Skin Deep (17 page)

She went back to her car and drove a few blocks to a coffee shop. As twilight fell, she sat at a corner table reading the manifesto. It was definitely crazy. Well-written crazy, but crazy. She’d seen it all before, the rants about failed government and suffering peoples, the need to replace it all with something shiny and new. Except the cynical secret of all manifestos was that they sought a result no different than the state of affairs they claimed to despise. Only, of course, things would be much better if the crazies were in charge.

She finished her coffee and ordered another to go. What made her pause about the manifesto, though, was its breadth. It wasn’t about taking down the U.S. or the Seelie Court or the Teutonic Consortium. It was about taking down all of them, sweeping away all three structures and replacing it with another one. The fatal flaw in the plan that the authors missed was the point of most political history and goals, the hope that everyone would compromise and unite and get along. It wasn’t going to happen overnight because someone thought it should and wrote it down.

Between the manifesto and Alfrey, Laura had a good idea of what the drug raid was about. Money, of course, and politics, as usual. It wasn’t a huge leap to make the connection that Alfrey still opposed the Seelie Court and needed money to do something about it. Under normal circumstances, security agencies would contain the group and write off the ideas. But between Alfrey’s history and his connections to the Seelie Court, Laura thought he needed to be taken more seriously.

She drove by the Vault. Restless, she circled the block. She didn’t want to go home to an empty apartment and read through the files again. After another two passes down the street, she spotted the InterSec agent watching the club and parked not far behind him. She pulled out Mariel’s cell phone and called Terryn.

“Hey. I want to take over the surveillance at the Vault. Can you call off our babysitter?” she said when he answered.

“Go home and get some sleep, Laura,” he said.

“I’m bored.”

“Laura . . .” he began.

“Can we not do this, Terryn? I can handle this. I just don’t want to go home right now.”

He didn’t answer right away. A moment later, the InterSec agent started up his car and drove off. “Are you okay?” Terryn asked.

“Yeah. Stuff on my mind.”

“I know what you mean,” he said. She waited, expecting him to elaborate. After a long silence, he said. “Call when you want to be relieved.”

“I will. See you tomorrow.” She disconnected and settled more comfortably in her seat. After Aubry died, Terryn had delegated his authority to his siblings, come to the U.S., and joined the Guild. That much she knew. But old clan politics from before she was born was something else. Terryn knew Simon Alfrey better than he’d let on.

The dinner crowd trickled into the club. Obvious couples arrived—pairs and groups of four. High-level business people, financiers in particular, exited limousines. Several acknowledged each other without surprise. She watched with a mental hyperawareness, using the mnemonic tricks druids were adept at, attaching names to human and fey guests she recognized, while she made memory imprints of the faces she didn’t. At her leisure, she would activate full recall and scan through the InterSec databases for more names to give Terryn.

During a lull, she released the mnemonic spell, and her sensing ability reasserted itself. A body signature registered on the edge of her range, a stationary body signature, as if someone waited nearby. The moment she noticed it, it withdrew. On a busy street with people socializing, a stationary body signature was not unusual. She’d noticed it only by chance. Still, she checked her mirrors.

Patrons leaving the Vault began to outnumber those going in. Laura relaxed again to take a break, and immediately sensed a body signature again. Earlier, it had been behind her, but now it was somewhere off to her left, too far for her to make a positive identification. She boosted more essence into her sensing ability. As soon as her ability touched it, it withdrew again. Someone was watching her.

Considering that she had been sitting for a few hours, an alert security guard might have noticed her. With a short spell, she changed the basics of her facial features, flattening them out and shortening her hair, and got out of the car. She didn’t want Janice or Mariel seen near the club tonight. She leaned against the door and pretended to drink from her long-empty coffee cup. No one on the sidewalk paid her any attention.

She searched for Gianni. He operated at the Vault as senior security and might be there. She sipped air again. She knew his personality type. He would consider foot patrol beneath him, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have someone else looking. The body signature didn’t reappear. With a last casual glance around, she got back in her car.

