Stalked

by Allison Brennan

  Lucy didn’t know the purpose of Laughlin’s question but she replied, “Maybe a kinship, since I’m the only new agent here with a master’s in criminal psychology.”

  “That’s right—I forgot you were a psychologist.”

  Lucy doubted that was the case.

  “I figured because he and Chief Vigo were such good friends that Presidio was assessing you.”

  “You said yourself opening day that all staff were constantly assessing new agents; never let our guard down, right?” She tried to speak lightly, but she intently monitored manner. There was something odd in his demeanor, an intensity that seemed unwarranted.

  “Yes, I did. Keeps you all on your toes. But I think you know what I meant.”

  Lucy didn’t, and she called him on it. “Agent Laughlin, I don’t know what you mean. I don’t understand what I did to irritate you. If you clue me in, I’ll fix it.”

  “Maybe you want this too much. I just have to ask myself why.”

  “Why I want to be an FBI agent?”

  “Why you want it so badly.”

  His pale eyes didn’t leave hers, and if this was a test, he was the perfect person to throw her off-kilter. But she stood her ground. Laughlin was essentially a bully, and bullies wanted their victims to cower. Lucy refused to let him make her a victim.

  “Maybe I did before,” she said, looking him straight in the eye, “but not now. If something happens and I’m forced to leave, I have other options.” She wanted this because she’d been working toward becoming an FBI agent for the last seven years. Though the why was different now from when she first made the decision, it was no less important to her. And no way was she discussing her reasons with a man who disliked her.

  “Leave? You’re a shoo-in.”

  He scowled, and Lucy realized he knew something she didn’t, something that he wanted her to know. Every instinct in her body told her to smile and walk away, but she couldn’t.

  She needed the truth.

  “Shoo-in? Hardly. Though there is a ninety percent graduation rate, so I think the odds are in my favor.”

  “The odds are stacked in your favor. But you know that.”

  The truth suddenly shone through, and Lucy was almost relieved. It explained why Kate and Laughlin were arguing the other day. If Laughlin and Kate had a past during the first Adam Scott investigation, he would hate that Kate might have the power to get people privileges in the Bureau.

  “I think you misunderstood. My sister-in-law didn’t pull strings for me. I told her I wanted to be here on my own merits, and she honored my request. I earned this slot. You can ask her.”

  He tilted his head, a half smile on his face, but it wasn’t friendly. She was the canary; he was the cat.

  “You can’t honestly tell me you didn’t know that both hiring panels rejected your application. Assistant Director Vigo himself stepped in and overruled them. Most of the new agents here are relatively anonymous; you already had a history when you arrived. Don’t be surprised if other people know exactly what I do.” He stepped toward her, only inches from her. It was almost impossible not to step back, but she forced herself to hold her ground.

  Laughlin continued. “You got here because the powers that be want you here, not because you earned it.”

  * * *

  All Lucy had wanted was to do this on her own. To prove to her family, but mostly to herself, that she’d earned this spot in the Bureau. That the FBI would want her because not only was she a good investigator but also she had suffered and now was whole.

  She walked to the tree-lined clearing on the far side of Hogan’s Alley, hoping to clear her head and think about what she should do, but she couldn’t focus through an overwhelming feeling of betrayal, of being lied to by the people she trusted most.

  She sat on the fallen log and looked up through the center of the trees to the sky, wishing for answers but not even knowing what questions to ask.

  Was this why Kate hadn’t told her the truth about her confrontation with Laughlin the other day? Did Kate know what Hans had done and didn’t want Laughlin to tell her?

  In the past, secrets had nearly torn apart the Kincaids because her family wanted to protect her from some hard truths. And while Lucy had understood and loved her family for wanting to spare her, she also knew that secrets were dangerous and they could just as easily destroy as protect. Kate had promised to be honest with her, to not keep things hidden under the auspice of protecting her feelings. Lucy was strong enough—she was a survivor.

  Lucy didn’t understand what Laughlin’s endgame was. He didn’t hate Lucy just because Hans got her into the Academy; it had to go deeper than that. Something bad in Laughlin’s background that she personified. She was a lightning rod for a wrong he hadn’t been able to fix. And she had no doubt that between the two of them she and Sean would figure out why Laughlin had put Lucy in his sights.

  But that didn’t change the facts.

  She suspected that the first panel that had denied her application had done so because she’d helped put a former FBI agent in prison for life for spearheading a vigilante group who targeted sex offenders. The actions that led up to the imprisonment of her mentor and former friend had shaken her, so she let herself believe that it was her own psychology and doubts that had screwed up the first panel.

  In the middle of the hiring process, she’d learned to trust herself and trust her instincts. It was still hard sometimes to rely on her intuition and experience because of her youth and her past, but maybe it was because of the same fresh outlook and tragedy that she’d developed a unique skill set. When she’d appealed the decision and was granted a second panel interview, she’d gone in knowing that if the FBI rejected her again she would be okay. For the first time in years she could see a future without her long-held dream of being in the FBI. She believed that change in attitude had given her the edge with the second panel, which had approved her application. Getting past that panel had been the last in a long line of hurdles.

