Page 73 of A Touch of Treachery
Well, it was time to squirm out of Henrika’s trap and start playing my own game.
I gestured at the photo of a teenage Henrika with the sick girl.“That’s one of your cousins, right?”
Henrika blinked at the abrupt change in topic.“How do you know that?”
“The two of you have the same eyes.Same shape, same size, same color green.”Now that I’d had time to think about it, the research I’d done into Henrika’s family tree floated through my mind.“What was her name?”
I snapped my fingers a couple of times.Henrika flinched at the sharp sounds.
The answer came to me, and I snapped my fingers a final time.“Ah!Her name was Meg.She was your first cousin.The daughter of your mother’s sister.”
Henrika flinched again.Then she set down her champagne, walked over, picked up the framed photo, and smoothed her hand over the glass.“Meg was the only one of my cousins who didn’t look down her nose at me and my mother when my father kicked us out of his life.Meg and I were best friends—until she died.”
The raw emotion in her voice surprised me, and I took another look at Meg’s pale face and bald head.Of course.I could have smacked myself for not putting the pieces together sooner.“Meg is the reason you host the charity event every year.You really do care about raising money for cancer research.”
Henrika returned the photo to the shelf, nudging it back into place with her index finger.“Meg is the reason I got into science, chemistry, pharmaceuticals, all of it.I didn’t want anyone else to lose their best friend the way I had.”
Her voice was calm, but a shadow of sorrow darkened her face, and I didn’t need my synesthesia to know she was telling the truth.But the longer I looked at her, the more I thought of another image: Desmond clutching Graham Walker’s body on a blackened beach, their skin burned, blistered, and a shiny, unnatural shade of red from Henrika’s devastating explosive.
“And yet here you are, trying to sell a biomagical weapon to the highest bidder.Funny how your priorities have shifted over the years,” I said in a snide voice.
Henrika barked out a laugh, but it was a sharp, bitter sound.She spun toward me, anger sparking in her eyes.“Do you think I started out making weapons?That I just woke up one day and began plotting the best way to hurt people?Don’t be an idiot, Charlotte.I had the same grandiose dreams as everyone else.”
“Whatdreams?”
Henrika gracefully raised her arms out wide, then swept her hands together and pointed at her chest.“ThatIwas going to be the one to do it—to finally cure cancer, leukemia, dementia, and every other horrible disease that robs people of their loved ones far too soon, whether they are mortals or paramortals.”
“What changed?”
Henrika’s hands plummeted to her sides.“Unfortunately, it’s a lot easier to kill people than it is to cure them.”Her mouth twisted.“It pays better too.”
Truth, my synesthesia whispered.
“So you started making weapons instead of medicines,” I accused.
“So I started making weapons,” Henrika agreed.“Turns out I was very, very good at it.”
“Is that why Niles Perran is so jealous?Because you’re better at making weapons than he is?Or is he still pissed that you had a benefactor and he didn’t?”
Something flickered across Henrika’s face, but the emotion was gone before I could put a name to it.Once again, I made a mental note to find out more about Henrika’s rivalry with the other biomagical chemist and exactly who had jumpstarted her deadly career all those years ago.
Henrika huffed with annoyance.“Niles is jealous because he’s just not as good as I am.Not with people, not with brokering deals, and especially not when it comes to creating new weapons.”She snapped her fingers as though the most marvelous thought had just occurred to her.“Speaking of Niles, let’s see what my old rival is up to.”
Henrika walked behind her desk, hit some keys on the laptop, and spun the monitor around so I could see it.The screen displayed several boxes, all showing different places in and around the hotel.Henrika hit a button, and one of the boxes filled the screen.
On the security footage, Niles Perran was roaming around a conference room, holding what looked like a small metal detector.Niles waved the gadget over a pitcher of water, but he must not have liked the reading, because he glared at the pitcher and moved on.
“Niles is looking for traces of explosives, radiation, and other elements in hopes of finding my lab.Arrogant little prick.”Henrika sneered.“He’s always been jealous because I’m richer and more successful than he’ll ever be.Smarter and more creative too.I’ve created a dozen new paramortal poisons over the last decade, while he’s still fiddling with the same old formulas he dreamed up in grad school.”
She hit another key, and a different box filled the screen.Steig Helseth was towering over the pretty waitress from the poker game, who had her back pressed up against a column in the lobby.The assassin’s eyes were fixed on the waitress’s chest, and he was gesturing wildly, even though the woman was clearly trying to squirm away from him.
“At least Niles is trying to find my lab.Steig is completely ignoring my orders about not hunting mortals.”A disgusted look creased Henrika’s face.“Steig is hoping to lure that poor woman back to his room so he can choke the life out of her and then skin her alive with that hunting knife he carries around like a bloody trophy.”
Henrika tapped another key, and another image appeared.Oriana Luzzo was standing on one of the outdoor terraces, clutching a gadget similar to Niles’s metal detector.Oriana discreetly waved the device back and forth over the stone wall.A light flashed red on the device, and Oriana frowned and moved over to another section.
“Oriana is smarter than either Niles or Steig,” Henrika said, shooting a sour glare at the screen.“She’s looking for traces of magic in hopes of finding my Redburn formula.She even has a boat waiting on the far side of the lake to come pick her up if she manages to break into my lab.”
Henrika tapped yet another key.“And then, of course, there is Desmond, who has beenmuchmore entertaining to watch than the others.”
