Chapter 2
2
FIONA
There were perks to having extremely good hearing but overhearing my boss giving a handy in his office to one of the IT guys wasn’t one of them. At nine-thirty in the morning. I hoped he locked his door.
I tried to focus on the list I had on my screen, the names I’d been collecting since I returned from medical leave, except Dan Trotter, Division Chief, was calling the guy Daddy and in return, was told he’d been bad and to stroke him harder. I swiveled my seat back and forth, then glanced up at the ceiling, attempting deep breaths like a Lamaze instructor so I didn’t hurl. Reaching for my coffee, I took a gulp, wishing it was something stronger. I tried to refocus, but it was like a train wreck. I couldn’t stop myself from listening in .
By extremely good hearing, I meant like a bat’s, because Trotter’s office was on the other side of the building, and I could hear it all. All.
I’d wanted to be in the FBI since I was a kid. After my mother died, I had single-minded focus, doing more studying than partying. I was seven years in and being a field agent wasn’t all fun and games, like shooting people and hearing the judge’s gavel drop at the end of a trial.
No. There was office politics and other bullshit.
Jonathan Neidermeyer wrapped his knuckles on my open door and stuck his head in my office.
Like him.
“Ready for the meeting?” he asked.
I looked up from my work. “Yeah.”
My partner was thirty-seven with back-of-the-head balding like a medieval monk. Always had a stain on his shirt. Divorced. Dating a woman he met at a car wash grand opening. He was also an asshole, but that wasn’t going to change the way exercise and laying off the fast food would get him to see his dick instead of his gut when looking down. Not that it was big in the first place. His dick, not his gut. It couldn’t be.
“Good,” he muttered. He lifted the coffee mug he held and took a sip. Since it came from the break room’s machine which brewed something resembling roof tar, I wasn’t angry at him for not bringing me some. “Trotter wants an update on the case. Hope you’re prepared.”
His mustache quirked when he gave me a slippery smile .
Me? Prepared. Of course I was prepared. I was always prepared, and this was my case. Tightly run, a growing pile of solid evidence after six months of work. The printed files were in neat order on my desk. Colored tabs indicated evidence, depositions, search warrants, and interview notes.
Neidermeyer was only on the case with me because I’d gone on medical leave a few months ago. For a week. A brain tumor hadn’t kept me from my job longer than that and he definitely hadn’t expected my quick return. I suspected he never imagined me returning at all. But my job was pretty much my life, and it validated that I was, in fact, alive.
“Always,” I replied, patting the stack of neatly organized folders, the ones I came in thirty minutes early this morning to update. He knew I’d have it all ready to go, because it was in my nature to be prepared and organized and in his to have me do everything and then take the credit. Everything about him annoyed me. He was a slacker. He skipped deodorant. He didn’t play by the rules. Hell, he barely worked.
This job was important to me. Putting criminals away was important to me. We were horrible partners because I probably cared too much, and he didn’t seem to care at all. He probably wished I got another brain tumor, and I wished his hair plugs got infected.
“Let’s go.”
“I’ll be right behind you.” As in two minutes behind because the last thing I wanted to do was walk in on Trotter and Daddy IT Guy before they were done. Thankfully, Neidermeyer had distracted me, and I tried real hard not to focus back in to find out.
He grunted, probably because his belt buckle was digging in and obstructing the flow of his intestines, and headed down the hall.
I returned my focus to my computer monitor and my little side, non-work project. The list I’d compiled since I got the letter from the radiation center stating there’d been a maintenance issue with the machine during the time I’d had my treatment. I’d been able to use the FBI databases to help build a list of others who’d had radiation there between May first and May seventh. It paid to have this kind of access. While I couldn’t open medical records because of privacy laws, I’d been able to at least get the names of those who had appointments during that time.
There was one woman I specifically wanted to meet because she was the only other one in that timeframe who’d also had gamma knife radiation, not a radiation treatment for something different, like cancer.
Why? Because if I could now hear like the Bionic Woman, then maybe Hannah Highcliff could, too. I needed to know I wasn’t alone with this new secret talent. It made me feel even more alone than usual. It wasn’t like I could tell any of my coworkers. I’d be put on psych leave, which was even worse than a brain tumor.
