I swayed toward Charlotte, who froze, her fingers still curled around my chin. She cleared her throat and dropped her hand.
“I don’t see any blood on your clothes, although your suit looks dirty and rumpled…” She tugged down my jacket and straightened my tie, smoothing her hands down my chest. “There. That will have to do.”
She stepped back, and I was surprised by how much I wanted her to stay right beside me. How much I wanted her hands to keep sliding lower and lower. How much I wanted to gather her up in my arms, bury my face in her neck, and drink in her clean, tantalizing, sugar-lime scent, along with her cool, blue, soothing aura…
“You ready?” Charlotte asked.
I forced myself to straighten and hold my head up high, as though my thoughts hadn’t been down in the gutter. “Yeah. You?”
She nodded, and together, we headed toward the building entrance.
The Touchstone Building housed several businesses, including a coffee shop, a cupcakery, and a bookstore, although they were all closed for the night. The security guard, Brent, perked up at the sight of me opening one of the glass doors and walking toward him, although he frowned at Charlotte, still in her waitress uniform and now carrying her bags of clothes. Not exactly the kind of woman I had brought here during my previous stays.
I slung my arm around Charlotte’s shoulder, pulling her close to my side. She stiffened and drew her elbow back as though she was going to jab me with it.
“Just go with it,” I murmured. “Act like you’re utterly besotted with me. Think of it as practice for the hotel gala in a few days.”
She huffed, although she somehow turned the annoyed sound into a pealing giggle, and leaned her head against my shoulder. Brent’s frown smoothed out, and he waved as we strolled past his desk.
“Mr. Macfarlane, so nice to see you again,” the security guard called out.
“You too, Brent. This is my friend Charlotte. She’ll be staying with me over the next few days. Please let her come and go as she pleases.”
Brent’s lips twitched as he tried to hold back a knowing smirk. “Of course, Mr. Macfarlane. You two have a good evening.”
I winked at him. “Oh, I’m sure we will.”
Charlotte giggled again, although this time, her elbow did dig into my side, hard enough to make me wince.
We staggered through the white marble lobby, which was deserted except for Brent, and made our way to the back of the building. I headed over to a set of double doors with the words Touchstone Gallery stretching across the glass. I punched in the code on the keypad, and one of the doors buzzed open. Charlotte and I stepped through to the other side, and the door shut and locked behind us.
Lights clicked on in the ceiling, revealing the same blank white marble floor and walls as out in the lobby, but everything else in here was a riot of color, shape, and texture. Oil landscapes of the Virginia countryside covered the walls, along with more abstract works in neon-reds and -blues that reminded me of the food signs in the Moondust Diner’s windows. Stone statues of pyramids and obelisks perched on clear plastic stands, while larger metal and fiberglass sculptures of lovers embracing stood in the corners. But my favorite was the gallery’s current centerpiece—a three-foot statue of a black bear cub perched in a nine-foot-tall maple tree. The bear was made of dead wood, but the maple was still alive and should continue to grow for years to come when properly planted. An interesting take on sustainable art.
“An art gallery?” Charlotte asked in a curious voice. “This is your safe house?”
“More like a front business and a safe house all rolled into one.” I eyed her, wondering if she would mock me like the General so often did, but she simply nodded, as if my words made perfect sense. An unexpected bit of relief trickled through me.
The General had never approved of my interest in art, referring to it as a tomfool waste of time, but my mother loved to paint, draw, and sculpt, and she had passed those passions down to me. I wasn’t as naturally talented as my mother was, and my work for Section left little time to dabble, so I’d bought the Touchstone Gallery as a compromise. A lovely woman named Julia ran the gallery, although I had a hand in picking the artists we exhibited.
“I like it,” Charlotte said. “Especially since I can recognize most of it.”
“Not an abstract fan?”
She shrugged. “If you’re going to claim something is art, then you should at least make it recognizable to other people. Otherwise, what’s the point?”