The night lengthened. The limos returned. She saw Blume depart alone in a black Town Car. Two congressmen left so soon after that she guessed that the three had attended a meeting together. More businesspeople, two well-known lobbyists for the banking industry, and a dwarf she remembered from an accounting scandal several years earlier. A large cluster departed at once, many of the same group that had arrived together. A meeting had definitely taken place.

Gianni appeared with his cell phone jammed to his ear. He looked neither right nor left, but cut into an alley beside the club. Moments later, his truck appeared. She followed him as he drove a direct route to Georgetown. Unlike the Vault, the bars and clubs along M Street whirled with late-night activity. Gianni cruised past clubs and cafes, slowing to check out the lines of people waiting to get in. Laura couldn’t tell if he was looking for someone specific or scoping the scene.

She slouched in her seat, wondering what the hell she had stumbled into. Gianni and Alfrey had been at the drug raid. Both had connections to Blume, who also had connections to Hornbeck. If Blume were involved, she couldn’t see an angle on his desire to attend the Archives ceremony. He certainly hadn’t been happy to see Alfrey. If something were to happen, she imagined he’d want to be as far away as possible.

Gianni turned onto a narrow side street. As she made the corner, the red brake lights on his truck blazed in the dark. She drove past. The street was too narrow to pass him, and she didn’t want to risk a face-to-face encounter. She made a U-turn and drove by again. Gianni’s truck remained with its hazard lights on. Laura pulled to the curb in front of a fire hydrant. The Guild would pay the ticket if she got one.

She strolled down the sidewalk. Nondescript storefronts occupied the ground floors, offices for lawyers and insurance agents broken up by the occasional dry cleaner or convenience store. Not the trendy boutiques and wine bars M Street was known for. She reached the corner and peered up a lane that looked like a service road. Gianni stood outside his truck. Across from him, a black car idled behind a large building. The building hid most of the car except the front end.

She slipped into the alley. Two cars parked on the curb blocked her from view. From the new perspective, the black car looked like a diplomatic vehicle with missing flags. It could mean any foreign government—or a fey diplomat. As a precaution, Laura pulled in her body signature tightly to limit exposure. She didn’t want to risk someone fey in the car sensing her from a distance. The downside was that she also reduced her own sensing ability.

She moved into the recessed space of a closed garage bay. Closer, but then Gianni’s truck blocked her line of sight. Gianni had moved to the car to speak with someone in the backseat. Laura assessed the open space of the lane. Shadowed service entrances offered some concealment. She slipped to the first door without a problem. She passed to the next two, exposing herself for no more than a few seconds. A long stretch of empty pavement lay between her and a garage door. She would stand out against a white-painted wall for several long seconds, but the vantage point would offer a direct view of the car. She stepped out of the shadows.

A rough sending rumbled in her mind as a large hand clamped over her mouth.
You’re safe
.

She slammed on her body shield as her attacker’s other arm snaked around her from behind. Too late. He was close enough for her shield to envelop them both. He hugged her as she fought to break his hold. His body signature was a bundle of noise in her senses, human and something else.

Stop. Look at the roofline,
he sent.

Against her better judgment, she stopped struggling. Something moved in the blackness above, a dark shadow and a ripple of pale light. Another appeared, then a third launched into the air. They flew over the alley to the roof of the building above and behind her. Shielded fairy sentries, Dananns by their stealth. She hadn’t seen, felt, or heard them.

She stopped fighting.
Thank you,
she sent.

He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “Don’t mention it, Ms. Blackstone.”

Laura froze at the sound of Sinclair’s voice.

CHAPTER 15

GIANNI CONTINUED TALKING
while Laura huddled in the doorway with Sinclair. Sinclair removed his hand from her mouth but stayed close enough to touch her back. She puzzled over his body signature. Her sensing ability slid over it, not recognizing the man she knew, but something vague and nondescript. The signature fluttered and changed intensity, like a glamour with no body. The change baffled her. She had never sensed anything other than human from him.

