My heart gave a thump of excitement before settling down to a slow, deliberate pace. It was just another run, I told myself. Emotion was an expense I couldn't afford. Ignore that my life was involved. My nose twitched, searching for human or Inderlander. Nothing.

"I think it's a back office," Jenks said. "See, there's a desk."

Office? I thought, feeling my furry eyebrows rise. It was a deck. Or was it? Jenks lurched excitedly about, like a rabid bat. I followed at a more sedate pace. After about fifteen feet the mossy planking turned into a mottled carpet enclosed by three walls. Well-maintained potted plants were everywhere. The small desk against the far wall didn't look like much work was done there. There was a long couch and chairs arranged beside a wet bar, making the room a very comfortable place to relax or do a bit of light work. The room was a slice of outdoors, a feeling heightened by opening onto the shaded deck and in turn the garden.

"Hey!" Jenks said in excitement. "Look what I found."

I turned from the orchids I had been jealously eyeing to see Jenks hovering over a bank of electronic equipment. "It was hidden in the wall," Jenks explained. "Watch this." He flew feet first into a button set into the wall. The player and its accompanying discs slid back into hiding. Delighted, Jenks hit it again, and the equipment reappeared. "Wonder what that button does," he said, and distracted by the promise of new toys, he darted across the room.

Trent, I decided, had more music discs than a sorority house: pop, classical, jazz, new age, even some head-banger stuff. No disco, though, and my respect for him went up a notch.

I longingly ran a paw over a copy of Takata's Sea. The disc sank out of sight and into the player, and I jerked back. Alarmed, I jumped up to hit the button with a scrabbling of nails to send everything back into the wall.

"There's nothing here, Rache. Let's go." Jenks looked pointedly at the door and alighted on the handle. But it wasn't until I jumped up to add my weight that it clicked open. I fell to the floor in an awkward thump. Jenks and I listened at the crack for a breathless moment.

Pulse racing, I nosed the door open enough for Jenks to slip out. In a moment he buzzed back. "It's a hallway," he said. "Come on out. I've already fixed the cameras."

He disappeared around the door again, and I followed, needing all my weight to pull the door shut. The click of the lock was loud, and I cowered, praying it went unheard. I could hear running water and the rustling of night creatures being piped in from unseen speakers. Immediately I recognized the hallway as the one I had been in yesterday. The sounds had probably been there before, but so soft they were subliminal to anything but a rodent's hearing. My head bobbed in understanding. Jenks and I had found Trent's back office where he entertained his "special" guests.

"Which way?" Jenks whispered, hovering beside me. Either his wing was fully functional or he didn't want to risk being spotted riding a mink. I confidently started up the corridor. At every juncture I took the path less appealing and more sterile. Jenks played vanguard, setting every camera for a fifteen-minute loop so we were unseen. Fortunately, Trent went by a human clock—at least publicly—and the building was deserted. Or so I thought.

"Crap," Jenks whispered the same instant I froze. Voices were coming from up the hall. My pulse raced. "Go!" Jenks said urgently. "No! To the right. That chair and the potted plant."

I loped forward. The smell of citrus and terra-cotta 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 cluttered, 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 nickered 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.