Over the past three months, I’d been trying to train myself to filter out the constant barrage of noise. In a full office building, I could hear everyone’s phone calls, keyboards clacking, toilets flushing, coffee brewing, and copy machines running. On other floors in the building. I could also hear conversations. At first it gave me horrible headaches, but I’d gotten better at tuning most sounds out. When my name was mentioned anywhere in a two-floor radius, I focused right on in. Especially when my boss and Neidermeyer were talking about my case. Like right now.
“–Whitaker doesn’t need to know about planting the gun,” Trotter said.
I froze, stared at the framed photo of the Washington Monument out in the hallway and listened in on my boss. He and my partner were talking about me.
“Yeah, she’s too fucking by-the-books.” Neidermeyer. “I bet her closet’s organized by color.”
Didn’t everyone do that?
“I need to close more cases,” Trotter added.
I stood, rolled my shoulders back and brushed down the front of my black suit pants, even though they were crisp and clean.
They were waiting for me. I could eavesdrop and walk.
“The director’s on my ass about it,” Trotter continued.
I huffed. Trotter wasn’t a car salesman with a monthly quota.
“As usual, Whitaker’s case is solid but taking forever to build.” That was the closest thing to a compliment I was probably going to get out of Neidermeyer. “Such a rule-following hardass.” Never mind. “Planting a gun will get an arrest by next week. Think it should go in the glove box or in the guy’s gym bag? ”
A weapons plant could also get all evidence I collected in my case–solid and legal proof–tossed out if it was discovered. And me, too. Because it would be me that would take the fall.
Her head’s not working right would probably be the excuse.
“Good. Get on it. And glove box,” Trotter said.
I smiled at a fellow agent I passed heading down the hall. I had to slow and make small talk since his wife had a baby the week before. Because of it, I missed a little of my boss and partner’s illegal plans.
“Let me know when you know more. In the meantime. Get that gun planted.”
“Yes, sir. Did you catch the end of the Rockies game? Forced RBI.”
They blathered about baseball as I made my way there. They were total dicks. My job was shit now and unless I put in for a transfer, I was stuck under Trotter. And stuck with Neidermeyer. Or they were going to fully toss me under the bus, and I’d lose my badge and my respectability within the field. I’d be blackballed.
I was a good agent with a stellar record. Hell, I was the infamous agent who even brought down her own father. No one else could say that. It was clear from the eavesdropping that my career was probably doomed here. Neidermeyer wanted me gone. Trotter had his own plans and didn’t care who he took out.
I was the agent who’d had the brain tumor. It would be so easy to blame the tumor for me to fuck with a case. To get me fired and my career tanked.
I wouldn’t be able to get a job as a mall security guard.
“Where the hell is Whitaker?” Trotter snapped, clearly done with talking sports.
“Right here,” I said, knocking and pushing his door open, cautious not to touch the doorknob or anything else after his earlier hand job. I had my case files gripped closely to my chest.
Neidermeyer was settled in one of the office chairs with a full man spread. Trotter stood behind his desk, hands on hips. Hands I wondered if he’d washed after–
“Right. What’ve you got on your case?”
I studied the two. They were shadier than a beach umbrella. I was going down. It was only a matter of time.
Taking a deep breath, I offered a quick rundown on the latest.
Trotter nodded like a slow mo bobblehead doll as I recounted the latest wiretaps.
“It’s slow going and your idea about planting a gun would certainly move things along.”
Yeah, I said that.
Neidermeyer sat up as if cattle prodded. Started sputtering.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Trotter asked, eyes wide.
I shrugged. “I’d say a gym bag is the better choice for a plant because it’ll be easier to access.”
The duo stared at me, unblinking. Neidermeyer’s beady gaze narrowed. I didn’t miss the sweat dotting his upper lip. “Where’d you hear that?”
I shrugged. “You two should plan a little quieter.”
“Miss Goody Two Shoes snooping at doors now?” Neidermeyer wondered.
“Oh, so you really are going to plant a gun.”
“I didn’t say that.”
I nodded once. “Yes, you did. Plus, you just implied it as well.”
“How long were you out there?”
“I wasn’t. Ask Rogers. I got delayed talking with him by the break room. He’s got a new baby girl. Name’s Emma. I hope you two signed the card that’s been going around.”
Trotter’s eyes flicked left and right, coming up with a different possibility. “You bugged my office?”
I tapped a finger to my chin. I hadn’t considered that angle, but ha! Oh, this was fun. I liked seeing these two nervous. They should be. “Hmm. You should call up IT and have someone do a sweep. Maybe… Brian?”
