A soft knock came from the cubicle next to me. I peeked my head over the short beige walls.
Lance, my friend and fellow junior agent, held up a cup of baby carrots. “Want one?”
“Thanks.” I grabbed one and sat back down, munching.
We had started at the Houston branch of the FBI at the same time and bonded over the completely uninteresting work we were given. Instead of glass-walled offices, we had small stubby cubicles shoved into the corner. Instead of field assignments and fancy gadgets, we did grunt work and replaced toner in the printer.
“What are you working on?” Lance said from his side.
“Looking at this case file.”
A snort. He knew which one I meant. “Did you find his secret hideout yet?”
“Oh yeah,” I joked airily. “I think I’ve got this case wrapped up tight. He should be in custody within the hour.”
“I’m sure Brody will be over to thank you personally for your service.”
“And offer me a raise,” I added.
Our boss and regional manager, Brody, barely even knew I was alive, except when he needed coffee.
Lance’s response was cut off by a commotion in the hallway. I peeked over the wall to see a wave of suits led by Brody rounding the corner, heading in my direction. Plopping back on my seat, I swiveled to face my desk and pretended to work. I actually had been working, in a sense, but not on the budget reports I’d been assigned. I gathered the photographs into an unruly stack and stuffed them into my desk, turning my attention to the spreadsheet blinking empty on my monitor.
Instead of quickly rushing past, as expected, the thud of footsteps slowed.
Brody peered over the ledge. “Meet us in the conference room, Ms. Holmes.”
Then he was gone, and I was hyperventilating. Me? Now? The suits continued past, toward the tall-ceilinged conference room. I stared at the blank cells in the spreadsheet, heart pounding. They’d never asked me in to one of their powwows before. And everyone looked so stern—almost angry. What would they say to me? I could only imagine the worst: you’re fired. You screwed up. You don’t belong here. Unlikely, but try telling that to my racing heart.
Lance hissed at me through the cubicle wall. “What are you doing, Samantha? Go!”
“Why do they want me there?” I whispered back, stalling.
“I don’t know. Maybe to take notes?”
“Oh.” Relief swept through me. Immediately followed by embarrassment. “Good idea. Probably that.”
Why had I freaked out over a simple conference? They wanted a secretary, for crying out loud. What was wrong with me?
Transitive guilt, the psychology textbook would say.
A tendency to assume guilt for wrongs I hadn’t committed due to childhood trauma. In other words, I felt so freaking bad for what my father had done that it spilled over into my adult life.
I could self-diagnose like a pro after specializing in Criminal Behavior at Quantico. We applied a lot of psychological buzzwords to deviant behavior. But the most interesting part had been the total lack of blame present in those classes.
Maybe that was why criminal behavior studies appealed to me. We analyzed them like rats in a maze, trying to figure out what made them tick. No one blamed a rat for eating the cheese at the end. No one blamed him for wanting to escape.
The FBI knew about my dad, of course, and the part I’d played in his capture. That was fine. Plenty of agents got started because we’d seen the effects of criminal activity firsthand. They had just required that a psychologist sign off on me. That had been a cakewalk, after taking all the required classes on behavioral psychology.
What do you remember? she’d asked, again and again. Psychologists were such voyeurs. They got off on true-life confessions, and then expected us to trust them. Not likely.
Grabbing a steno pad and a pen, I hustled down the hallway where a few of the suits were heading in a different direction. A smaller meeting then. When I slipped through the heavy door, I found only two men inside.
Brody sat at the head of the cherry wood conference table, but without the full audience I was used to from the staff meetings. The other man stood at the window, turned away. I couldn’t see him very well, but the gray peppered through his dark blond hair gave me a clue to his age. He kept himself fit, his body lean and exuding virility. And my last observation as a budding detective: he had power. Power enough not to wait on Brody attentively. No, he continued to gaze out the window, pensive.
“Are you going to sit down, Ms. Holmes?” Brody asked.
I’d been staring at the stranger. And caught by my boss.