Carnival of Secrets

Chapter 8

When Lizzie got to work, she logged into her terminal, then made her way to Nathan's office.

"Morning," he said, then frowned when he glanced up at her. "What's wrong?"

"Very little sleep," she confessed. "Rough night. Donny got word that Phil passed away, and he's pretty torn up about it."

"Understandably," Nathan replied. "I recall Donny mentioning Phil when I had Donny in protective custody up in D.C. He spoke very highly of the man."

He narrowed his eyes and looked at her more carefully.

"But that's not all, is it?"

She shuffled on her feet.

"What else is on your mind?"

Ben appearing behind her derailed the line of questioning.

"Morning guys," he said, oblivious. "Still on for nine?"

"Yep," Nathan confirmed. "And I noticed some things in the coroner's reports that we need to cover in depth, as well."

"You got it, boss," Ben sketched a salute and walked away.

Nathan refocused his attention on Lizzie.

"Lizzie," he said gently. "Talk to me. What's going on?"

She took a deep breath and closed his office door.

Nathan's eyebrows raised.

"Must be serious."

"It is."

She sat in the visitor's chair across the desk from him, and began to fill him in.

"There's this kid named Jones I went through the Academy with. Fresh out of college, no experience, had delusions of grandeur and a massive attitude problem. He wasn't taking it seriously. I finally lost my temper with him and that seemed to get through to him."

"Why do I feel a 'but' coming on?"

"But I just.... he's one of those that you just don't know if he'll be dependable in live fire situations. He's a good kid, don’t get me wrong, and he does have some skills, especially when it comes to research and analysis. I just..."

Nathan leaned forward. "Lizzie, be honest with me here. You just, what?"

"I just don't know if I'd want to have to depend on him to keep a team member safe, Nathan. If I had my choice of who to go through a door with, Jones would not be someone I would pick."

Nathan was silent for a moment.

"That speaks volumes, Liz."

"I know. Here's the thing. I could be completely wrong about the kid. He could turn out to be the strongest link in the chain."

"But your gut says otherwise."

She sighed.

"Yes. My gut says that's unlikely. I don’t want to damage his chances of making a career for himself as an agent, which is why I hesitated to say anything at all. But at the same time-"

"At the same time," Nathan chimed in, "if you kept quiet and then he got somebody hurt..."

"Exactly. And he called me yesterday on the way home to tell me he's asking to transfer down here to Dallas. If it goes through, he could be down here as soon as next week. And honestly, my next thought was, why? He's only been in the Chicago office about three months. Doesn't a transfer this soon seem a little strange to you?"

"It's unusual, but not unheard of. I can look into it discreetly and see what I can find out about the situation. I presume he's not coming specifically to my team, or I would already know about this. It could be they just needed additional staff down here. It may even be as simple as a clash of personalities," Nathan pointed out.

"You think?"

"It's a possibility. Not everyone gets along as well as this group here, and in that situation usually the least tenured guy involved would get reassigned. Or, it may be that Chicago branch has identified a serious issue, and they're passing him off to another location because of it. But I have to say I don't believe that to be the case, Lizzie. If someone's that big a liability, they'd be gone outright, not just bounced around. Not really any way to know for sure without doing some digging."

"I just don't want anyone here to form a bias, Nathan. Because like I said, I could be completely wrong about him."

"I wonder what his instructors thought."

"Well," she said on a sigh," I can tell you that at least one of them had the same reservations about him that I do."

"How do you know that?"

"The man flat out asked me my opinion on Jones. He said he really wasn't supposed to talk to one cadet about another, but since I'd spent so many years on the job, he was interested to know my take on it."

Nathan leaned back in his chair.

"That's not technically against the rules that I'm aware of, but it's definitely not typical, either. You know that, right?"

Lizzie nodded.

"So at least one of his instructors picked up the same vibe," Nathan frowned. "But it wasn't strong enough to recommend terming him from the program. Interesting."

"And I kind of feel responsible for that," Lizzie added. "My running interference helped him get through."

"How so?"

"He was struggling badly with some of the combat sims. I took him under my wing, gave him some pointers, and he got through them. So, he is teachable - under simulation conditions. But real-time, with real bad guys and live ammo? I just don't know."

"Let me see what I can find out about the transfer, and we'll go from there. And what you've told me will stay between us. All right?"

"All right."

Nathan checked his watch.

"I've got about forty minutes before Ben and I meet in the conference room, and I need to firm up some things in my preliminary profile before then. Why don't we reconnect about this on Friday afternoon? I should have more intel by then."

"Sounds good."

Lizzie stood and started to leave. She had her hand on the doorknob when Nathan said, "Hey."

"Yes?"

"You did the right thing, telling me about this. I know you feel bad, thinking you've torpedoed the kid. But this is the kind of stuff I need to know about an agent that we might have to send out on a warrant team."

"I know. Doesn't make it suck any less."

"No, it doesn't."

Lizzie straightened her shoulders, opened the door, and walked away.

***

* * * *

He woke refreshed and stretched luxuriously before he climbed down from his bunk. A quick shower was followed up with making himself a light breakfast.

Once his food was plated, he sat at his dinette table, arranging his papers so that he could figure out the desired ratios as he shoveled scrambled eggs into his mouth.

It occurred to him that he needed to add something to make his formula's presence more subtle. A quick check through his stolen book provided the simple and obvious answer, and he got to his feet to rummage through the tiny pantry, then growled in frustration.

Dammit. It figures.

The trial run of his grand experiment would have to hold until he could make a trip to the grocery store.

He checked the time, then grabbed the keys to his truck.

***