“Oh, yeah?” Alex stopped. “Urgent, huh? I’ve been so wrapped in urgent reports I don’t even know what day it is.”
“Tell me about it.” Salas grimaced in commiseration as he passed Alex and handed off the note.
“Thanks, Salas.”
The man raised a hand above his shoulder, waving back to acknowledge the thanks without turning. Alex changed directions, returning to his office. He closed the door behind him and examined the wax seal. A dragonfly. Dragonfly House, then, which meant Ace. He broke the seal and unfolded the paper.
In the city working on trust. If you don’t have your answer by this afternoon, meet me at the bar at three. No playing.
Alex felt a grin spread across his face. She had come to the city, and Ace would get her to contact him.
Three o’clock at the Piece of Asp, if he hadn’t heard from her before then. It gave him enough time to wrap things up and send his partner on a goose hunt.
No playing. No doubt Ace meant it as a threat. A wheeze of a laugh escaped Alex. “Yeah. We don’t have to do the whole threatening thing, Ace. We want the same thing for Lena. I promise.”
He crossed to his desk, relit the candle, and burned the note. He checked to be sure the wax seal had melted away before discarding the ashes. Assuming she didn’t decide for herself before then, Alex would be there at three, and Ace would take him to Lena. A man like Ace was as good as his word. Occasionally, that presented problems. Not this time. Not yet.
***
Lucas wasn’t at his desk, and Alex’s note sat untouched. He crumpled it into a tight ball and glanced around the large room. Junior agents hunched over desks, dipping their pens in ink and then laboriously scratching out their reports. A laugh bellowed from a group of agents standing together in the far corner under a wide window.
They saw him coming. They also saw the closed, unhappy look on his face. The loud laughter died off, and several of the men who had experienced Alex’s wrath in the past turned away and scooted back to their desks, busy again. Alex tossed his head at Hilliard, one of the more senior of the men.
“Have you seen Lucas this morning?”
Hilliard’s face flashed surprise for a moment. “I haven’t, no. But…”
“But what?”
“He logged out early this morning. Noticed when I signed out mine.” Hilliard pulled a set of car keys from his pocket and gestured to the closed door across from them. The keys to the official vehicles were kept in a storage box mounted on the wall of the equipment room. Junior agents were required to log their usage of the vehicles.
Alex glanced over and then looked back. “Thanks, Hilliard. I appreciate it.” He strode away.
Lucas had checked out a vehicle? Had he decided to pick up Lena’s sister and nephew before meeting with Alex this morning? It would be just like Lucas. Not only was it insubordinate, but Lucas appreciated any opportunity for bullying. The man represented everything Alex knew was wrong with the Council agent system.
He gritted his teeth. If Lucas managed to stumble upon Lena and drag her into custody, making his real mission that much more difficult, what was left of the little jerk’s life would be short and intensely painful.
He walked into the equipment room. It appeared to be long and narrow, as walls closed it off on either side of a long desk. They shielded the wide, shelved space behind the agent manning the desk. Alex greeted him and slid the thick paper logbook down the desk to himself.
“Checking on my junior,” he told the agent. He scanned back up the entries for the morning until he found Lucas’s scrawled name. He traced across. Six a.m. Lucas had left the building while Alex had still been deep into his paperwork. That made no sense. It didn’t take that long to pick up a set of potential witnesses and bring them in. Where had he been since then?
His eye caught on a scrawled word down the line. Lucas had checked out the Tesla, the long-range vehicle reserved for the Councilor. When not scheduled for use, it could be checked out by senior agents. Breath slid from between his tight lips in a thin stream of whispered sound. Wherever Lucas was, and whatever he was doing, he’d given Alex the means to hang him high. He returned his scrutiny to the agent before him.
“You signed out the Tesla to him?”
The man looked down to Reyes’s pointing finger on the log. It was all show. He’d remember signing out Councilor Three’s vehicle. “Uh, yeah. He had the req form signed and sealed by his senior.”
“Is that right?”
The man nodded, but the expression on his face turned from efficient detachment to dread.
“May I see that req form?”