Once Upon Stilettos (Enchanted Inc #2) (28 page)

Instead, I left the cookies on a table in the lab, with the card with his name on it clearly visible. Now that I thought about it, that was probably a better option, anyway. If cookies appeared in his office, they would have had to come from an immune. I suspected the wards would have kept out even a magical spell to conjure up something in there.

My mission completed, I started to head out of the department, but I paused before I left the lab. If there was anyplace in this company that held the answer to what had happened with my magical immunity, it was Owen’s lab. I couldn’t get into his office where the really good books were, but there were plenty of books in the lab outside his office.

Unfortunately, as neat and precise as Owen could be, he was also wildly disorganized. I suspected he had a system that made total sense to him and he could find anything he needed within seconds, but to me it all looked like a random jumble. Acutely conscious that I had a limited amount of time, I hurried to skim the spines on the lab bookcase. I could rule out any book that didn’t appear to be in English; even if it contained the information I needed, it wouldn’t do me a lot of good if I couldn’t read it.

There was a fairly modern-looking volume that seemed to be about magical maladies. I pulled it off the shelf and opened it to the table of contents. Much to my surprise, it contained a chapter on magical immunity. Even more to my surprise, there was a Post-it note stuck on the first page of that chapter, not quite sticking out like a bookmark, but still there. Was Owen researching me—or was someone else?

Feeling more and more rushed, as I knew Merlin’s meeting was likely winding to a close, I glanced through the section headings in the chapter. Most of it was information I already knew, only written using much larger words. Finally, there was a section on the disruption of magical immunity. It was long—pages and pages’ worth—and full of even bigger words, with magical terms I didn’t know. I’d need a reference book to be able to read this book. I glanced at my watch. Merlin’s meeting with Owen would be ending at any minute. I pondered “borrowing” the book, but as paranoid as Owen was lately, he’d probably know as soon as he walked in the room that something was gone. Reluctantly, I put it back on the shelf. I’d know where it was in the future, and the relevant chapter was already marked. Maybe I could even come up with an excuse for borrowing it later.

Before I could safely sneak out of the department, Ari caught me in the hallway outside her lab. “Did you leave anything, or what?” she asked, eyeing my shopping bag and bakery box.

“Nope. I was just down here spying,” I quipped. “Thanks for letting me into the secured area.”

“Nice try, Katie, but I know you aren’t our spy.”

“And how would you know that?”

“You’re too nice. And I doubt you could keep the secret for too long. The strain would show.”

I edged past her and kept walking. “Maybe that’s part of my cover,” I shot over my shoulder as I left. It remained to be seen how right she was about my ability to keep a secret. So far, I wasn’t doing too badly at keeping everyone in the dark about my loss of magical immunity. In fact, it came as something of a surprise to me how seldom my abilities were really called upon. That made it that much easier to keep the secret, and it made me a little less afraid that I’d lose my job if anyone knew.

Then again, one more day meant it was one day closer to being permanent. A temporary effect should have passed, or so I would have hoped. Had I transferred my lack of powers to my mother instead of inheriting them from her? I needed to get back into Owen’s lab and get another look at that book.

Inspired by the decorating job done on my office, I took advantage of the fact that Owen wasn’t on the train with me on the way home to pick up some Christmas décor. Hauling shoes and clothes to change into for the girls’ night out on Friday would give me the perfect cover for bringing in the decorations right under his nose. I just had to find a good time to sneak in and put them up in his lab. The ones I’d bought were cheesy enough that it might possibly look like a magical person had gone mundane on purpose.

Ari invited me down to her lab for lunch on Friday, which gave me the perfect opportunity to sneak in with the Christmas decorations. “Let me guess,” she said when she saw my bag. “More secret Santa stuff.”

“It was my idea, so I have to do a good job.”

“You know, if you’d tell me who your secret pal is, I could help you.”

“Then it wouldn’t be so secret anymore, would it?”

When she got a phone call after lunch, I took that as a good time to dash out of her lab and hurry down the hall to Owen’s lab. I nearly ran into Jake on his way out. “You just missed him,” he said. “He had to go to a meeting.”

