A Sense of Danger

by Jennifer Estep

  “Yeah?” Gabriel’s voice filled my ear.

  “It’s Charlotte. Remember when you offered to help me last night? Well, it turns out I’m not too stupid and stubborn to take you up on that. I need you to get me something.”

  I told him what I wanted, and he let out a low whistle. “Girl, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into at Section?”

  “I’m not quite sure yet, but I plan to make it out in one piece. And if everything works out like I hope, then I’ll finally be able to pay off my debt to you once and for all. So will you help me?”

  “I can do it,” Gabriel replied. “It’s going to take me a couple of days, though.”

  “Fine.”

  “When and where do you want to meet?”

  Today was Wednesday, but it would take me a few days to work out the final kinks in my plan before I left for the mission on Sunday evening. “The diner. Three a.m. Sunday morning.”

  “That’s a fast turnaround time,” Gabriel replied. “I might not be able to procure the quality you want by then.”

  “Quality doesn’t matter. As long as it’s close, that will be good enough.”

  “All right,” he replied. “See you there.”

  “Okay. And, Gabriel?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thanks.”

  He snorted. “For helping you put yourself in even more danger? You shouldn’t thank me for that.” He paused. “But you’re welcome anyway.”

  We hung up. I stayed in the alcove, clutching my phone, reviewing the facts in my mind and once again wondering if this was the correct play. Gabriel was right. I was throwing myself headlong into even more danger, and if my scheme failed, then winding up dead would probably be the least unpleasant outcome.

  If you see an opportunity, then you grab on to it with both hands, and you strangle it into submission, my grandmother’s voice whispered in my mind. And never, ever second-guess yourself.

  I’d put the first part of my plan into action and had just tossed a handful of knives into the air. Only time would tell whether I managed to keep juggling them—or if the blades would all come crashing down and cut me to pieces.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Desmond

  Charlotte and I quickly established a routine. During the day, we both went about our regular jobs at Section 47, and we attended a lot of the same briefings regarding the upcoming mission. Then, after hours, we headed over to the diner, where I hung out in a booth and combed through files, hunting for the mole and prepping for the mission, while Charlotte worked her shift. Once she was finished, we returned to my apartment for the night.

  Most of the time, when I woke from yet another nightmare of the beach explosion and Graham’s death, Charlotte was perched on a stool at the island counter, drinking hot chocolate, eating some sugary diner dessert, and going through the classified files that I’d downloaded for her. Sometimes, she was in the middle of the living room floor, breathing deeply as she moved, stretched, and flowed from one yoga pose to the next.

  After that first morning, she never asked if I wanted to talk about the Blacksea mission, and I was grateful for her discretion. Right after the mission, I had been paraded around to half a dozen Section shrinks, and I was all talked out. Besides, talking wouldn’t change anything. Not really, not for me. No, the only thing that might—might—quiet my nightmares and bring me any kind of peace was using Henrika Hyde to find and kill Adrian Anatoly.

  Charlotte might not ask me about Graham, but she was considerate in other ways. Inquiring about my childhood growing up in Australia with my mother, offering me bites of her diner desserts, teasing me when I said all that sugar was going to kill her. She did her best to try and take my mind off the fact that I’d woken up screaming and in a cold sweat yet again. Given my nightmares, I often wondered when she got any sleep, and she almost always seemed tired, as if something were weighing heavily on her mind, but she respected my privacy, so I did the same with her.

  To my surprise, no more cleaners targeted Charlotte or me, and no one set any more car bombs or other traps for us. The quiet put me on edge. I wasn’t an enduro like Graham had been, so I’d never been good at waiting. If there had been another attack, then I would have at least known we were on the right track, that the Section mole felt threatened by us, by our investigation. I would have preferred some danger to all of this…nothing.

  Charlotte seemed to take the waiting in stride, and I would often catch her staring at a blank spot on the wall while she was doing yoga, her aura pulsing as her mind tumbled through those mental gymnastics, as though her thoughts were a tough routine that she was trying to perfect right alongside her triangle pose. I enjoyed seeing her like that, enjoyed just being near her, and especially breathing in the cool, soothing blue of her.

