Page 74 of A Touch of Treachery
A bird’s-eye—drone’s-eye—view of the hotel appeared.Henrika fast-forwarded the footage, and the two of us watched Desmond climb down an exterior wall, drop to the ground, and vanish into the shadows.
Henrika hit another button.All the feeds vanished, and the monitor went dark.“Do you know what they all have in common, Charlotte?”She answered her own question.“None of them willeverfind my lab.”
Truth, my synesthesia whispered.
Henrika had far more cameras at her disposal than I’d realized.She might not be spying on Desmond and me in the honeymoon suite, but she was watching everything else we did.
“We’re not here to talk about the others,” I replied.“You have something that belongs to me: the undercover agent list.”
Henrika’s gaze locked onto the Grunglass Necklace again.“I could say the same thing about you, Charlotte.Then again, you got lucky, didn’t you?If that last card hadn’t been the queen of hearts, I would have won, and I would be wearing my necklace instead of you.”
I toyed with one of the emeralds dangling from the gold band.“What was it you said?Oh, yes.Blind luck makes the gamesomuch more exciting.”
Henrika huffed at me throwing her own words back in her face.She raised her hand, and magic glowed on her palm like a golden ember about to burst into a raging fire.“I could march over there, rip that necklace off your throat, and turn your pretty face into putty.”
Despite the distance between us, the raw, sizzling force of her combusto power blasted over me like a heat wave.Sweat broke out on the back of my neck, and my synesthesia drummed out an incessant, ominous warning.
Danger-danger-danger.
I rubbed my thumb over the purse in my hand, once again thinking about the explosives hidden inside the bag.“That wouldn’t go so well for you.”
Henrika scoffed.“You’re an analyst with a wacky form of synesthesia.You’re hardly a threat to me.”
“That’s what Katarina Tanetsa thought—right up to when I shoved a sword into her back.”
Henrika’s green eyes narrowed, glowing almost as brightly as the golden magic still pulsing in her hand.
“No matter how much you want it, you aren’t going to take the necklace from me.”
“Why not?”Henrika challenged.
“Because you like towin, not cheat.And trying to take the necklace right now would be cheating.You have a weird but pesky sense of honor about things like that.”
Henrika blinked several times, as though my words surprised her, then snorted out a laugh.“I suppose you’re right, Charlotte.For the moment.”
The hot golden magic on her palm evaporated, and she lowered her hand to her side.
I ground my teeth to keep my relief from showing.“Enough stalling.Give me the list.”
Henrika yanked open one of the desk drawers, drew out a silver flash drive, and held it up.“This drive contains your precious undercover agent list.And before you ask, no, I didn’t make any copies.I didn’t even open the drive.I don’t care about the real identities of Section spies.”
Truth, truth, truth, my inner voice whispered.She really hadn’t looked at or copied the information, which had been one of Gia’s and Evelyn’s main worries.
Henrika tossed the drive over to me, and the slight, almost inconsequential weight shocked me.Something with the power to do so much damage to so many people should feel heavier and sturdier, like the Grunglass Necklace ringing my throat.
Relief crashed through me, but it quickly vanished, replaced by suspicion.Why hadn’t Henrika at least copied the information?Why go to all the trouble of stealing the list in the first place just to hand it over so easily now?
Unless ...the UC list had just been bait to force me to come to the resort.
My mind whirred at the implications.Henrika was enjoying taunting me with her knowledge about the Mexico mission and my father’s death, but I got the impression our conversation was just a small part of a larger, more devious plot.What was Henrika’s true goal?
“I’m not the only one with a twisted sense of honor, Charlotte.Yours is going to get you into trouble someday.”Henrika paused.“Just like it did to Jack Locke.”
I stiffened.“What does my father’s honor have to do with you?”
“It’s the reason he didn’t kill me in Mexico when he had the chance.”
Henrika’s gaze strayed over to the photo of her and Feliciano Salvador.Another shadow passed over her face, and something that looked a lot like regret and longing flickered through her eyes.
