“Agent O’Dell. Come in.” Assistant Director Cunningham waved to Maggie after only a glance. His head remained down, eyes focused on the yellow notepad that he continued to scribble on.
Maggie O’Dell had never been summoned to her boss’s office. Nicknamed “the Hawk,” Cunningham rarely missed a detail. He also rarely smiled. Now that she thought about it, he didn’t raise his voice either. He didn’t need to. His agents knew when they disappointed him. And none of them wanted to do that. It was like losing your father’s trust. Once lost, an uphill battle to win it back.
“Agent O’Dell?” He looked up this time
Only then did she realize she hadn’t yet come into the room yet. Her mind kept trying to think of what she had done wrong to deserve this summons? Usually everyone left her alone in her cramped windowless office. Cunningham tossed files on her overloaded desk on a regular basis. Otherwise there was a conference room meeting once every week. But if he wanted to reprimand her he’d do it in private…in his office.
“You can sit,” he told her.
Now that she had made it to the front of his desk he pointed to the lone chair.
“I’ll be just a minute.” And his head went back down.
She sat. Hard back chair. Hard seat. He didn’t want his guests to be comfortable nor did he want them to stay long.
This close she caught a glimpse at the open file folder on the corner of the desk’s pristine mahogany surface. Her name was up at the top. Her file.
This couldn’t be good.
He was scribbling again on the notepad. Blue ink, not black. Notes filled the margins. Block printing used for emphasis. Crazy the things she noticed. She wanted to shake her head. Not everything needed to be analyzed. Maybe her husband, Greg was right. Her professional life was starting to consume her private life.
This morning she couldn’t order eggs for breakfast without wondering if there was a correlation to the type of people and the way they liked their eggs prepared. Were hardboiled people more disciplined, for instance? It took fifteen to twenty minutes, after all to boil an egg. Did the preference for sunny-side up suggest a more flexible personality? What about scrambled?
“Agent O’Dell?”
“Yes, sir.”
She sat up straight. Stopped short of flinching and giving away the fact that her mind had wandered. But Cunningham still caught it. She could see it in his eyes as he studied her, now giving her his full attention.
“I don’t think I ever asked you where you’re from.”
“From?”
“Where did you grow up?”
It wasn’t at all the question she expected and she waited a beat too long as if waiting for the real question.
“I was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin.” That detail would be in her file, and she stopped her eyes from darting to the corner of his desk and the open file. She didn’t add the fact that she’d only lived there until she was twelve. That was the year her world fell apart. Her mother moved them to Richmond, Virginia, leaving behind all their friends, neighbors and family along with Maggie’s childhood.
“Your father’s deceased.”
Another question – not really a question but he was waiting for an answer. Again, she didn’t see it coming. Why was he doing this?
“That’s correct.”
This wasn’t a subject she wanted to discuss.
“How did he die?”
“He was a firefighter. He died in the line of duty when I was twelve.”
Maggie held his eyes as if daring him to ask more. She loved her father. No, she adored him. And she missed him every single day. How many times did she catch herself wondering what he would think about something? Wondering what he’d say. If he’d be proud of her. She still wore the medallion he had given her. She could feel the chain around her neck, tucked inside her blouse, the small medal pressed against her chest.
Thankfully Cunningham’s eyes released hers as he looked over at the file folder and picked up the top sheet, giving it only a glance.
“Pre-med, masters in behavioral psychology, forensic fellowship here at Quantico, now special agent…All very impressive. And you’ve been very successful in using the skills you’ve acquired.”
For almost two years now Maggie had been helping to solve murders from across the country. But she had been doing it without leaving her cramped, windowless office in the bowels of Quantico. Law enforcement officers sent her whatever they had – Polaroids, evidence bags of trace, written reports and autopsy findings.