Page 121 of A Touch of Treachery
But I did know better—about a lot of things.
“What’s so special about Seashell Imports?”Diego asked in a confused voice.
“It’s a shell company,” I replied.“Used to funnel money to Henrika, starting about seventeen years ago, two yearsbeforethe Mexico mission.”
I hit some more buttons on the clicker, and financial documents filled the screen.“I kept thinking about something Niles Perran said at the Glittertop Resort.He claimed the reason Henrika was so much more successful than him was because a wealthy benefactor had given her a boost way back in grad school when she was first trying to get her business off the ground.And you know what?Niles was right.”
I faced the others.“Last night, I finally figured out who Henrika’s mysterious benefactor was: Jethro Percy.”
Evelyn, Gia, Diego, and Joan all sucked in startled breaths.Desmond blinked a few times and looked at his father.A muscle twitched in the General’s jaw, but other than that, he remained relaxed in his chair.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Ms.Locke,” Percy replied in a cool voice.“My only interactions with Henrika have been to try to bring her to justice for her many crimes against Section 47.”
“Bullshit,” I countered.“You funded Henrika’s research foryears.I followed the money trail, and it leads straight back to you, General.”
Percy waved his hand.“Documents can easily be faked.Maybe this is all just another scheme on Henrika’s part.She plants some false documents in your path to try to incriminate me because she knows the noose is tightening around her neck and that Section will apprehend her soon.”
I shook my head.“You don’t want to apprehend her.You want tokillher so she can’t ever point a finger back at you.”
The General harrumphed and looked at Gia.“Clearly, Ms.Locke has issues.I suggest you put an end to this charade before she says something she can’t walk back.”
Gia crossed her arms over her chest.“Actually, I find Ms.Locke’s presentation to be extremely interesting.Please continue, Charlotte.”
I let out a quiet exhale.Gia was going to back my play, which was half the battle.The other half would be Desmond’s reaction.His face was blank, but he kept glancing back and forth between me and his father.
I hit another button, and a photo appeared on the screen: Henrika and the General hanging on to opposite ends of that oversize grant-money check.
General Percy blinked and blinked, and his face actually paled, as if he was seeing a ghost.“Where did you get that?”
“It ran in the university’s student newspaper.You hid your tracks well, but no one can scrub away everything, especially once it hits the Internet.”
The corner of the General’s mouth twitched, as though he was agreeing with me, despite himself.
I gestured at the photo.“What was Henrika working on that first caught your attention?She started out doing cancer research, but I’m guessing somewhere along the way, Henrika discovered how to kill paramortals instead.And despite your best intentions, you just couldn’t resist having such a powerful weapon for yourself.Right, General?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Percy snapped.
“Lie,” I hissed right back at him.
General Percy flinched at the venom in my voice.
“I don’t have all the details, and most of them don’t really matter.Here’s what I think happened.You asked Henrika to veer away from her original cancer research and start building weapons for Section 47, to start building weapons foryou.I have records of the money you funneled to her through your fake companies, including Seashell Imports.”
“So I invested in some of Henrika’s early research.”Percy shrugged.“So what?Section 47 does things like that all the time.We’re always trying to stay one step ahead of our enemies.”
Anger flooded my chest at how he was trying to spin the story, but I tamped down my temper.“That’s true.But somewhere along the way, you and Henrika had a falling-out.Maybe she wanted more money.Maybe she threatened to expose your arrangement.Or maybe she just wanted to be out from underneath your thumb.I don’t know, and I don’t really care.But eventually, you decided to get rid of her.”
I drew in a breath and let it out.“That’s when you ordered my father to go to Mexico, infiltrate Feliciano Salvador’s compound, and kill Henrika.Shewas your true target, not Salvador.”
Silence dropped over the conference room.Diego and Joan looked just as stunned as I had been when I finally put all the pieces together last night.Gia was staring at Percy like she’d never seen him before, while Evelyn tapped a finger on the table, deep in thought.Desmond kept looking back and forth between me and his father, and I still couldn’t tell what he was thinking or feeling.
General Percy pushed his chair back from the table, stood up, and yanked at his jacket.“I would be very careful what you say next, Ms.Locke.So far, I’ve endured your conspiracy theories, but I’m growing tired of your baseless accusations.”
He raised his bushy eyebrows in a clear challenge.Percy was giving me a final chance to back down, and we all knew it.I stared at the General a moment longer, then hit the clicker again.The sound was as loud as a gunshot in the tense silence.
A photo of my father filled the screen.Jack Locke was sprawled across the ground, his right arm underneath his head and his legs drawn up to his chest, almost as if he was sleeping in a fetal position.But the bullet hole in his stomach and the blood that had pooled under his body ruined the peaceful illusion.I had seen the photo countless times before, but the sight of it always punched the air out of my lungs.
“My father was taken hostage, and eventually, he was shot in the stomach.He bled out before the Section medics could reach him,” I said in a cold, clipped voice.“I’ll probably never know who fired the fatal bullet.If it was Feliciano or one of his guards or Henrika or even a Section cleaner mistaking my father for an enemy.But Idoknow the three million dollars my grandmother paid in ransom money was never recovered.”