I grinned. I’d had the same thought myself on more than one occasion. “Something else we agree on. You know, Numbers, I’m starting to think we could be soul mates.”
She rolled her eyes. “Let’s settle for partners in crime for now, and see how that goes.”
My grin widened, but I turned away from her and headed toward an elevator in the gallery’s back wall. A blue velvet rope cordoned off the elevator, while a sign next to it read Going Up? Going Down? Or Going Nowhere? with colorful arrows pointing in different directions.
Charlotte frowned. “Is this another piece of art? Or an actual elevator?”
“Both.”
I stepped around the velvet rope and punched in another code on a keypad on the wall. The elevators doors creaked open, and I stepped into the car. Charlotte hesitated, but she followed me inside. The doors slid shut, and the elevator started to rise.
A few seconds later, the doors slid back. I peered out into the small, white marble antechamber beyond, but it was empty. I also reached out with my magic, but I didn’t sense any electrical hums, currents, or other energy that shouldn’t be here. No one was lying in wait to kill us. A refreshing change from the rest of the night.
“We’re clear,” I said.
Charlotte followed me over to a thick wooden door and watched while I punched in yet another keycode, making the door buzz open. She stepped through to the other side, and I shut and locked the door behind us. More lights clicked on, revealing a spacious apartment.
Charlotte let out a low whistle. “Nice digs, Dundee.”
It was rather nice. The front of the space was part living room, part kitchen. A door to the left opened up into the master bedroom and bath, while a door to the right led to a smaller bedroom and bath. Julia had decorated the apartment, so everything from the kitchen island barstools to the sectional sofa in the living room to the window seat in the far wall that overlooked the street below was done in her preferred palette of black, white, and gray, with splashes of color here and there, like the hot-pink pillows spaced along the sofa.
I walked over and set my briefcase on the kitchen counter, then faced Charlotte.
She gave me a critical once-over. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Just a little sore. A few scrapes and bruises. I’ve had worse. You?”
She shrugged. “The same. More or less.”
“And what you did?” I asked in a soft voice, not quite sure how to broach the subject.
“You mean killing those three cleaners?”
I nodded.
Her face hardened. “I’m fine.” Anger flared in her eyes and pulsed in her aura, making it burn like a blue star around her heart. “Tonight isn’t the first time I’ve killed someone. And if the past two days have been any indication, it won’t be the last time either.”
To my surprise, I wanted to ask her about those other times. What had happened, who had threatened her, why she had killed them. But I kept my mouth shut. It seemed wrong to question her after she had just saved my ass.
I pointed to the right. “There is the guest bedroom and bathroom. Julia, the woman who runs the gallery for me, keeps it well-stocked. Help yourself to soap, towels, shampoo. The same thing goes for the food in the fridge or anything else you need. And don’t worry. No one at Section knows about this place, so we’ll be safe here.”
She nodded, hefted her bags a little higher on her shoulder, and headed in that direction.
I hesitated, then called out to her. “Charlott
e?”
She turned around. “Yeah?”
“Thank you. For saving my life.”
She nodded, then gave me a grim smile. “I suppose we’re even now, Dundee.”
“Yeah. I suppose we are.”
She stepped into the bedroom and shut the door behind her. I stood there and stared at the closed door, strangely wishing that she would return.
Chapter Thirteen
Charlotte
Like the rest of the apartment, the bedroom was sleek, clean, and chic, and contained the usual furniture—a king-size bed, a nightstand, a freestanding armoire. The bathroom featured an oversize claw-foot tub-and-shower combo, along with fancy packaged soaps and several new bottles of expensive lotions, shampoos, and conditioners. A fluffy white robe wrapped in plastic was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, as though this were a hotel instead of a home. I wondered if the toiletries and robe got replaced every time Desmond brought a new woman here. Probably.
I sighed. The adrenaline from the fight was wearing off, and I sensed my body starting to crash. That was the reason—the only reason—why I was having such snide, petty thoughts about Desmond Percy’s potential companions.
