CHAPTER 42
AN HOUR LATER, Sinclair
entered Laura’s InterSec office and dropped in a chair. He still
wore the suit he used for driving the limo. Laura didn’t visibly
react to his presence as she reviewed DeWinter’s files, taking his
arrival as a nonevent. “Oh, good. He didn’t shoot you,” she
said.
“Nice to see you, too,” he said with a smile.
She leaned back with a chuckle. “I told you it
would be fine. What happened?”
He shrugged. “A lot of screaming and swearing. He
bought my story. He didn’t seem surprised. Fallon Moor apparently
has a reputation for being erratic.”
“Yeah, well, I played into that the last couple of
days.”
Sinclair gave her a measured look, one that told
her he wanted to know what she meant. She wanted to clarify for him
on the one hand that nothing serious happened but on the other hand
disliked feeling answerable to him. The pause in conversation
lengthened. He didn’t say she was answerable. She realized she
wanted to tell him, but that didn’t mean she had to. Things were
too new between them to expose every detail of her life. “Let me
show you what I’ve found so far,” she said instead.
The tension broke, and he leaned forward as she
turned to her computer. She flashed one document after another onto
the screen. “More financial data. More anti-fey rhetoric, and these
. . .”
“Blueprints?” Sinclair asked.
She tilted her head from side to side as she looked
at the screen. “But of what buildings, I can’t tell. I’ve been in
most of the major terrorist targets in the city. I’m not
recognizing anything here. This one looks like a lab.” She zoomed
in on the document.
The page showed a simple building layout. The first
floor showed room after room of the same size, plumbing run into
all of them for wash stations and complicated tangles of electrical
and gas lines. “It looks hardened against the fey,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
Sinclair pointed at the blueprint of the
basement—no windows, limited access points, fewer but larger rooms
with electronic security systems on the doors. “Look at this
section. These rooms are lined with glass and stone. Remind you of
anything?”
“Holding cells,” she said.
He leaned back with a satisfied expression. “Yeah,
I’ve probably had more experience with those lately than you
have.”
She smiled grudgingly. Terryn had been quick to
hold Sinclair in a cell when they met. “I’m not going to argue
that. I think you’re right. Good call.”
She stared at the blueprints, trying to resolve
them into something she recognized. “Could be Quantico or Stafford.
I haven’t been everywhere in either place. Look at this part. It
looks like a medical facility.”
A large room held an oblong shape that the notes
identified as quartz. Smaller round shapes ringed the oblong in a
border. “That sort of looks like a healing crèche,” she said.
On the rare occasion when the fey fell ill, essence
formed a major component of the healing process. The crèche had
been developed, stone beds that could be charged to supplement
weakened body signatures as well as deliver targeted healing
spells. “It’s a lot bigger than the ones I’ve seen,” said
Sinclair.
Puzzled, Laura shook her head. He was right. Most
crèches were not much larger than a standard hospital bed. “Maybe
I’m wrong. It struck me as one.”
“So, let’s play it out. Why would a crèche be that
big?” he asked.
“Maybe for someone gravely ill. The more stone you
have, the greater the holding capacity for the essence. Maybe
whoever it’s for is suffering from some kind of severe essence
depletion and needs a large field to supplement it.”
“There’s room in that thing for a couple of
people,” he said.
She gave him a significant look. “Or one very
powerful one.”
He pursed his lips. “Draigen? I thought we hadn’t
found any firm connection between Legacy and the threats against
her.”
“Not yet, but under the circumstances, I’m not
ruling it out until Draigen leaves the country.”
“But why a medical facility? She’s not ill,” he
said.
She stared at the blueprint. The crèche had several
kinds of quartz, not that unusual when treating an injured fey.
Different stones had different properties, and sometimes it was
necessary to create buffers between them to prevent interference.
Suppressing essence was another form of healing, too. That thought
sparked an idea. “What if it’s not for healing but modified as a
holding cell? We use ward stones all the time in holding cells to
prevent someone from using essence to escape.”
“You think they’re planning on kidnapping her
instead of killing her?”
Laura rubbed at her eyes. “I don’t know. DeWinter
talked about an acquisition, but, as much as I’m worried about it,
Draigen’s being the target bothers me, especially after the
assassination attempt. She’s so high-profile and secured, you’d
have to be a genius or a nut to think you could take her out at
this point.”
Sinclair snorted. “I vote nut. Isn’t that the
defining characteristic of a terrorist?”
She leaned against her hand and closed her eyes.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m so tired I’m not thinking clearly.” She
stretched. “Let’s make copies of this. I’ll get the research guys
to take a look at it. Can you make a meeting in the morning?”
“I have some kind of training at Legacy tomorrow.
No can miss,” he said.
She wasn’t about to press him on it. He was doing
his part. She knew what it was like to get pulled in more than one
direction. “That’s okay. You need to keep a lower profile around
here anyway, Jono. Someone’s bound to notice a mysterious tall guy
who keeps showing up.”
“Now let’s get out of here. We both need to get to
bed.”
His face brightened. “Did you just ask me to go to
bed with you again?”
She gave him a long, slow smile as she came around
the desk. Bracing her hands on the chair, she leaned down with
closed eyes and kissed him on the lips. She opened her eyes,
smiling inches away from his face.
“No, I didn’t. Work first. Play later,” she
said.
Sinclair dropped his head back and laughed. “Evil.
Pure evil.”