  In another place, another time, I might have done more than just look. Might have asked her out to coffee or dinner and see if the evening led back to my place, to my bed. Sometimes, I thought that Charlotte was as attracted to me as I was to her, but I didn’t broach the subject, and neither did she. As soon as I had a lead on Anatoly, I would be gone, off to chase him to the ends of the earth, if need be, and Charlotte knew that as well as I did. So it was better for both of us not to start something that would be all too brief.

  Damn if I didn’t want to, though.

  Sometimes, when Charlotte was sitting at the counter, poring over files, I thought about going over, gently brushing her hair aside, and pressing my lips against her neck, so that I could feel her pulse, feel the blue of her, beating beneath my tongue. Then I would turn her around, lift her up, and lay her down on the counter, right on top of all of those reports…

  And then reality would intrude, and I would have to excuse myself and retreat back into my bedroom until my dick calmed down.

  I felt like a schoolboy with the worst sort of awkward, unrequited crush, and I didn’t know what to do about it.

  And so things chugged along until the night before the Redburn mission. We still weren’t any closer to figuring out who the mole was, and Charlotte and I had agreed that our best bet was to wring the answer out of Henrika Hyde—one way or another.

  Of course, we still didn’t know exactly what kind of trap Henrika might spring on us during the mission, but I’d reviewed all the information on her bodyguards, and I was confident I could kill each and every one of them—and keep Charlotte safe. That had become increasingly important to me. It wasn’t just about the deal we’d struck. Not anymore. No, for me, protecting her was now a driving need.

  Charlotte had a rare evening off from the diner, so we’d called it a night around ten, since tomorrow was going to be a long day. Sometime later, I woke up. For once, my sleep had been free of nightmares, so I wasn’t quite sure what had roused me.

  It took me a long, drowsy minute to realize that I didn’t feel Charlotte’s aura.

  Even when she was tucked in bed in the guest suite with the door closed, I could still sense her, but right now, I didn’t feel the cool blue of her anywhere in the apartment.

  I threw back the sheet, got out of bed, and padded into the living room, but she wasn’t doing yoga, and the countertop was oddly clear of papers.

  “Charlotte?” I called out.

  No answer.

  I knocked on her bedroom door. More silence, so I slowly cracked it open. She wasn’t inside or in the bathroom beyond.

  Where had she gone?

  Beyond the front door, a soft ding sounded, indicating that the elevator had arrived on this floor. I reached out with my magic, and I sensed the elevator sliding down, down, down. Just for an instant, I also felt Charlotte’s aura, bright sparks of worry shimmering through the usual cool blue.

  I hesitated, torn between letting her go and seeing what she was doing. Surely she had a good reason for going out this late right before a mission, but I couldn’t quiet the sudden doubts crackling through my mind. Besides, in the end, I was a spy just like she was, and trust wasn’t something tha
t came to me easily. Not after what had happened to Graham.

  So I hurried into the bedroom to throw on some clothes so I could follow her.

  I was out the apartment door in less than two minutes. Rather than wasting time waiting for the elevator to return, I went over to the emergency exit, punched in my 007 code, and hurried down the stairs.

  The lobby was empty except for the security guard, who was sitting behind his desk as usual. Charlotte was nowhere in sight. If she’d gone out through the sub-basement, then she had a big head start, and I’d probably never pick up her trail, so I decided to take a chance that she’d just walked out through the lobby instead, given the late hour. So I plastered a smile on my face and hustled over to the security guard.

  “Brent! My man! Can you do me a favor?” I waggled my keys in front of him. “Can you tell me which way my lady friend went? She forgot her keys.”

  Brent gave me a knowing grin. “You just missed her. She went that way.”

  He pointed to the left, and I hurried away. “Thanks, man.”

  “Anytime, sir.”

