. Or that I would try to run. Or both.

  But I wasn’t going to do either one of those things. No, I was going to wait for the mole to make a mistake. And they would make a mistake, sooner or later. I didn’t have anyone to answer to but myself, but Henrika Hyde still desperately wanted the necklace, and she wasn’t the kind of person you disappointed without incurring some serious consequences.

  And never, ever second-guess yourself. My grandmother had told me that long ago, so I stuck to my plan, just as she would have done.

  A week after the end of my interrogation, I was working my usual shift at the diner. It was getting close to midnight, and the place was empty. Business had been much slower than usual, so Zeeta closed up early, and we all went our separate ways for the night.

  Pablo gave me a strawberry pie to take home. Sadness filled me as I stared down into the plastic bag with its familiar box. The pie reminded me of Desmond. So many things reminded me of him, but he was long gone, off on his mission to hunt down Henrika.

  Despite how badly things had ended between us, I wished him well. Henrika was a monster who needed to be eliminated, and I hoped Desmond found her and cut her throat with his pocket-watch chain. Oh, yes. I hoped that Anatoly’s death, and Henrika’s impending one, would bring Desmond the peace, satisfaction, and closure he was searching for, but I would probably never know one way or another.

  I was so wrapped up in my thoughts about Desmond that I was almost to the front door of my apartment building when I noticed the figure loitering outside. But it wasn’t one of the watchers who had been not-so-discreetly shadowing me over the past week. No, this was someone new, although I had been waiting for him to show up for days. I was surprised it had taken him this long to approach me. He’d been much more patient than I had expected.

  I slowed my steps and glanced up and down the street, but the black SUV that had been parked outside my building when I’d walked to the diner earlier had vanished, along with my regular watchers. Of course they were gone. He wouldn’t want an audience for this.

  He stepped out into the light where I could clearly see him, an easy smile on his face, as though he wanted to be my friend. He probably did want to be my friend in hop
es that I could pull him out of the mess he was in. He didn’t realize I was the one who’d jammed him up in the first place. And that I was just getting started.

  So I plastered a matching smile on my lips and headed over to him, as though I was genuinely pleased by this unexpected visit. His smile widened, although the streetlight cast part of his face in shadow. Appropriate, given the double life he was leading.

  I was holding my phone in my hand, and I called out a single word, a voice command I had programmed into the device the morning of the Redburn mission.

  “Mockingbird,” I said.

  My phone let out a soft beep, indicating that my command had been executed and my plan had been put into motion. I slid the device into my jacket pocket. Then I lifted my hand and fiddled with the black fountain pen nestled in my shirt pocket, making sure it faced outward toward the man I was approaching. The one who I’d once thought of as a colleague, but had realized some time ago was truly an enemy.

  Trevor Donnelly. The mole.

  * * *

  I stopped on the sidewalk a few feet away from Trevor, who sidled forward and gave me another easy smile. The streetlights brought out the glints of silver in his black hair and the desperation in his eyes. Or perhaps that was just my own smug satisfaction coloring my perception of the charmer supervisor.

  “Hello, Charlotte,” Trevor said in a friendly tone. “I’m sorry to be lurking out here, but I wanted to discuss something with you, and I thought it best not to do so at the office. Too many eyes and ears. You know how it is.”

  I arched an eyebrow at him. “Oh, I know exactly how it is—and how awful you and everyone else have made it for me at Section these past two weeks. But let’s be honest. You’ve been targeting me ever since Desmond came to town.”

  His smile faltered. Most people probably wouldn’t have spotted the slight waver, but both my father and especially my grandmother had taught me to notice little things like that. The devil wasn’t in the details—my survival was.