CHAPTER ONE
2079 Words
CHAPTER ONE
As Harley entered the headquarters of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia, a wave of applause nearly bowled her over. She managed a queasy grimace as her fellow agents, clustered here and there along the halls surrounding the cubicles at the center of the room, clapped and smiled at her. They all knew that without her hard work, John Kavers would still be out there hunting young girls.
“What’s that, your second serial?” said Joe Tirico, the Unit’s newest member.
“Third,” she answered, searching the room for an escape but finding no way out. She wanted to be hunting the next killer, not celebrating the capture of the last one.
He whistled. “Leave some for the rest of us, will you?”
“No promises.”
Spotting a cake with a frosting sketch of a man behind bars, Harley took the opportunity to escape the group’s attention and cut herself a slice.
As Chic’s “Good Times” began to play, Harley willed herself to relax and enjoy the successful conclusion of a case. Kavers had terrorized the nation for three years, k********g young girls from public restrooms and unattended cars, seemingly unaffected by the increasing police and media scrutiny. Now he was facing a life sentence—in no small part due to Harley’s dogged pursuit, culminating in the discovery of microfibers that linked several of the victims to a minivan Kavers owned. Harley hadn’t exactly had permission to obtain those microfibers, but that was a different matter.
Looking around the room at the other members of the BAU who worked around the clock to catch murderers, rapists, arsonists, and of course serial killers, Harley noticed an unsettling feeling in her gut. She always felt this way at the end of a case, because it was not the kill she loved but the hunt. Wander a crime scene long enough, and just about anyone might discover a crucial piece of evidence by sheer, dumb luck. But to get into a killer’s head, essentially signing a lease to stay there until the case was closed months or even years later? That took something beyond a nine-to-five commitment.
The Bureau called it dedication, but it was really obsessiveness, a total devotion of mind and will to one goal, like that of a samurai to swordcraft. Those recruits unwilling to make the sacrifice didn’t make the cut. How could you expect to catch a killer if you couldn’t match his intensity?
At least that was how Harley excused her almost complete lack of a social life since being transferred from the Chelsea, MA, field office to the BAU four years earlier.
She was just wondering how long she was expected to participate in the celebration when Lloyd Jeffers, the Unit Chief, stepped out of his office.
“Basking in the afterglow?” he said.
Lloyd was middle-aged and balding, with a girdle of skin around his neck thick enough to function as a brace. He was Harley’s opposite in many ways: mild where she was intense, diplomatic where she was reckless, deliberate where she was decisive. If she was a jalapeῇo, he was a scoop of mashed potatoes. Still, he showed up on time and the agents liked working for him, so that was half the battle.
“Honestly, sir, I’d rather be looking through the next case file.”
Lloyd chuckled, spinning his wedding ring with his left thumb—a nervous tic that always signaled bad news. “Sometimes you need to know when to slow down, enjoy the simple things.”
Her husband of six years, Rob, had said the same thing to her numerous times before. It just wasn’t the way she was wired.
She said, “I enjoy knowing John Kavers won’t be putting little girls into shoe boxes in his attic anymore.”
The Bureau Chief seemed to understand he wasn’t going to persuade her. He sighed, troubled. “About that—could you come to the office for a moment?”
There was a sudden rigidity to his face. Despite his mild manners, he could be firm when he needed to be. He wouldn’t have earned his position otherwise.
Harley went along, supposing this was more a formality than anything else: a mistake in the case report she had filed, a little bit of paperwork that needed cleaning up. But when she saw the Pope standing to the left of Lloyd’s desk, his arms crossed, she knew this had to be serious.
“The Pope” was what the agents called Cameron Pope, Lloyd’s superior—and a true Washington bureaucrat if Harley had ever seen one. It was rare for him to make an appearance, and it was never good news.
Pope gave her a cool nod, which she returned with equal stiffness. They had a history, she and Pope. He had never wanted her on the Unit—in fact, she had been transferred against his wishes; apparently even a bigwig like Pope couldn’t tarnish a sterling record. It was an open secret in the Unit that he was harder on the women than the men, though it was anyone’s guess why. Maybe he just liked seeing them c***k.
He’s going to be waiting a long time if he thinks he can c***k me, Harley thought.
Lloyd offered Harley a chair. She shook her head, not interested in the subservient posture of sitting while Pope stood, and Lloyd shrugged and leaned back against his desk.
“You’ve been working here – what – two years? Any vacations in that time?”
Harley didn’t like the way this was going. “Spent a weekend in Vegas last year.”
“When’s the last time you took time off? Regular working hours, I mean?”
She blinked, unable to remember.
“It’s taking a toll on you, Harley,” Lloyd continued. “Nobody can keep up that pace and expect to be fine.”
“It’s worked so far,” she answered. She needed the work—it was what allowed her to make sense of the world. When she wasn’t on a case, she felt listless and adrift.
