She stood for a few minutes in case opening the door had set off an alarm, but all stayed silent, without even a clicking keyboard or music or voices. None of the doors opened, and no intercom or speaker was visible in the walls or ceiling. Nothing happened.
She concentrated on drawing energy through the chains around her forearms. They clanked softly when she moved. The familiar sense of strength infused her, slowly seeping up her arms and down into the rest of her body.
She moved down the hall, the carpet softening her footfalls. None of the doors were marked there either. Two were open, revealing a unisex bathroom and a combination workroom/kitchen. The other two were locked.
She used less energy on the first handle than she had with the front door and managed to snap it open without doing as much damage. She closed the door behind her and dashed past the office’s massive desk to the tall, gray filing cabinet next to the window. After jerking open the first drawer, she ran her hand over the files there, glimpsing some goddesses’ names she recognized and plenty she didn’t. She closed the drawer and opened the other three, all empty.
Back in the first drawer she flipped through the files, checking the labels. There—her name. And…Quinn Caldwell. There was no file for Marley Canton or Alana Mitchell, and there were so many names she didn’t know that she couldn’t guess which files would be most helpful. She paused at Tess Canton. Related to Marley? Her mother, maybe? Riley yanked the folder and added it to the other two in her hand. She wished she had time to look through the contents rather than take entire files with her, but a sense of urgency pushed at her, and she’d learned the hard way to listen to her gut.
Voices rose in the hall near the main door. Crap. Riley spun frantically, but there was nowhere to hide in the sparsely furnished office except under the desk, and that would be stupid. The ridiculousness of the situation bumped the fear of being caught up to hysteria, but she took a deep breath to pull herself together and dashed through a side door without even checking to see where it led.
Just in time. She heard the office door open as she pushed the side door mostly closed. She couldn’t latch it without making noise, so she froze next to it, hoping they wouldn’t notice the tiny crack. She slowly pressed her arms tight against her waist so the chains wouldn’t rattle. They would obviously know someone had broken in, but hopefully they’d think the perpetrator had left.
The room she was in was narrow and didn’t have a door to the hall, just the one she’d come through and another directly opposite it. It must have been designed as a conference room between two offices, but it was completely empty. There weren’t even any marks in the beige carpet to indicate furniture had ever been there. Which hopefully meant no one would look in here.
“I don’t care what his claims are,” said a male voice. “He can’t prove he was on company time. I’m not accepting a worker’s comp claim because he can’t stay on his bike.” The voice sounded young and pleasant, despite his clear irritation.
“You need to talk to him,” another guy said. His voice was deeper, rougher. She knew that one—Vern. She wondered why they were continuing what sounded like an ongoing conversation and not discussing the break-in.
“Why?” the first guy asked. Papers shuffled, and a chair squeaked. “He didn’t do the job I sent him to do. I’m not placating anyone for bad work.”
“You should placate somebody,” said Vern. “Cal’s gone. Refused to stay after that woman balled him up in Connecticut.”
Riley covered a snicker.
“And Sharla said you’re not paying enough for this shit.”
“What?” The first guy sounded interested for the first time. “She quit?”
“This morning. Everyone’s bailing. How am I supposed to find Kordek on my own?”
A loud, meaningful sigh. “You weren’t supposed to be on your own. But you also weren’t supposed to lose her in the first place, were you? Why did you let Sharla quit?”
Vern snorted. “I’m not the one paying her. But my point is, you need to change your management style. I’m all you’ve got left.”
Interesting. But then the first guy said, “No, you’re not. I have an entire team across the country.”
“Theirs. Not yours.”
A buzzer prevented the first guy from responding. “They’re here. Go do what I told you to, and don’t let them see you.”
Riley listened hard, but Vern must have left the office silently. The chair squeaked again, and a drawer slid open, then closed. After a moment, rustling clothing told Riley other people had entered the room.
“Gentlemen! Thank you for coming!” He made more sounds of greeting, inviting the men to sit and offering coffee, which they declined in low murmurs.
Riley couldn’t hold herself back anymore. She twisted to peer through the crack at the new arrivals. By rocking side to side, she could move one eye past the tiny opening enough to see that there were four men total. The guy with the pleasant voice stood behind his desk, wearing dress pants and a white button-down shirt. Probably a tie, too, though his back was to her, and she couldn’t see.
Two men sat in the guest chairs in front of the desk, with another standing behind and between them. All three wore expensive-looking suits and held themselves like corporate bigwigs. The one standing was large, filling his suit jacket like a guy who went to the gym every day, but had a bit of a paunch. One sitting was overweight and balding—from what Riley could see, he was older, though her glimpses weren’t enough to be certain. The third guy was barely visible through the crack, one long, slender arm and leg was all she could make out.
The first guy greeted the men deferentially, by names she vaguely recognized, though she couldn’t say why. She grinned. The files she’d found might tell her something, but she had a feeling this meeting was going to make the entire trip worthwhile.
Chapter Nine
Energy is at the center of all life, of all cause and effect, whether natural or created by humanity. The form of energy that feeds our abilities is both precious and infinite, omnipresent and elusive, with the potential to be both beautiful and terrible.
“I don’t know if I want to do this.” Jennifer Hollinger wrapped her arms around herself, shifting from foot to foot. She watched Quinn and Nick with eyes that used to be dark brown but were now the color of coffee drowned in milk. They were setting up folding chaises and paperwork on the deck of Jennifer’s small house, which stood on stilts about a hundred yards from a tributary of the Mississippi River. The pungent odors of mildew and mud rode the warm breeze blowing through the trees.
Sam led her to the redwood porch rail and rested his hand on her shoulder, letting her look out over the water and trying to comfort her.
“I know the unknown is scary, but you can trust Quinn.”
She cast him a skeptical look. “I know why I’m first. She wants to test it on me before she uses it on her real friends.”
Taken aback, Sam was too slow to protest.
“Don’t worry about it.” She waved him off, then tucked her hand back into her wrapped arms. “I can’t blame her. I tried to get Nick fired or whatever.”
“She wouldn’t test on you,” Sam insisted. “You were the last goddess leeched, so it stands to reason you’d be the easiest one to restore.”
She shivered as the breeze picked up. “What about Beth?”
Sam didn’t want to tell her that goddess had died last year, of complications from diabetes. Her abilities probably wouldn’t have prevented her illness or death even if she hadn’t been leeched, but the idea would be in Jennifer’s head, anyway. There was already enough guilt and fear to go around, so he just said, “She wasn’t available.”