But the customer didn’t even blink. He just took his seat. The others followed his lead. I sat behind Merlin and kept my eyes peeled so hard that I thought they’d come out of their sockets. Instead of listening to the words being said, I strained to hear the meaning behind them in tone and inflection. I tuned into every nuance of body language that would tell me that someone was lying or cheating. By the end of the meeting, I had a splitting headache. I was pretty sure nothing untoward had happened, but I couldn’t be absolutely certain.
Merlin escorted his guests out, then returned to where I was gathering my notes. “I assume there was no skulduggery at work?” he said.
“None that I could see,” I said. On the surface, that wasn’t a lie. The lie came in not admitting how little I could actually see.
He nodded. “Good. I didn’t sense any magic use. Your mere presence may have been enough to deter it. Or we could have been dealing with a rare honest businessman.”
“Then we should probably capture him and put him in a museum,” I quipped.
“Thank you for your assistance. And your secret Santa program appears to be working already. Spirits seem to have lifted, and I’ve noticed employees actually speaking to each other again instead of eyeing each other with suspicion.”
“Great. I’m still trying to come up with other ideas.”
“We should form a task force!” He said it with great enthusiasm, and I knew he’d been reading business books again.
“Maybe,” I hedged. I hadn’t seen too many task forces accomplish much of anything other than generating a lot of memos and a few binders full of presentation slides. I said a silent prayer that Merlin wouldn’t discover PowerPoint anytime soon.
That afternoon I waited until about five minutes after Owen’s meeting with Merlin was supposed to have begun, then called Ari’s lab in practical magic. “Hi, it’s Katie,” I said when she answered. “I need to drop something off down there. Can you let me in?”
“Ooh, I bet you’ve got a secret pal,” she cooed. “But why not have your usual buddy let you in? I’m sure he’d be glad of an excuse to see you.”
I didn’t have to ask who she meant. “He’s in a meeting up here.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you at the department door in a couple of minutes.”
“Thank you! I owe you one.” After hanging up, I put my bakery box in a shopping bag I found in a desk drawer and headed out. “I have to drop something off. I’ll be back in a sec,” I explained to Trix as I passed her desk.
As I rounded the corner onto the corridor that led to R&D, I nearly ran into Gregor, who appeared to be heading in the same direction, carrying a gift bag with a reindeer printed on it. He glowered at me, which was his usual expression. “I understand you’re responsible for this,” he growled.
For a change, I was grateful for having lost my immunity. That meant I couldn’t see if he’d turned into an ogre. “Yes, and isn’t it fun?” I said brightly. His face darkened, and I imagined it was actually turning green and sprouting horns and fangs.
When I didn’t react, his face returned to its usual ruddy color. “Hmmph,” he snorted.
True to her word, Ari was waiting for me at the entrance to R&D. Gregor glanced at the doorway, then kept walking. “Just what I thought,” Ari said. “You’ve got a secret pal down here. I wonder who it could be.”
“This is the biggest department in the company. There are a lot of people it could be. Now go back to your lab, and no fair peeking.”
She fluttered alongside me until we got to her lab entrance. “Can’t you at least tell me what it is?”
“Nope. Do you not understand the concept of secret?”
She veered off to head into her lab. “I’m actually quite good at secrets,” she tossed over her shoulder. “You might be surprised at some of the secrets I’m keeping.”
I shook my head in amusement as I continued down the corridor to theoretical magic. Ari sucked at secrets. The moment she heard one, she felt compelled to share it.
Owen’s lab was empty, which made my job easier. Otherwise, I might have had to bribe Jake to secrecy. All I had to do was get into Owen’s office, pull the plate of cookies out of my box, place it on Owen’s desk, then leave with my shopping bag and box so no one would know what it was I’d left, or where.
With one last glance over my shoulder, I stepped through Owen’s doorway and barely kept my balance as an invisible force threw me backward. Only then did I remember that he’d warded his office so no one else could get in. The wards hadn’t worked on me before when I was immune to magic, but now with my immunity missing, I was kept out along with everyone else.