  I pushed through one of the glass doors and jogged in that direction, scanning the sidewalk up ahead for Charlotte as well as for cleaners and other potential threats. Just because we hadn’t been attacked again didn’t mean that the mole wasn’t watching and wouldn’t seize the chance to kidnap—or kill—Charlotte.

  But no one was sitting in a parked car or loitering at the corner. Whatever was going on, Charlotte seemed to have left the apartment of her own volition rather than being lured outside, which made me even more curious—and suspicious—about what she was doing.

  I reached the end of the block and scanned the surrounding streets. I didn’t see Charlotte anywhere, so I reached out with my magic, searching for her aura…

  There. She was over to my right, a couple of blocks away. I turned and headed in that direction, following the faint energy trail, the faint blue of her, the same way a bloodhound would run down a fox’s scent.

  Once I keyed in on her aura, I slowed my steps, easing up to the street corners, peering around them, and making sure to stay out of her immediate line of sight. Charlotte was a professional, and she would be checking for a tail, just like I was. I didn’t need to physically see her to follow her aura, and I just had to hope that she couldn’t sense me the same way with her synesthesia. It only took me a few blocks to figure out where she was going.

  The Moondust Diner.

  I frowned. Why would she go there on her night off?

  I reached the block where the diner was located, but instead of walking down the street in full view of the neon lights and signs, I slipped into an alley, circled around, and came at the diner from a different direction. I stopped behind one of the trees marking the edge of the small, grassy park that butted up against the parking lot. From this vantage point, I could see the entire lot as well as the diner.

  I checked my phone. Almost three a.m., so no cars were squatting on the cracked asphalt, and the diner was locked up tight for the night. So where was Charlotte?

  A cool flicker of blue shimmered in the distance, and Charlotte stepped out from around the back of the diner, although she stayed in the shadows, hovering by one of the trash bins. Her sneakers didn’t make a squeak of sound on the pavement, and I never would have spotted her, if I hadn’t been so tuned in to her aura.

  Charlotte checked her phone, then let out a soft, muttered curse. But she didn’t move and neither did I. Who was she meeting? And why? I wasn’t leaving until I found out.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  A few minutes later, a black SUV cruised into view. The vehicle stopped at the opposite end of the parking lot. Charlotte stepped forward so that the person in the SUV could see her, and flashed her phone at them three times. The headlights flashed three times in return, and Gabriel climbed out of the driver’s seat and sauntered toward her.

  I frowned again. Why was she meeting him? Gabriel hadn’t been at the diner since the night he’d called Charlotte his investment, and she hadn’t so much as spoken his name in the meantime.

  Gabriel stopped in front of Charlotte, who crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a flat look. I still didn’t know why they were meeting, but it definitely wasn’t a romantic rendezvous. Unexpected relief pulsed through me, but I pushed it away, straining to listen.

  Gabriel spoke first. “…got what you wanted…”

  “…let me see…”

  “…sure you want to go through with this…”

  “…no other choice…”

  They talked back and forth, although their conversation didn’t give me any clues as to what was going on. Finally, Gabriel handed Charlotte a padded brown envelope. She hefted it, but she must have been satisfied by the weight and feel because she tucked it into the back pocket of her cargo pants without opening it and looking at the contents. Then she pulled something out from one of her other pockets and handed it to Gabriel.

  The object looked small and metallic, like…a flash drive. My eyes narrowed. What was on that drive? The classified files I’d given her? Section secrets? My secrets?

  A sick, sinking feeling filled my stomach. All this time, I thought I had been protecting Charlotte. A few days ago, when this whole thing had started, she had asked me to swear that I had nothing to do with the cleaners who’d tried to kill her. I had been so busy trying to convince her I was a good guy that I hadn’t thought to ask her the same question in return.

  Had Charlotte been playing me this whole time? And who was she working for? Gabriel? Someone at Section? The mysterious mole? Henrika? Anatoly?

