Page 72 of A Touch of Treachery
The two guards left the library.Bryce eyed me, then strode through the opening and shut the doors behind him.
Henrika swept past me and headed to the refreshment tables, which had been replenished since the previous meeting.She poured a flute of champagne, then gestured at an empty glass.I shook my head.Henrika slugged down that drink and poured herself another one.Then she finally faced me.
We regarded each other in silence.The seconds ticked by one after another, and the longer I stared at Henrika, the more my synesthesia flared to life, painting her in a bright, bloody red light.Oh, I didn’t get the sense that she was going to physically attack me, but she seemed to know just as much about me as I knew about her, which made her a serious threat.
I had a feeling Henrika Hyde wouldalwaysbe a threat.
Henrika used her champagne flute to gesture at the photo of her and Feliciano.“That’s one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.”
“I didn’t realize you were involved with Feliciano Salvador.”
She shrugged.“It started out as a business arrangement, but it soon turned into something more, as things like that so often do.Just like you and Desmond, I imagine.”
I bristled.“Desmond and I arenothinglike you.”
Her red lips flashed a small smile.“We’ll see about that.”Her smile vanished, and she shrugged again.“Feliciano and I kept our personal relationship very discreet.Most of the people in our inner circles didn’t even know about the two of us.At least, not until after Mexico.”
“This photo was taken at Feliciano’s villa.You were there when the Section cleaners tried to kill Feliciano.That’s why you claim to know what really happened to my father.”
“Something like that.”
“You could just tell me,” I snapped, trying and failing to keep the emotion out of my voice.
Another small smile played across her lips.“Why would I do that?It’s so much morefunto watch you scurry around, desperately searching for clues about what happened to dear old Dad.Bryce bet me twenty bucks you wouldn’t notice the photo, but of course, I easily won that bet.Charlotte Locke is nothing if not observant.”
So letting me break into the library and nose aroundhadbeen a test.Anger simmered through my veins, but I kept my face calm and blank.
“Back at the Halstead Hotel, you claimed you didn’t care what happened to your father, that Jack Locke always put Section missions before everything else, even you, his own daughter.”Henrika raised her eyebrows in a questioning look.
“My fatherdidput Section 47 before everything else.I always expected him to get killed on one mission or another.”The anger in my veins boiled up, the way it always did whenever I talked about my father’s death.“But what really pisses me off is the mess that cameaftermy father died.The worst part wasn’t his death.Oh, no.It was watching my grandmother drown in debt and work her fingers to the bone trying to pay back the ransom money.How does three million dollars just disappear into thin air?”
Henrika’s left eye twitched.I wondered at the small show of emotion, but she didn’t respond, so I answered my own question.“It doesn’t.Which means someone either screwed up the ransom exchange, or stole the money, or both.”
“Mmm.”Henrika made a noncommittal sound and took another sip of champagne.
My eyes narrowed.“You really do know all about it, don’t you?Everything that happened in Mexico.Who screwed up and why my father died and got blamed for everything.”
Henrika nodded.“Yes, I know all that and much more.But your assumptions are all wrong, Charlotte.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one screwed up on either side.Everything that happened on the Mexico mission was a very deliberate act.”
Truth, my inner voice whispered.Henrika wasn’t lying.Oh, her information might still be wrong, or be only part of the story, but she truly believed whatever she knew.That was the tricky thing about my synesthesia.It could tell me whether someone was lying, but it couldn’t always tell me exactly how correct—or not—they might be.
“What kind ofdeliberate act?”
Henrika tapped a finger on her lips, as though she was thinking of just the right description.“Arrogance, with more than a little desperate self-preservation and a touch of treachery.”
“You’re one to talk about acts of arrogance,” I muttered.
“How so?”
I threw my hands out wide.“This whole auction for your Redburn formula.It’s all just agame.You brought Desmond and me here, along with the other paramortals, and pitted us all against one another.Now you’re just waiting to see which of us dies and who manages to live through the weekend.You do everything with more than just a touch of treachery.”
She shrugged.“What can I say?It’s an amusing game.”
Henrika wasn’t going to tell me anything.No, she preferred to dole out cryptic clues one at a time and watch me frantically race around like a mouse in search of the next morsel of cheese that was only going to lead me even deeper into her maze.