“That’s okay. I’m only dropping some paperwork off in his office.”

“Cool.” He was already off down the hall, grooving to whatever was on his iPod, before he could think to ask why paperwork required a shopping bag. I spread out the cheesy plastic Santas and silvery tinsel on the big table in the middle of the lab so it would look like I was in the middle of decorating, then found that book again and flipped to the conveniently placed Post-it.

It was like looking for information on what to do about the common cold in a medical journal. I imagined I’d need years of study to properly understand what I was reading, but it did appear that there were ways of making a magical immune susceptible to magic. There was a whole list of chemical names, and none of them sounded familiar. It looked like once the drug was in the person’s system, they could then have spells done on them to really solidify the loss of immunity.

Well, that was great, but I wasn’t taking any drugs, not even the occasional aspirin. I hadn’t changed my routine or eaten or drunk anything new—not that I was aware of. The loss of immunity had hit before the secret Santa game started, so it couldn’t have been caused by any treat that had been left for me. Short of closing myself in a plastic bubble, there wasn’t much I could do until I figured out what was being done to me.

I put the book back on the shelf, then put up the decorations around the lab as quickly as I could. I stuck an anonymous secret Santa greeting note on Owen’s office door before hurrying out. Ari was still on the phone as I passed and didn’t seem to see me.

I was out of breath when I returned to my office. I didn’t see how our spy could stand the stress. The sneaking around for a good reason, with no consequences other than maybe embarrassment and a good laugh, was difficult enough. I’d nearly had heart failure from sneaking a peek at a book that Owen probably would have loaned me willingly, even if he would have asked me why I wanted it.

I rewarded myself for a successful mission by slipping out of my sensible business shoes, taking the red shoes out of their box, and putting them on. I felt the usual surge of power, like I could rule the world if I really wanted to. I’d always laughed at Gemma when she said it, but I was starting to believe that the right pair of shoes actually could change your life.

I kept them on for the rest of the day, and as a result, all I had to do to get ready for going out was touch up my makeup, add a little sparkle, and change my blouse. I got down to Isabel’s office, where we’d agreed to meet, and found it empty. Rod then appeared in his doorway, and I realized I must have become accustomed to his illusion when I didn’t have to pause and remember who he was.

He gave me a low whistle and said, “You look great. You shouldn’t have any trouble attracting attention tonight.” A warm glow spread through me at his praise. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go out to get attention. All the attention I could want was right there in front of me. Then he looked more somber, jolting me out of what had to have been the effects of his attraction spell. “Can I speak to you for a moment?”

I forced myself to focus. “Sure.”

He gestured me into his office and said, “Have a seat, please.” He perched on the edge of his desk, and I sat in the guest chair, crossing my legs like I was modeling panty hose. His eyes were serious enough to snap me out of it once more. It would have helped if he’d turn that spell off even for a second, but I guessed he didn’t realize it was affecting me—unless he was deliberately affecting me. “This is probably none of my business, and I’m sure I’m totally out of line. I also want to make sure you know I’m not saying this in any official capacity, but rather as a friend. I’d like to think that you’re my friend, and Owen has been my best friend for a very long time. But be careful, please.”

Goose bumps grew on my arms, and I momentarily forgot all about the effect Rod had on me. “Careful of what?”

“I know you and Owen have been spending a lot of time together lately.”

“We come to work together in the morning, and we’ve gone to dinner together once. That’s not exactly a lot.”

“For Owen, it is. It’s enough that I feel like I ought to warn you. Owen’s a great guy. But he’s also dangerous. I don’t think he’d do anything deliberately to hurt anyone, but he could easily do it without meaning to. He’s also, well, he doesn’t have much experience outside his lab. I don’t want you getting hurt, but I’m more worried about him getting hurt, and what might happen if he did.”

I thought I understood where he was going with this. “You mean, you don’t want me to break his heart so that he then goes insane with grief and blows up the island without realizing that’s what he’s doing?”