  Graham had always claimed I had a white-knight complex. That I had this deep-seated need to protect other people, especially since my father had never protected me or my mother from anything, especially not his own greed and ambitions. Most of the time, Graham had played his words off as a joke, but right now, bitterness cascaded through me in hot, sour waves, making me feel like the biggest sort of blind, stupid fool.

  “Good luck.” Gabriel’s voice drifted across the pavement, a little louder and clearer than before. “You’re going to need it.”

  Charlotte shrugged. “We’ll see. But if you don’t hear from me in a few days, assume the worst.”

  Gabriel barked out a laugh. “I always do whenever Section is involved.”

  He snapped up his hand and saluted her, then headed back to his vehicle. He got inside, cranked the engine, and drove away.

  Charlotte watched until Gabriel’s taillights had vanished. Then she scanned the parking lot again, her gaze lingering on the trees where I was still hiding. I froze, not daring to move a muscle. For a moment, I thought she had spotted me, but her head turned, and she looked past me. Charlotte nodded, as if satisfied she was alone, and slipped back behind the diner.

  I waited a few seconds to make sure she wasn’t going to poke her head around the side of the diner again, then hurried back the direction I’d come. I needed to return to the apartment before she realized I had followed her. Still, as my long, quick strides ate up the distance, one thought kept pounding through my mind and churning in my stomach.

  I couldn’t trust Charlotte.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Charlotte

  I made it back to the Touchstone Building without incident. My meeting with Gabriel had taken less than an hour total. I nodded to the security guard, who smirked at me as usual, then went through the art gallery and rode the elevator upstairs. I punched in the 007 code on the keypad, opened the front door, and eased inside the apartment.

  Desmond wasn’t sitting at the counter waiting for me, as I had feared, and his bedroom door was cracked open the same width as when I’d left. He probably didn’t even realize I’d been gone. Good. Part of me hated sneaking around and lying to him, but this crazy, dangerous plan of mine seemed like the best way for everyone to get what they wanted and exactly what they deserved.

  Especially Desmond.

  His main fo
cus might be using Henrika to get to Anatoly, but I knew he also desperately wanted to expose the Section mole, who was equally responsible for Graham’s death along with the other agents who’d perished on the Blacksea mission. I didn’t know how much I could truly help Desmond with Henrika and Anatoly, but I was going to do my very best to give him the mole on a silver platter.

  Either way, I couldn’t change course now, and my plan would go into effect during the Redburn mission. Time would tell how successful my scheming turned out to be—and if I lived to see another day.

  But for right now, I needed to get out of these clothes and back in bed before Desmond had another nightmare and woke up, so I tiptoed into my bedroom. I started to close the door behind me, but something made me look across the apartment.

  For a moment, I thought I saw a shadow snake across the floor of Desmond’s room, almost like he was up and moving around. I blinked, and the shadow vanished. I waited a few seconds, but the shadow didn’t reappear. It had probably been some trick of the moonlight sliding in through the windows.

  I pushed my unease aside and closed my door, cutting off my view of Desmond’s room. Then I went to bed to get what sleep I could for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  Around eight a.m., I stepped into the kitchen to find Desmond leaning back against the wall. He was already dressed in his usual sleek shirt, vest, and pants, although his tie was a flat, plain black today, as were the rest of his clothes. He looked as gorgeous as always, but the lack of color was a cold, stark reminder of exactly who he was—and what he was planning to do to his enemies tonight.

  Desmond was clutching one of his smoothies, although the glass was full, and it didn’t look like he had taken a single sip. I glanced at the island, expecting to see another smoothie glass sitting there, but the surface was surprisingly empty.

  It had become something of a morning ritual for Desmond to make me a smoothie and then for me to complain about how awful it tasted. Truth be told, the fruit-and-veggie drink was slowly growing on me, although I would never admit that, just as I would never tell Desmond how much I enjoyed his sexy accent and his wicked sense of humor and all the other little things that attracted me to him like a bee to honey. I didn’t have time for such an intense attraction. No, today of all days, I needed to focus every ounce of my energy on the Redburn mission and making sure that I got through it alive—and that he did too.