Trotter’s face went from the color of oatmeal to that of an eight-year-old girl’s bubble gum pink bedroom. Then his eyes narrowed and went cold. “Neidermeyer, get out,” he snapped, but didn’t take his gaze off me.
For a second, Neidermeyer was surprised he was the one to be kicked out. He stood, then lumbered out while giving me a death glare. Whatever. He was about as important as an overweight mall Santa the week after Christmas.
“Shut the door behind you,” Trotter called. “You got a bug in here?” he repeated once we were alone .
I gave him a wide eyed stare, as if the idea was preposterous, when in fact reality was. “Me? I work for the FBI. Why would I need to bug my boss’s office?”
“You know–”
“How to do my job? That you’ve had it in for me since you got here?” I’d been in this field office longer than him.
“You have a chip on your shoulder.”
That was something I’d heard before. Bitchy was another. I wasn’t even going to go into gender politics, but it sucked.
“I’m not going down for an illegal plant you and Neidermeyer are planning on my case.”
“Not everything has to be done by the book. Sometimes it’s done with a handshake.”
“I think you mean a hand job,” I countered.
A vein throbbed in his temple. “You’re fired.”
I shook my head. I’d grown up with a ruthless father. Learned at a very early age to have thick skin. That being yelled at was survivable. I also learned to stand up for myself. He taught it to me himself. Beat it into me. He hadn’t expected me to stand up to him though. It took years, but I had, and he was spending the rest of his life remembering that. So if I could handle Vincent Genovese, Trotter was a piece of cake. He didn’t scare me at all.
“No, I’m not,” I countered. “You’d have an HR case on your hands, and it’d be me against you and I would win.”
“I’m your superior,” he sputtered. “They won’t listen to a woman like– ”
I held up my hand. “Does your wife know you’ve got a daddy kink?”
His lips snapped shut.
“Here’s what you’re going to do, Dan. Remove me from the case. Put Neidermeyer as lead.”
I took a step toward his desk and dropped my thick file on it.
He was quiet for a moment, perhaps afraid to speak. His gaze shifted from the file to me and back a few times. “You’ve been fighting me hard on him on the case. Why are you giving up now?”
I looked at him like he was a four-year-old.
“I’m not giving up. I’m letting Neidermeyer take the fall instead of me.”
“We’re not–”
“You are.”
He visibly swallowed. “Why would I take him down?”
I ticked the reasons off with my fingers. “Because he’s an idiot. A bad agent. Horrible record. No one would put it past him to do something shitty like a plant. Probably already has.” I let that sink in because it was probably true, and Trotter probably knew about it. “You want someone to take the fall so you can meet your quota? It’s not going to be me and everything I know.”
Now he looked wary when he asked, “That’s it?”
“I’m going on medical leave. Indeterminate time.” I hadn’t considered it before right now, but I needed to get the hell out of here. As far from these two and their mess as possible. I had no friends in this building. While people pitched in to get me a floral arrangement when I was in the hospital, that was as far as the kindness went. This break would give me the free time I needed to meet Hannah Highcliff.
“You want to go on unpaid leave?”
I shook my head. “Hell, no. Full pay.” Like he’d had Daddy Brian earlier, I had my boss by the balls. “You’ll give it to me because I’m sure you’re going to sweep this office for bugs and not find any. You’re going to always wonder how I know about you, Neidermeyer, and the gun plant. About you and Brian in IT. Because if I know that, what else do I know?” I crossed my arms to ensure I didn’t touch anything and arched a brow. “Hmm?”
I didn’t know anything else, but he didn’t need to know that.
He was breathing hard. If a glare could kill, I’d be dead. I’d faced death recently and this was nothing.
“It’s time for a transfer, Trotter,” I added. “Be gone by the time I’m back. I’ll give you, oh, two or three months.”
I had no idea what I was going to do with that much time off, but I didn’t want to be here. I wanted clear separation from me and the case that was going to go south. Neidermeyer was going down and I wasn’t letting his overweight body take me with him.
Trotter stayed quiet. Considered. He was an idiot, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Fine.”
“I have this bargain we just made recorded, too.”
I didn’t, but he didn’t know that .
He fumed. “Bitch. I hope your brain tumor comes back.”
I laughed. “That all you got?”
I went to the door, opened it, making a mental note to use some hand sanitizer.
“Oh, and Trotter?”
His lips pursed into an invisible line, not thrilled with life right about now.
“Wash your hands.”