He nodded. “Yes, something like that.” I’d been joking, sort of, but he wasn’t smiling at all. “I’m glad you understand me.”

I might not have had a lot of romantic experience, having had only a handful of real boyfriends, but I’d grown up with brothers and all their friends, so I knew a thing or two about men. My experience had taught me that when a man warned a woman away from another man, it usually had more to do with jealousy than with real worry about that other man, whether or not the guy actually realized it. While I didn’t doubt that Rod was worried to some degree about Owen, I had the strongest sense that he was actually jealous.

That didn’t mean he was really interested in me himself. But if he went to the effort it took to mask his appearance with an illusion, and with his best friend being a total knockout naturally, it wasn’t far-fetched to think he might have issues about me seeing him as he really was and comparing him with Owen. Could that have been his motive for spying on Owen and tinkering with my immunity, if he was the one who’d done it?

Regardless of whether or not he was the culprit, I knew enough about men not to accuse him of jealousy to his face. Instead, I said, “I don’t think you have anything to worry about.”

“I don’t?”

“Think about it. You’ve known Owen a long time, right?”

“Since we were kids.”

“So you’ve seen him around someone he was interested in. And if I read him the right way, I’d guess that when he’s interested in someone, he freezes entirely and can’t speak to her.”

“That’s pretty much it,” he agreed.

“Well, he talks to me. Often, and quite comfortably, at that. I’d say that’s a pretty good sign he’s got me filed in the ‘friend’ category. Or, given the way he seems to organize things, I’m somewhere in the middle of the ‘friend’ pile.”

He brightened considerably at that, even as my heart sank when I recognized the truth in my own words. My “like a sister” curse had struck again. “You’re probably right. I guess I overreacted,” he said.

“No problem,” I said with a shrug. Then I realized this was my chance to probe him a little bit about his involvement. “While I’ve got you here,” I said as casually as I could manage, “I just need to take care of a few details in my investigation. Formalities, you know. First, how often do you come to the office on weekends?”

He frowned. “Are you talking about when you saw me nearby last Saturday?” It wasn’t much of a reaction. He didn’t seem surprised by my question, and he didn’t go overboard to act like he was shocked that I’d dare ask such a thing. In fact, he acted the way you’d expect an innocent person to when asked a question like that.

“Yeah. Since I did see you here on a weekend, and since that one break-in we know of happened over the weekend, I really want to tie off that potential thread.”

“Of course,” he said with a nod. “I usually don’t come to the office on weekends. I have a lot of other things going on.” His eyes sparkled a little bit, and I got the feeling I knew what else he had going on. “But that weekend, I’d written the phone number of the girl I was going out with that night on something that I left at the office, and I didn’t realize that until I needed to call her to finalize plans, so I had to come to the office to get it.”

It was an entirely plausible excuse, given what I knew of Rod’s social life. I wasn’t sure I could write him off entirely as a suspect, but he certainly wasn’t acting suspicious. “Okay, thanks,” I said, surprised at the surge of jealousy that hit me when I thought about him going on a date. “So, on the weekend of the break-in, you weren’t here?”

“No, I have an iron-clad alibi for that weekend. I was babysitting Owen.”

“Babysitting?”

“He was supposed to be resting, and you know him when he has a puzzle he wants to solve. I picked that weekend to have my cable go out, which meant I spent the weekend watching football at his place so he had no choice but to be a couch potato, too.”

That was a huge relief. I didn’t want Rod to be the bad guy. He had issues, but he was still my friend. Or could he be more? I wondered how much longer Isabel might be. Even if I knew it was an illusion and an attraction spell at work, Rod was awfully tempting, and he was looking at me with definite appreciation. I licked my lips—because they were dry, of course. Not for any other reason. He took a step toward me, his eyes darkening.

But before either of us could make more of a move than that, Isabel came back, booming, “Now I’m ready to hit the town!” She was dressed neck-to-knee in sequins, which made her look like a walking Times Square billboard.

With a great sense of relief, I got out of my chair and moved from Rod’s office into Isabel’s outer office. “You look really, um, striking,” I said.