Part of me longed to curl up on the bed and pretend like the last hour had never happened, but if I did that, I wouldn’t get back up. So I locked the bedroom door, then forced myself to go through my bags. To my relief, my laptop, phone, and clothes hadn’t been damaged during the explosion and subsequent fight, so I plugged my electronics into an outlet to charge, then hung up the assortment of cardigans, T-shirts, cargo pants, and waitress uniforms in the armoire in hopes that some of the wrinkles would fall out of them. I also lined up my spare sets of sneakers in a neat row along the wall. Once that was done, I trudged into the bathroom and turned on the lights.
The sight of my reflection in the mirrored cabinets over the sink made me blanch. My face was pale and haggard, purple streaks of exhaustion gleamed under my dull, tired eyes, and my hair was a haphazard mess, half in and half out of its previously neat ponytail. Even worse, tiny brownish-red specks covered the front of my uniform, as though someone had flicked a paintbrush at me. Blood from the cleaner I’d shot at close range. More dark specks also covered my jacket, although they weren’t as visible on the navy fleece.
I grimaced, shrugged out of my jacket, and let it fall to the floor. A soft clunk sounded as the cleaner’s gun in the pocket hit the white tile. I grimaced again and scooted the jacket aside with my dirty sneaker.
My head dropped, and I reached for the white buttons on the front of my shirt, which were also speckled with blood. My fingers started trembling, and they slipped off the top button, smearing the blood. I gritted my teeth and tried again, and then again, but my fingers kept sliding off the button. The longer and harder I tried to undo it, the more my hands shook. Soon, tears were streaming down my cheeks, dripping off my chin, and hitting the front of my shirt, further staining the light-blue fabric. I hadn’t cried after the first cleaner attack, but for some reason, I couldn’t stop the waterworks tonight.
After my father died, I had thought I was finally done with this—with all the violence, all the death, all the killing. But once again, I’d been thrust into a situation where it had been me or someone else, and I had chosen me the way I always did. Oh, I knew it was a normal, natural, human response, a survival instinct that everyone had, mortal and paramortal alike, but that knowledge didn’t make the aftermath any easier to bear, especially since I couldn’t get my fingers or that damn button to work. A sob rose in my throat, and I clenched my fist around the top button to tear it off, along with the rest of my bloodstained shirt—
A soft knock sounded on the bedroom door. “Charlotte? Are you okay?” Desmond’s voice floated through the thick wood. Somehow, the faint note of concern in his tone made his Aussie accent deeper and even more appealing than usual.
I swiped the tears off my face and cleared my throat before answering. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
The lie slipped off my tongue with ease, although I spotted a telltale red haze around my mouth in the mirror, as though I were wearing crimson lipstick. One of the side effects of my magical synesthesia. I couldn’t speak a lie without seeing visible proof of it, even if no one else did.
I cleared my throat again. “I’m going to take a shower and then crash. We’ll talk in the morning, okay?”
Silence. Several seconds ticked by. Desmond was probably hovering outside the bedroom door, wondering if the night’s violence had broken me. If I’d had the energy for it, I would have told him not to worry. Thanks to my father and his enemies following him home, this latest attack wasn’t even a minor chip in the cracked windshield of my life.
“Okay,” Desmond said, that faint note of concern still deepening his voice. “If you need anything, come get me. See you in the morning.”
More silence. Then his footsteps softly, steadily retreating. I waited the better part of a minute, making sure he wasn’t coming back. Then I turned on the water in the sink, cranking it up as fast and loud as it would go.
My hands started shaking again, and this time, my legs joined the persistent, wobbly chorus. I put my back up against the closest wall and slowly slid down to the cold tile floor. Then I drew my knees up to my chest, buried my head in my arms, and let the shakes and the sobs sweep me away.
* * *
Five minutes passed. Maybe ten. My shakes and sobs slowly subsided, and I wiped my tears away, hoisted myself onto my feet, and started cleaning myself up. I stripped off the ruined waitress uniform and my torn tights and shoved them into the trash can, then took the hottest shower I could stand to wash off the cleaners’ blood, along with the rest of the dirt and grime from the fight. One of the mirrored cabinets over the sink held medical supplies, and I popped a couple of aspirin and slathered some ointment on the worst of my cuts and bruises.