Lloyd rubbed his temples. “You need a break. A chance to recover, find some hobbies.”
That was when it hit her. She looked from Lloyd to Pope, who regarded her with a cold gaze, and then back to Lloyd again. “You’re putting me on leave?”
“It’s temporary, of course,” Lloyd added, as if this would cushion the blow. As if he hadn’t just pulled the carpet out from beneath her feet.
Harley couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She frowned, trying to understand. “I don’t get it. I just brought Kavers in, and you want to shelve me?”
Lloyd sighed. “Look, we both know your methods can be…”
“Effective?”
“Unconventional. Dangerous, even.”
“It’s a dangerous job. We’re catching killers, not shoplifters.”
“And that makes it even more important we do things by the book. What happens when his case gets thrown out because you got ahead of yourself? What happens when he kills again?”
She had already considered this. “He won’t. I was careful.”
“Careful?” Pope’s voice was a low rumble, like a truck in the distance. “You searched that van long before the judge signed the warrant. If that comes to light, the whole case gets thrown out.”
She stared hard at him, unwilling to back down. “And if I had waited, he would have ditched the van and he’d still be out there.”
“This isn’t the Wild West, Harley,” Lloyd said. “You can’t just make it up as you go.”
She turned toward the Unit Chief, filled with a sudden sense of desperation. “Don’t do this, Lloyd. I need this job—it’s all I have. Without this…” It was like a black hole, and she was spinning uncontrollably down into it. Her hands felt sweaty, her mouth dry.
“It’s final,” Lloyd said in a quieter voice. “The OPR has already opened an investigation. I’m sorry.” The OPR was the Office of Professional Responsibility, the FBI’s version of Internal Affairs.
Harley glanced at Pope. She knew he was the real reason behind this, the master pulling the puppet’s strings. He could have done so from a distance, but instead he had come in person, probably because he wanted to see the expression on Harley’s face.
That, or he was trying to bait her into doing something even more damaging to her career. Such as slapping that smirk off his face. She felt the anger rising up within her (she had always had a quick temper when she felt cornered), but she managed to keep it in check. No sense making things worse.
Realizing there was nothing more she could do, she turned away and moved to the door. Then she paused and looked back. “This isn’t an investigation, Lloyd. It’s a witch hunt.”
“Keep talking,” Pope said. “You might say something you can’t take back.”
Lloyd took a half step forward. There was a pained expression on his face—he was probably about to explain why they needed to set aside their differences “for the good of the Bureau.” Always the peacemaker. For the head of a unit specializing in criminal behavior, however, sometimes he didn’t seem to know much about human nature.
“So when do I come back?” Harley said, trying to hide the defeat from her voice.
Lloyd took a breath to speak, but Pope beat him to the punch. “We’ll let you know. We know where to reach you.”
“Right.”
Swallowing the bitter words that rose up in her throat, Harley opened the door. She was ready to leave without another word, knowing full well that anything she said would only dig her in deeper.
Then Lloyd’s words stopped her.
“You’re forgetting something.”
“What?”
“Damn it, Harley, do I need to spell it out?”
Then it occurred to her what the Unit Chief was waiting for. As long as she was under investigation, she would have no more power than the ordinary citizen.
With a bitter swallow, Harley unclipped her Glock 23 pistol and set it on the desk, followed by her handcuffs and the pair of extra magazines she always carried. Last of all came her badge, that symbol of authority that stood for all she believed in, all she aspired to be.
He seemed genuinely sorry, and it didn’t help one bit. “Gotta take my dignity too, huh?” she said, slapping her Glock 23 pistol, two extra magazines, handcuffs, and badge into his outstretched hands. “There. I’m just a regular citizen now. Happy?”
As if to rub salt in the wound, Pope said, “Do we need to tell you the consequences of impersonating an agent?”
“I think I get the gist,” Harley answered. “I’ll show myself out.”
She walked through the building, moving stoically past the puzzled expressions of her coworkers as the realization of what had just happened settled on her like a crushing weight. An investigation of indeterminate length. And what if the investigation didn’t exonerate her? What kind of stain would it leave on her record if they did, in fact, determine that her behavior had jeopardized the case rather than helped it?
I can’t start over, she thought bleakly. I’ve worked too hard to get here. Besides, this is the only thing I know.
She told herself not to think about it. She had a flight that evening from Washington National to Logan, where Rob would pick her up. He would only be expecting her to be home for a few days (that had been the pattern ever since she was transferred to the Quantico office), so she wondered how he would feel when he learned she was home indefinitely.
He’s been telling me I need to be home more, she mused. It was, in fact, the very thing they’d argued about three days earlier, the last time they’d spoken. It had been radio silence since then.
The question was, would he still be happy to see her?
- Writer
