She considered the options. They needed Legacy to back off on criticism of the Guild in the short and long term. The last thing she wanted was the Guild complicating her InterSec investigation. “Does DeWinter work out of Legacy’s offices in Crystal City?”
“I believe so,” said Resha.
She smiled. “Invite him to the reception for Draigen. Legacy doesn’t like the current president. Drop hints that the president might not see the Inverni. DeWinter will like being seen with fey who don’t like the president or the Seelie Court. He’ll bite.”
“How will that play in the media?”
Laura shrugged. “It’s a closed reception. We can spin it in our favor.”
She watched as Resha let the idea sink in. She wasn’t convinced it was the best solution, but DeWinter would have a harder time distancing himself from the Guild while he was sipping champagne. Resha stood. “Thank you, Laura. Your advice is sound as always. I will let you know how things proceed.”
“No problem, Resha,” she said. She let out a sigh of relief when he left.
A moment later, Saffin walked in, folders clutched to her chest and an avid smile on her face. Her gaze shifted around the room. “I missed you coming in.”
“I was in a rush,” Laura said.
They faced each other for a pregnant moment. While Saffin knew about Laura’s undercover work, she had kept the knowledge to herself for years—not telling Laura she knew. At first, Laura was horrified to have been detected, but after some thought, Saffin’s awareness came as a relief. She didn’t have to sneak around her anymore, sending her on pointless errands or excusing cryptic phone calls. At the same time, no one at InterSec was aware of Saffin. After Terryn’s reaction to Sinclair’s knowing about her double life, Laura wanted to keep quiet about Saffin’s knowledge. and one way to do that was to keep Saffin on a strictly need-to-know basis. Saffin’s obvious curiosity about how Laura had arrived at least confirmed that she didn’t know about the hidden room, too.
Saffin dropped the folders in Laura’s in-box. “The usual divisions. I’m handling the media inquiries about the reception. The music is all set. One of the flutists asked me out, and the flowers are on order. The Guildmaster wants to meet with you regarding his welcome speech, and I replaced all your office plants because they don’t bloom in this light. In case you didn’t notice, the old ones were dead, and the new ones are lovely.”
Brownies’ inherent organizational skills gave them an ability to multitask on a level most people found exhausting. Saffin’s launch into the catalog of tasks brought Laura relief. Saffin wasn’t going to push the issue and ask too many questions. Laura gave her a sly grin. “A flutist? I didn’t know you were such a music enthusiast.”
Saffin smirked. “I’ve been told by credible sources he has a very nice flute.”
Laura shook her head. “I don’t know how you keep everything together, Saf.”
She shrugged. “I decide what’s important, keep focused, and make sure everyone around me knows where they stand on the list. Oh! And I cry myself to sleep every night.”
“Saf!”
She exaggerated the sway of her shoulders as she left the room. “Just kidding. I don’t sleep.”
CHAPTER 20
ACROSS THE RIVER in Crystal City, Laura spent the rest of the day impersonating Fallon Moor. DeWinter had an oversight meeting, so she had a full day of uninterrupted time at Legacy trying to gain access to the computer system. Irony frustrated her—that Moor had clearance to look at classified information but Laura was unable to touch it without raising questions. If she asked for help for something as simple as a password, she risked alerting people, particularly DeWinter, that something odd was going on. Moor simply refused to answer any more questions, gambling that InterSec wouldn’t make good on its threat to send her to the Seelie Court. Laura didn’t fault her strategy. Capital punishment made the member governments of InterSec pause. It didn’t mean Moor would go free, but it did mean Laura’s threat might be empty. She had warned Terryn that might happen.
She decided to take a different approach to the problem. DeWinter’s office was at the end of the corridor, far from others and surrounded by conference rooms. His door was closed, the card-swipe mechanism glowing with its little red light to indicate locked. The mechanism was an extra layer of security on some offices as well as access to entire areas of the floor. Fallon Moor’s card let her into some of the latter, but she hadn’t lingered in them long enough to figure out what was being hidden. She didn’t want to raise suspicions unless absolutely necessary.
She paced in front of the plate-glass wall, aware that a ceiling camera recorded her every move. She looped back and forth, randomly nearing DeWinter’s door for a closer look at the card swipe. After a few passes, she made out the style and manufacturer of the unit. If InterSec could hack into the system, they might be able to produce a card that would get her in.
DeWinter’s reflection appeared in the window. She cursed to herself. She had hoped he wouldn’t stop in the office at the end of the day, and now she had no choice but to talk to him. Sliding his hands in his pockets, he joined her at the window and took in the view. “What are you looking at?”
She ran her hand through her hair, noting its coarseness, so different from her own. Her glamour effects extended beyond the visual, and she made it a point to remember that smells and touch were important to mimicking someone. She wondered what nuances DeWinter might detect that she had missed. Did her hair feel right? Her skin? Did she have a scent he liked that she had missed? He didn’t give an indication that something was amiss, but she worried. She jutted her chin toward the view. “I was thinking how new all that is. What is it? A couple of centuries old? That amount of time means nothing to the fey.”
“It will when we’re done. They need to learn that this is and always has been a human world. Everything else they’ve touched has been destroyed,” he said.
Laura pursed her lips. A philosophical argument on fey versus human goals was something she knew how to play. Over the years, she’d read enough theories and arrested enough radical dissidents to know the thought problems. “Will they learn or fight? Is what we’re doing any guarantee of long-term success? The fey held sway in Faerie a long time.”
In the reflection of the glass, she saw him cock his head toward her own reflection. “Are you having doubts?”
The response frustrated her. DeWinter’s intelligence training meant he wasn’t prone to talk. No spontaneous monologues about his master plan were likely. “No. Reflections. The monarchies are formidable opponents. Not to brag or criticize, but I’ve experienced that more than you have.”
He glanced up the corridor, trailing his fingers through the short tufts of hairs along her forearm. “Do you need more convincing?”
She let him touch her, deciding what to push with him and how. His voice reverberated with seductive tones, but whether he meant that as sexual or playful, she couldn’t tell. She responded in the same tone but kept the subject on business to see where he would take it. “For twelve million dollars I might.”
He glanced up the hall again. “Yes, thank you for your speed on that. I’ve already put the transaction in motion.”
“I know,” she said. DeWinter had found his benefactor, and she had routed the money into an offshore account. Everything had been done electronically, and no one had met in person. She kept the accounts flagged to monitor activity. DeWinter had moved half the money as soon as the funds arrived in the account.
“Let’s go in my office,” he said. He withdrew his ID card from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. She lingered behind him, amazed at her luck. He was going to use the keycard in front of her. She hid her interest by gazing at the view across the Potomac. As he punched the combination into the keypad, the soft tones of his tapping finger, barely audible, tickled her ear.