Chapter Three #3
“Nope. We would say shit, and I think I’m already too old
for it.” She glanced down at the folder. Mays, Malcolm. “What do we know about
him? Where is Damon placing him?”
It was good to work with a boss she simply called by his
first name. No extra descriptors needed with Damon. When she interned at the
Dallas office, she called her bosses Mom and Dad and Uncle Ian and Uncle Li. It
was hard to establish herself as a competent go getter when everyone above her
had changed her diapers at one point in time.
“I think he’s planning to start him in the bodyguard unit,
but I’m a bit worried about that,” Ariel admitted. “He’s got
ten years military experience on Conn. I think it might be hard for him
to have a superior officer with less experience than he has. It could lead to
tensions.”
Connell McNair was the head of the bodyguard division for
the London team. Ariel’s husband headed up the investigative branch, and they
had a group of what Vivi liked to think of as tech heads working cyber. All in
all, it was a well-run machine, and most of the tension came from someone
stealing a yogurt from the fridge.
It had looked exactly like hers, damn it.
So Ariel’s concerns were a thing she took seriously.
“I’m also worried about his resistance to therapy,” Ariel
added. “He was in an accident. It’s all in his file. It was pretty horrific,
but he didn’t follow the doctor’s guidelines. Oh, he did all the physical
therapy…”
Vivian could guess. “He refused talk therapy after the
accident?”
“Yes. It appears the former captain is a bit stubborn,”
Ariel explained. “That’s not surprising. Robert’s checked into his background.
It’s in the file, too. You should read it. His family is a lot.”
Vivian whistled. “So we have another hard case is what
you’re saying.”
“We do indeed because Damon’s hiring him one way or
another,” Ariel explained. “He’s making a big play, though. He’s going to offer
him the full package, but only if he’s willing to see one of us for sessions
once a week.”
She knew what was coming. “So you want him to see me?”
“I think he might respond better to you,” she replied. “But
I also want to see how you’ll handle him. I think he’ll be resistant to
therapy. You need to get him to open up and really talk about things.”
She closed the file. She would read it thoroughly this
evening and take notes for their sessions. She could handle the former captain.
She’d been around stubborn ex-military men all her life. What was one more?
Besides, Vivian wanted to talk about her own project. “And what about the case
I’m bringing forward?”
She’d spent the last year and a half learning not only from
Ariel—who was the best—but also from her husband, Robert, and Lucy Flanders.
Even while working here and volunteering at the club, she’d still found time to
dig through the old files and find a cold case. Robert had told her there was
no better way to learn than to figure out how the other guys fucked up and
handed her a big stack of cases that hadn’t been closed.
Some were missing people who had never been found. There
were a few where they had evidence, but not enough on things like corporate
espionage, and one kidnapping. Vivian agreed that it had likely been a setup
between the daughter and her boyfriend to extort money from her wealthy father,
but they’d been careful. They couldn’t trace the cash.
But it was a case she found on her own, one that had been
turned down a few months back, that got her attention.
She had to wonder if handing her Malcolm Mays as a patient
was Damon’s way of telling her she wasn’t ready to pursue investigations. She
had been here for eighteen months and had a decision to make. If she stayed and
worked on her doctorate, she could work part time here at MTK. She could set up
her own practice somewhere in the States. Not tempting. She could go back and
work with her mom. She was fairly certain no one would take her seriously as an
investigator there. She worried they might not even take her seriously as a profiler.
Or she could convince Damon she belonged here permanently.
“I don’t know,” Ariel admitted. “It’s a good sign that he’s
even allowing you to present it, but I don’t know that he’ll be all right with
you investigating on your own. He’ll want you to take a bodyguard at the very
least. This is a woman here in London who says she’s being stalked, right? But
there’s zero actual evidence.”
“She’s got emails and texts.” Vivian knew all the reasons
Damon turned the case down, but she thought there was something there.
“That our investigators believe she sent to herself,” Ariel
gently pointed out. “They had the techs go through. I believe she might have a
personality disorder.”
“I have a feeling about this,” she replied and then sighed,
sitting back. Her feelings hadn’t produced a single good case yet, so maybe she
should rethink her intuition. “But I also have a feeling Damon is ready to ship
me back to my dad.”
Ariel’s lips lifted in a grin. “Well, you are an
unconscionable brat of the highest order, but I don’t think Damon wants you to
leave. You work with human resources and take a lot of pressure off the rest of
us. You’re doing wonderful in sessions. He’s just a bit worried about putting
you out in the field.”
“He hasn’t mentioned me staying on after the end of the
summer.”
Ariel stared at her for a moment. “Have you asked?”
She wanted to growl but mostly at herself. “Well, he can be
intimidating. I also worry about my parents. They think I’m coming home.
They’re worried about what happened with Tarquin.”
Oh, how her father loved her since he hadn’t even blinked
when she mentioned she was seeing a young man named Tarquin. She was certain
Uncle Ian gave him hell about it and about the fact that Tarquin Seaford-Jones
was the heir to an earldom.
He was also a bastard who liked to play around with
“unsuitable women” while keeping his highborn girlfriend on a string. He told
Vivian everything she wanted to hear and then joked with his friends about how
ridiculous it was that anyone thought he would consider marrying her.
Sophy had warned her, and she’d gotten burned anyway.
Ariel sighed and leaned on Vivi’s desk. “They’re worried
about you. It was a nasty breakup.”
“Not really. It was a lesson, and one I’ve learned well. I
wasn’t madly in love with Tarquin,” she admitted. “I think I liked having a
boyfriend in Sophy’s world.”
Ariel’s eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about Tarquin at all, is
it? This is about the man you met at Dominion.”
She wouldn’t go that far. “I’m not in love with him either.
Trust me. I heard him. He was gorgeous and everything I want in a top for a
night, but he was also cold and blunt. I appreciate the last part. He told me
he wasn’t good for anyone. He said it right from the start. He wasn’t looking
for anything permanent and then asked if he could see me again when he got back
into town. At the club. He wouldn’t have a relationship outside the club.”
“He sounds like he’s got a lot of unprocessed trauma,” Ariel
said gently.
“He does. The truth is he hates women. Oh, he wouldn’t
physically hurt one, and he was excellent in bed,” Vivian admitted. “But I