I loped forward. The smell of citrus and terracotta blossomed, and I tucked behind the earthen pot as soft footsteps moved along the floor. Jenks flitted up to hide in the plant’s branches.
“As much as that?” Trent’s voice came sharp to my sensitive ears as he and another turned the corner. “Find out what Hodgkin is doing to get such an increase in productivity. If it’s something you think can be applied to other sites, I want a report.”
I held my breath as Trent and Jonathan walked past.
“Yes, Sa’han.” Jonathan scribbled on an electronic notepad. “I’ve finished screening the potential applicants for your new secretary. It would be relativity simple to clear your calendar tomorrow morning. How many would you like to see?”
“Oh, limit it to the three you think are best suited and one you don’t. Anyone I know?”
“No. I had to go out of state this time.”
“Wasn’t today your day off, Jon?”
There was a pause. “I opted to work, seeing as you lacked your usual secretary.”
“Ah,” Trent said with a comfortable laugh as they turned a corner. “So there’s the reason for your zeal in finishing the interviews.”
Jonathan’s soft denial was the merest hint as they walked out of sight.
“Jenks,” I squeaked. There was no response. “Jenks!” I squeaked again, wondering if he had gone and done something stupid like following them.
“I’m still here,” he grumbled, and I felt a wash of relief. The tree shuddered as he shimmied down the trunk. He sat on the edge of the pot and dangled his feet. “I got a good sniff of him,” he said, and I sank back on my haunches in expectation.
“I don’t know what he is.” Jenks’s wings shifted to a dismal shade of blue as his circulation slowed and his mood dulled. “He smells meadowy, but not like a witch. There’s no hint of iron, so he’s not a vamp.” Jenks’s eyes crinkled in confusion. “I could smell his body rhythms slowing down, which means he sleeps at night. That rules out Weres or any other nocturnal Inderlander. Turn it all, Rache. He doesn’t smell like anything I recognize. And you know what’s more odd? That guy with him? He smells just like Trent. It’s got to be a spell.”
My whiskers twitched. Odd wasn’t the word. “Squeak,” I said, meaning, “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” He rose on slow dragonfly wings, slipping out to the middle of the hallway. “We should finish the run and get out of here.”
A jolt shook me. Out of here, I thought as I left the security of the citrus tree. I was willing to bet we couldn’t get out the way we came in. But I’d worry about that after I burgled Trent’s office. We had already done the impossible. Getting out would be a snap.
“This way,” I chittered, turning down a familiar hallway just before the lobby. I could smell the salt from the fish tank in Trent’s office. The frosted glass doors we passed were black and empty. No one was working late. Trent’s wooden door was predictably shut.
Swift and silent, Jenks went to work. The lock was electronic, and after a few moments of tinkering behind the panel bolted to the doorframe, the lock clicked and the door cracked open. “Standard stuff,” Jenks said. “Jax could have done it.”
The soft gurgling of the desk fountain drifted into the hall. Jenks pushed his way in first, taking care of the camera before I followed him in.
“No, wait,” I squeaked as he angled feet first at the light switch. The room was bathed in a painful glare. “Hey!” I squeaked, hiding my face behind my paws.
“Sorry.” The light went out.
“Turn on the light over the fish tank,” I chittered, trying to see with my light-shocked eyes. “The fish tank,” I repeated uselessly, sitting back on my haunches and pointing.
“Rache. Don’t be stupid. You don’t have time to eat.” Then he hesitated, dropping an inch. “Oh! The light. Hee hee. Good idea.”
The light flickered on, illuminating Trent’s office in a soft green glow. I scrambled onto his swivel chair and then the desk, awkwardly flipping his datebook back a few months and tearing out a page. My pulse raced as I sent it to the floor, following it down.
Whiskers twitching, I pried open the desk drawer and found the discs. I wouldn’t have put it past Trent to move everything. Maybe, I thought with a stab of pride, he didn’t think I was that much of a threat. Taking the disc marked ALZHEIMERS, I eased back to the carpet and threw my weight against the drawer to shut it. His desk was made of a scrumptious cherry wood, and I dismally thought of the coming embarrassment of my pressboard furniture among Ivy’s.
Sitting back on my haunches, I gestured to Jenks for the string. Jenks had already folded the paper into a wad he could manage, and as soon as I had the disc tied to me, we’d be gone.
“String, right?” Jenks dug in a pocket.
The overhead light exploded into existence, and I froze, cowering. Breath held tight, I crouched to look under the desk toward the door. There were two pairs of shoes—a soft slipper and an uncomfortable leather—framed in the light spilling into the hall.
“Trent,” Jinks mouthed as he landed next to me with the folded paper.
Jonathan’s voice was angry. “They’re gone, Sa’han. I’ll alert the grounds.”
There was a tight sigh. “Go. I’ll see what they took.”
My pulse pounded, and I scrunched under the desk. The leather shoes turned and went into the hall. My adrenaline rushed as I considered darting out, but I couldn’t run with the disc in my front paws. And I wasn’t going to leave it behind.
The door to Trent’s office closed, and I cursed my hesitation. I edged to the back panel of the desk. Jenks and I exchanged glances. I gave him the sign to go home, and he nodded emphatically. We scrunched down as Trent came around and stood before his fish tank.
“Hello, Sophocles,” Trent breathed. “Who was it? If you could only tell me.”
He had lost his business jacket, making him look vastly more informal. I wasn’t surprised at the firm definition in his shoulders as they bunched under his lightweight shirt at his slightest movement. Sighing, he sat in his chair. His hand went to the drawer with the discs, and I felt myself go weak. I swallowed hard as I realized he was humming the first track to Takata’s Sea. Double damn. I had given myself away.
“‘Is it no wonder the newborn cry?’” Trent said, whispering the lyrics. “‘The choice was real. The chance is a lie.’”
He went still, his fingers on the discs. Slowly he pushed the drawer shut with a foot. Its small click made me jump. He tucked closer under the desk, and I heard the sound of the datebook scraping across the desktop. He was so close, I could smell the outside on him. “Oh,” he said with a soft surprise. “Imagine that.
“Quen!” he said loudly.
I stared at Jenks in confusion until a masculine voice came echoing into the room from a hidden speaker. “Sa’han?”
“Loose the hounds,” Trent said. His voice reverberated with power, and I shivered.
“But it isn’t the full of the—”
“Loose the hounds, Quen,” Trent repeated, his voice no louder but carrying a deep anger. Under the desk, his foot began to shift rhythmically.
“Yes, Sa’han.”
Trent’s foot stilled. “Wait.” I heard him take a deep breath, as if tasting the air.
“Sir?” came the hidden voice.
Trent sniffed again. He slowly rolled his chair away from the desk. My