Considering how large, loud, and intense the explosion had been, I had gotten off pretty easily. My knees were badly scraped, and my body ached like I’d gone ten rounds with a professional boxer, but other than that, I was still in one piece.
Thanks to Desmond.
Somehow, he had used his smooth, effortless grace to spin us around in midair so that he was the one who had slammed into that car instead of me. He had clearly been rattled and shaken up, but a few minutes later, he seemed fine, as if nothing had happened. What kind of magic, what kind of paramortal power, let him walk away from what should have been a backbreaking blow? I didn’t know, but I was even more curious about Desmond Percy than before.
But my many questions would have to wait until morning. Right now, I was too tired to do anything but put on my thin, worn-out pajamas and crawl into bed. I thought I might toss and turn, the way I had so many times before after other similarly traumatic events, but my eyes slid shut, and I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow…
A scream woke me.
I sat bolt upright in bed, my eyes wide, my heart galloping up into my throat, my hands fisting in the soft sheets. What was going on? Had more cleaners found us? Were they storming into the apartment and murdering Desmond at this very instant?
I tossed the covers aside, lunged toward the nightstand, and grabbed the gun lying there, the one that had been hidden in my shoulder bag all day. Then I snapped up the gun and aimed it at the door, expecting someone to burst through it…
Nothing happened.
No shots rang out, no crashes sounded, no footsteps thump-thump-thump-thumped in my direction. I strained to listen, but the apartment was silent, and my inner voice was quiet and not urgently whispering danger-danger-danger—
Another scream ripped through the air, although this one was a bit softer than before and quickly trailed off into a choked sob. I frowned. That sounded like…Desmond.
I bit my lip, hesitating to investigate, but my concern and curiosity won out, so I slipped out of bed and threw on the thick plush robe from the bathroom. Then I slid my gun into the robe’s pocket, opened
the bedroom door, and peered outside.
Moonlight streamed in through the windows, highlighting the kitchen and living room. I scanned the sectional sofa, the island counter, and everything else, but no one was crouching behind the furniture or lurking in the shadows, and the apartment was empty.
A third scream sounded, although it too quickly choked off into more of a low, snarling sob. I tiptoed across the apartment and crept over to Desmond’s bedroom. The door was cracked open, and I slowly pushed on the wood so that I could see what was happening inside the room.
A small reading lamp on a nightstand was turned down low, casting the area in a soft, murky glow. Desmond was lying on his back in bed, his twitching eyes closed, his hands fisted in the gray sheet. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and the dim white light brought out the hard, muscled planes of his chest, along with the sprinkling of dark blond hair that arrowed down his stomach.
I sighed in appreciation. Cleaners were known for being exceptionally fit, but his body was even more glorious than I had imagined. I would have stood there and looked my fill, if not for the low, choked sounds rumbling out of his throat and the way his head lolled from side to side, even though his eyes were still tightly shut.
“Graham!” he mumbled in a low, hoarse voice. “The beach! It’s rigged! It’s rigged!”
He was obviously caught up in some nightmarish memory from the Blacksea mission, the one that had resulted in the death of his friend and all those other Section agents. Sympathy flooded my heart. I’d had more than a few bad dreams myself over the years.
“Desmond?” I called out, hoping the soft sound might ease him awake.
“Anatoly,” he snarled, still caught up in his nightmare. “Gotta get that bastard. Gotta make him pay…”
“Desmond?” I asked again, a bit louder.
I crept up to the foot of the bed. I knew better than to try to shake him awake. Desmond might be confused and attack me, thinking I was part of his nightmare. Instead, I reached out and gently placed my hand on his ankle, which was peeking out from beneath the covers. A similar small touch had sometimes helped rouse my father out of his nightmares.
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