“Nice try. Why did you give them the NAT guide?”
Her sheepish smile is the only admission of guilt I really need. “We need something, Mercedes. It’s the beginning of July and we’ve already had twenty agents either transfer out of CAC or leave the Bureau entirely, just this year.”
“So why don’t you write it?”
“How many times did you have to talk me out of quitting the academy?”
“Every time we had to fire a gun. That just means you don’t like guns. You were fine at everything else.”
“But a field agent who can’t stand guns isn’t much use as a field agent, is she? You got me past that. Be as pissed as you want that we didn’t tell you the guide was still getting passed around, that’s fair, but you’re the right choice, because no matter how many times you had to talk one of us down, or talk one of us up, you never lied. You never said one single thing that was untrue. That is what we need for the new hires. They don’t need to be babied, they need to be honestly warned. Who’s going to do that better than you?”
“The only reason I don’t hate you entirely is because this stupid handbook is the only thing between me and suspension.”
“I accept gratitude in the form of Marlene Hanoverian’s iced cinnamon-raisin rolls.”
“Don’t push it.”
My phone buzzes with a text from Sterling. Simpkins is here. Eddison needs to talk to you when you get back from lunch.
“Problem?” Cass asks, passing a car going fifteen below with its hazards on for no apparent reason.
“If you and Holmes want me checking on the other kids, we need to do it while we’re here. Once we get back, Eddison has to tell me we’re hands off.”
“And him telling you that now doesn’t apply?”
“He didn’t tell me that. He had Sterling tell me something around that.”
“Okay, maybe I’m starting to question the wisdom of having you teach the noobs.”
“Too late now.”
“Well then.” She hits the gas, pushing us to ten, fifteen, twenty over the limit. “Let’s make the most out of lunch.”
16
Manassas Child Protective Services is quiet over the lunch hour, most of the staff either out for the meal or eating at their desks so they can keep working on paperwork. The social workers, nurses, and administrators have their own offices, but the center of the largest room is a cluster of half-wall cubicles that stand guard in front of the physical file room. Every digital file has a physical counterpart, just in case, and the clerks are also in charge of putting together duplicate files for law enforcement or the court. There are small, restrained personal touches on the desks, an awareness that for all that this is their working space, it’s also a public space, such as it is.
“Can I help you?” asks the woman at the closest cubby. She’s probably early twenties, with a bright smile and a lanyard covered with the FSU logo. There’s a row of fuzzy pastel pencil toppers stuck to the top of her monitor, a cheerful lineup of cats, foxes, puppies, and rubber ducks, with a teddy bear in the middle, and a small, neatly framed cross-stitch that reads Life sucks and then you die: some days it’s hard to tell the difference in a charming block font with a border of hearts and flowers. She looks familiar in the same way so many of the new agent trainees look familiar: a twenty-something’s wonder at the world beyond college and the struggle with the lingering freshman fifteen. It makes me feel old, and I’m still too young for that, damn it.
Cass steps forward, given that I’m not really supposed to be here. “I’m Agent Cassondra Kearney, with the FBI. What is your name, please?”
“Caroline,” the clerk replies, a dimple deepening in her cheek. “Caroline Tillerman. How can I help you today, Agent?”
“If I give you a list of case numbers, are you able to give me a list of everyone who’s worked on those files?”
Caroline’s smile dims, her head tilting to one side. “I can take down your information and give it to one of the admins,” she says after a moment, “but I’m pretty sure they’ll need a warrant. I mean, I know it’s not as sensitive as the files themselves, but I don’t think I’m allowed to give that out. Sometimes families can get a little angry, you know?”
Oh, I know.
“Which admin would you be passing that to?” Cass asks. “Because we have a warrant in the works, and if I can get their information, I can just send the warrant along once the judge signs it. Get a jump start on both sides of it.”
“Our direct supervisor here in Records is Derrick Lee, and he’s in his office. I can introduce you?”
“That would be excellent, Caroline, thank you.”
Caroline stands and adjusts the heart-shaped locket at her throat with a gesture that looks ingrained, and leads Cass back into the hallway. She throws a curious look at me over her shoulder, but I’m probably going to cause enough trouble just by being here. I don’t really need to give a supervisor reason to remember I was here.
Instead, I stroll down the aisle that splits the sections of cubbies, taking in the personalizations. Either someone in the office cross-stitches or they bought them together, because all six desks have a similar frame to Caroline’s, all of them just a little subversive until the last, tucked away in a corner where visitors are least likely to see it, raises the bar with its flower-bordered Bless this fucking office. It’s both charming and disheartening.
“What are you doing back there?”
I turn to the front, keeping to the middle of the aisle with my hands cupped loosely around my elbows to be nonthreatening and show that I’m not holding anything. The woman is probably mid-to late forties, with a severe expression and an ugly corduroy patchwork blazer. Her lanyard is plain black, no buttons or pins. “Admiring the cross-stitch,” I answer simply. “Which one is yours?”
Her eyes flick to the last desk, the one with the most subversive saying. “No one is allowed behind the walls.”
“My apologies.” I walk past her, back to my spot near the door. “I’m an FBI agent; Agent Kearney is back with the administrator and Caroline.”
She leans against the sturdy divider between Caroline’s desk and the one behind it. “And you’re not back there why?”
“Not my case; Kearney needed to stop in before we got lunch.”
The woman pulls the blazer closer, tucking her hands deeper into the sleeves. The air-conditioning is limping, working not well enough, but she looks genuinely cold in the warm office. She gags suddenly, coughing harshly into one sleeve. Her other hand braces against the divider to keep her upright. I sway closer, but her ferocious glare pins me in place through the rest of her fit. When it’s done, she carefully gulps in deep breaths, the blotchy flush slowly receding. Then the color flares back in full force when she lifts a hand to her hair and realizes she coughed hard enough to set her blonde wig askew.
I look away, watching from the corner of my eye as she straightens it with shaking hands. She has the look of someone losing weight, an underlying pallor and skin sagging slightly in unexpected places. It could explain her feeling cold even in this heat. “Can I get you some water?” I ask neutrally.
“Like water’s going to help,” she wheezes, but she does move back to her desk to pick up a tumbler. The name tag on the divider says she’s Gloria Hess.
My phone buzzes with another text from Sterling. Simpkins is sending a pair of agents to the hospital after lunch. Eddison and I are eating with them, so we can tell them what we observed about the kids.
Okay, come on, Cass. We’ve got to go.
After a few minutes of silence and Miss Gloria glaring at me from across the room, Caroline and Cass return. Cass comes to my side, and I hold the phone out so she can see the message. This one doesn’t take a great deal of familiarity to decode, and she nods quickly.