CHAPTER 21
A FEW HOURS later, Laura
straightened up her desk and returned to her hidden room. As she
zipped up the uniform jacket and shifted into the Mariel glamour,
she cast a longing glance on the rumpled, unmade bed. The day had
been long already, but she had more work to attend to. She checked
her Mariel image—this time wearing the standard black uniform
rather than the business suit. Cress had left word that she would
be working late, so Laura took her usual route through the
accounting department, then the elevator to the InterSec unit
offices. Once through the locked entrance, she knocked on Cress’s
office door and leaned in. “You left a message for me?”
From her work counter, Cress cocked her head over
her shoulder. “Hello. Let me finish this, and I’ll be right with
you.”
Laura leaned against the counter and watched as
Cress used an eyedropper to add a clear fluid to a row of test
tubes. “Am I interrupting anything?”
Cress shook her head. “Routine. A team brought in
some soiled clothing to test. We’re trying to figure out where a
murder victim has been.” She held up one of the tubes and watched
as the liquids swirled around each other. Replacing the tube in the
tray with the others, she loaded them into a centrifuge and turned
it on.
From her desk, she collected a folder and handed it
to Laura. “I received the results from your gloves.”
Laura reviewed the report, skipping over the
technical analysis to the summary section. “The taggant is
military?”
Cress tapped at a lined sheet covered with
signatures in different hands. “All explosive hardware is
inventoried and tagged by recipient. As it changes hands or
locations, the information is updated.”
“The C-4 from the shop bombing was from Fort
Bragg,” Laura read.
Cress placed a manifest in front of Laura. “That’s
the last registered location. I’ve already checked the Department
of Defense database. No C-4 reported used, missing, or stolen from
that shipment.”
Laura glanced up. “Could they have not discovered
it missing yet?”
“It’s possible. I opened channels for a discreet
inquiry.”
“If it came from Bragg, it will be a bigger
problem,” Laura said.
“Why?”
Laura flipped through the data analysis. “Special
Forces train and operate there. It’s no secret a lot of black ops
recruit out of training camps.”
Cress crossed her arms and leaned back against the
counter. “Are you saying these attacks might have official U.S.
sanction?”
Laura dropped the folder on the desk. “Maybe. When
military hardware is involved, it usually means two things:
official sanction or rogue operatives. Neither is comforting in my
book.”
Cress rubbed at her forehead. “Gods, I’m so sick of
all of this.”
Laura reached out and took her by the shoulder.
“Have you talked to Terryn yet?”
Moisture pooled in her eyes, startling Laura. She
had never seen such an obvious emotional response from Cress. The
leanansidhe rubbed at her eyes and slipped
onto a stool. “No. We haven’t had ten minutes awake together in the
last few days. This never ends, does it? If it’s not some
terrorist, it’s a government. Or some fey embezzling from humans.
Or some plain-vanilla serial killer—which is more sick that I can
call something like that plain vanilla. It never ends. It never
ends and he . . .” She grimaced and shook her head. “These things
pull at Terryn. He never rests, never lets things be. It’s always
his responsibility. He never gives himself time for himself. For .
. .” She stopped.
Laura’s chest felt heavy from the emotion pouring
off Cress. “For what? For you?”
Cress dropped her head. “And now I am the cause of
more problems.”
Laura brushed stray hairs back from Cress’s cheek
and fixed it over her ear. “Is Rhys still making trouble for
you?”
With a stricken look, she stared at the ceiling as
if she could see through the floors above to the Guildmaster’s
office. “I don’t know if it’s him, but I’ve been called into
several meetings. They’re questioning me about the Archives.”
“Interrogating, you mean,” she said.
“Yes,” she whispered.
Laura sensed full truth, but it didn’t make her
feel better. Cress knew she’d sense a lie if she had said no, so
she was honest. But then she would shut down any further
conversation. They didn’t pry into each other’s lives. Laura used
to think that was the courtesy of friendship. Now she wondered if
that said something about the friendship itself.
“Does Terryn know?”
She went to her desk and straightened some papers.
“He’s busy with Draigen’s visit.”
Laura shook her head. “That’s not good enough,
Cress. You almost died saving all those people at the Archives. You
don’t deserve this.”
She hugged herself. “That was my fault. I was
focused on venting off excess essence. I didn’t hold anything back
for myself.”
Cress’s choice not to absorb essence from anyone
without invitation made it harder for her to maintain her own
essence. Even given that, Laura wanted to shake her for blaming
herself for not protecting herself. “That’s ridiculous, Cress.
Nothing was your fault. Rhys needs to know that, and Terryn should
help you.”
Cress stared at her. “Is that going to matter in
the end? I’m a leanansidhe, Laura.”
“Terryn—”
“Terryn”—she interrupted—“is one man, who takes on
more than he should as it is. He’s worried about his family, about
his clan. He’s worried about the balance of power between
governments. Do you think he has the time to do anything about a
Guildmaster who is afraid of what everyone else is afraid
of?”
Laura shrugged slowly. “He’s Terryn
macCullen.”
Cress’s jaw dropped. She snapped her mouth closed,
then started laughing. “He’s Terryn macCullen. You’re right. And
that’s why I can’t ask him, because he will try. And when someone
tries to do too many things, nothing gets accomplished.”
Laura held her by the shoulders. “You matter,
Cress.”
She closed her eyes. “I wish I could believe that.
I know he loves me. I know I matter to him; but in the big picture,
is it fair of me to want to matter more than anything?”
Laura did shake her then, but gently. “Yes. It
is.”
Cress bowed her head. “Thank you for that.”
Laura hugged her. “Life sucks, Cress. You know
that. The whole point of finding someone like Terryn is that you
have someone to turn to when it really sucks.”
She knew she heard herself say it, even believed
it. Life was a chain of disappointments, but life itself didn’t
have to be. There were other chains, other paths, that did not lead
to sadness. As she soothed Cress, she thought how tired she was and
that the best she had to hope for at the end of the day was an
unmade bed in a room with no window. Maybe, she thought, it was
time to take her own advice. Maybe she needed to move beyond that
and remember what life was like outside the walls of a
Guildhouse.
When this job is done, she told herself, change is
going to happen.