Gianni returned to his truck. The brake lights came on, and the hazard lights went off. Laura pressed back into the shadows, keenly aware of Sinclair’s body. Gianni drove off, and the black car followed, its tinted rear window rising. By the time it turned broadside, the window had closed. She didn’t see who was inside.

The Danann sentries swooped off the building and followed the car. Laura began to step forward, but Sinclair pulled her back again.
One more,
he sent. Laura breathed shallowly, scanning the roofline. Sinclair held his hand on her waist. She reached down and removed it, not roughly, but firmly. Fifteen minutes passed before the dark shadow of one last fairy detached from the depths of a loading dock and trailed after the others.

Laura pushed out of Sinclair’s embrace and strode up the alley. He followed her into the lights and noise of M Street. They regarded each other at the curb. Laura noted that they both wore black jeans and T-shirts, his long- sleeved, hers three-quarter. He wore regulation police boots, to her running shoes. They looked like spies. They were spies. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Jono Sinclair. I’m a police officer,” he said.

Jono. She hadn’t heard him use the nickname before. She also wasn’t sure how to handle him under the circumstances. “Am I under arrest?”

He smiled. A rather warm smile, she thought. “No. You haven’t broken any laws that I can think of. Besides, I suspect it would be awkward if I did arrest you, Ms. Blackstone.”

She cursed to herself for not using a stronger glamour. The sloppy move bothered her more than getting caught by Sinclair. “That’s the second time you’ve called me that. Why?”

He shrugged. “Because you’re Laura Blackstone. We shared an elevator in the Senate building earlier this afternoon.”

“You have me confused with someone else.”

He shook his head and looked up the street. She followed his gaze to a wine bar. “I know what glamours are, Ms. Blackstone. Let’s have a drink.”

“I don’t think so, Officer Sinclair. I’ll be going now.”

She stepped around him and moved toward her Mercedes.

“I know who was in the car,” he called out to her.

She turned. “Well?”

He gestured toward the bar. “Shall we?”

She hesitated. She could continue the pretense that she wasn’t Laura Blackstone, just someone who looked like her. But she wanted to know, and she wanted to know what Sinclair was doing there. Without a word, she walked back past him toward the bar.

Laura eyed the interior. The place smelled of beer and old smoke. Flat-screen TVs littered the corners, and team banners decorated the walls. Not a place she would go for a drink unless it was something that fit one of her personas.

“What will you have?” Sinclair asked, when they entered.

The ceiling was a bit low, the bar a bit worn and the floor a bit sticky. “I think I’ll play it safe with something in a bottle. A Corona.”

A younger crowd filled the room, women in tight tops and tighter jeans, and guys in oversize shirts and baggy jeans. No, definitely not Laura’s usual kind of place. Sinclair returned with drinks.

“Who was in the car?” she asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Sinclair lifted an amber draft to his lips.

“Just curious. I was out for a walk, and it looked funny,” she said.

He smiled. “The public-relations director of the Fey Guild just happened to be lurking in an alley where a secretive meeting was taking place between a D.C. police officer and someone who wishes to remain anonymous. I bought the drinks, but I’m not buying that.”

“What were
you
doing there?” she asked.

“Me? Now, I was definitely curious. I know the guy in the truck.”

“Why were you following him?”

He shook his head. “Your turn, Ms. Blackstone. Why don’t we start with admitting who you are.”

She stared into his eyes. He wouldn’t stop her from leaving. If she left, he would assume he was right anyway. If she admitted it, she would confirm what he already knew. She was caught either way, but one option at least gave her a chance to get more information out of him. “Fine. I’m Laura Blackstone. Now tell me who was in the car.”

“I don’t know,” he said.

She sensed truth and wanted to slap the smile off his face. Instead, she put her bottle on a nearby ledge. “This is pointless then.”

Again she walked away from him.

“It’s not the first time I’ve watched him,” Sinclair said.

She glared at him. “Are we going to play this game all night?”

He grinned. “Are you planning on spending all night with me?”