Special Agent | ✓

Thirteen

THIRTEEN

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Locke had done some recon on the place before they went there, as all good agents did. He wouldn't leave all the intelligence work up to the rookie, and send himself onto a mission knowing nothing but his own name. It'd be a stupid move, and not one he intended to knowingly make when he'd already been sent into the field with a complete novice.

The hypnotic, thrumming bass music stopped. A spotlight flickered on, focused on a scantily clad woman on the stage. Her lips were blood-red, curved into a sensual smile. Then she opened her mouth, and the room exploded with rich, heavy singing.

A flurry of other dancers joined her, a band right by the stage settling into an upbeat, 50s tune coupled with her hearty vocals. Gavin was entranced for a heartbeat, eyes shifting to the quiet, mousy analyst beside him.

He could not, for the life of him, combine the image of ... this place to Quinn O'Reilly.

"What'd you say your job here was, again?" His eyes shifted back to the stage, lit hazy red spotlights which sent a flurry of light bouncing off of the glittering fabrics on the dancers.

"I didn't say."

Quinn's eyes scoured the room. The room was low-lit, edged by soft golden glows from smaller lights along the walls. Red velvet seats, rounded, were placed in even rows, ascending upward from the bottom of the stage. There was almost a full house, guests laughing and clinking glasses at almost every dark oak table in the entire bar.

The center of the room itself was open, though the nightclub was two floors. On the second floor were the VIP booths, which offered a scandalously exclusive view of the stage and the lower floor's seats. They were spacious, equipped with a booze-shelf of their own, and could be neatly disguised from view with dark red curtains.

They were also ridiculously expensive.

O'Reilly's eyes flickered up, found that every one of the VIP balconies were empty.

Save for one.

A woman leaned out over the balcony, clutching a glass. Her eyes were fastened squarely on Quinn's. A slow smile curled her lip, and the woman tilted her head. The other hand turned, a finger bending as she signalled Quinn her way.

"Liza Jaeger, 9 o'clock. Up." Quinn said.

She knew how to get to the VIP booths. Knew which hallway to find, which curving stair to follow to the second floor. Quinn found her feet stuck to the ground, eyes on the stage. The sight of this place, the sound and smell of it — it dug into the crevasses of her mind, pulling out all the anxieties and worries she'd first carried here as a younger woman.

But you're wiser now. Stronger. Quinn doubted her own thoughts, mouth twisting as she glanced at the roomful of people showering applause at the stage. She didn't feel like Quinn O'Reilly, successful analyst at the Agency, primary partner to one of its top agents.

She felt like Quinn O'Reilly, semi-orphaned and marooned in an unfriendly, unfamiliar city. Old doubts gripped and grabbed at her mind, her logical side losing its grip. She found solace in logic, found it did not yield when things were wrong. Correct, or incorrect.

It'd steadied her in a world where everything else was slippery, where everything could go wrong by an unlucky turn of fate. Yet now she'd returned, that compass of logic guiding her to the place she'd been the most when she was at conflict with her very self.