  Maybe she’d been wrong and her involvement in taking down the vigilante group hadn’t been the primary reason for being denied. Did they distrust her sanity? For a long time, Lucy had questioned her pathologies. Whether her lack of remorse for killing her rapist showed a disconnect from humanity. She had told both panels, when asked, that today she would have done the same thing in the same situation.

  And they didn’t even know everything. People close to her had buried the truth—that Adam Scott hadn’t been armed when she shot him at point-blank range. That she’d known her brother was safe when she pulled the trigger six times, each .357 bullet hitting Scott in the chest. She killed Adam Scott because he was an evil murderer who raped and tortured women for his sick pleasure. And while she’d convinced most people that she didn’t remember most of what happened that fateful day seven years ago, she remembered every second. Everything: the smell of fear, the feel of the revolver, the shock on Scott’s face when she shot him.

  The second time she’d killed a man was to save Sean’s life, as well as her own. She didn’t regret that decision, either. Any hesitation and Sean would have been dead. She realized then, though she hadn’t articulated it, that when threatened she went into a different mode, a different mind-set. She became both survivor and predator. She didn’t like it, but at the same time she counted on self-preservation to protect her. It was like the flip of a switch, and she would do anything to save herself and those she loved.

  Whether because they didn’t trust her psychological makeup or because she’d killed two men to save her life, it didn’t truly matter. What mattered was someone stepped in and gave her what she wanted when she hadn’t earned it.

  She kicked the log. Dammit, she had earned it!

  What more did anyone want from her? She’d proven she was physically capable, emotionally stable, and intelligent. She should be here. She deserved to be here. So why did she feel like her heart had been ripped out of her chest? Why did she want to walk away and never
look back?

  Laughlin told you what Hans did because he wanted to hurt you.

  Intellectually, she knew that. She wanted to think logically, to put aside her emotions and move forward. She could dismiss Laughlin’s motives much more easily than she could dismiss Hans Vigo manipulating her life. If anyone had the authority to overturn the decision of a hiring panel, it was Hans. For the last several years he’d worked out of national headquarters with Assistant Director Rick Stockton, arguably the most powerful man in the FBI other than the director. Possibly the most powerful man behind the scenes.

  That meant something. That someone of Hans’s stature and position thought she deserved to be here meant she should be here.

  Then why couldn’t she shake the feeling that it was bordering on nepotism? That no one she worked with would truly trust her and that she’d be constantly trying to prove herself to her colleagues. She grew weary just thinking about constantly being assessed and analyzed and doubted.

  And in the end, she wanted to be here without favors, without special privileges.

  Lucy’s phone rang. “Hi, Sean.”

  “I’m at the desk.”

  “Give me five minutes. I have to do something.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ll tell you when I see you.” She hung up and walked back to the main building, then down to the basement.

  Hans was still in Tony’s office.

  “I thought you’d left,” he said.

  “Sean’s waiting for me.”

  How she managed to keep her voice calm she didn’t know. She didn’t even know why she’d come down here to confront Hans.

  Except she had to know the truth; she wasn’t going to take Laughlin’s word as gospel.

  “Did you overrule my hiring panel?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Am I here illegitimately?”

  Hans didn’t say anything, and Lucy knew it meant that Laughlin hadn’t lied. Her chest tightened with a vise of pain, regret, and betrayal. And anger.

  “How could you?”

  “You’re supposed to be here, Lucy.”

  “You’re the only one who thinks so.”

  “You never understood what you were up against with the panels.”

  “I never wanted you, or anyone, to pull strings.”

  “The odds were stacked against you. All I did was level the field.”

  “You overruled the panel!”

  “No one knows that.”

  She laughed bitterly. “Someone does.”

  He didn’t say anything.

  “I thought you were my friend, Hans.”

  Hans rose from behind the desk. He leaned forward, palms up. “I am your friend.”

  “A true friend would let me succeed or fail on my own merits. I don’t want be an FBI agent if cheating is the only way I can be here. Yes, I earned this. Yes, I deserve to be here, but if no one else thinks so, I don’t want it.”

  She reached into her purse and took out her wallet. She didn’t have a badge or gun to turn in, but she had her new-agent ID.

  Hans grabbed her wrist when she held the ID out to him. “Don’t be rash.”

  “Let go.”

  He didn’t. “When you helped put Fran in prison, you made enemies. You knew that would happen. Getting a fair panel at that time would have been next to impossible.”

  “I don’t want this anymore.”

  “Yes, you do!”

  “Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want.” Lucy’s chest heaved. She would not cry. The tears that were threatening weren’t sadness but anger, a rage she’d never quite felt before. Not like this. She’d felt fear, and panic, and regret, but not this fury of being manipulated and used, made worse because it was someone she had respected. “Who knew? Kate? Dillon?”

  Hans shook his head. “Assistant Director Stockton agreed with me, and we were the only two who knew, other than the panels. Who told you? We may have a security problem.”

  “It’s not my problem.” She jerked her hand free and dropped her ID on the desk.

  “I’m not accepting this. Think about it over the weekend.”

  She shook her head. “I trusted you.”

  Lucy walked out. She didn’t know if she’d return.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Sean knew something was very wrong as soon as Lucy slid into the passenger seat of his Mustang. But she didn’t talk about it. With Lucy, it had to be on her terms. He tried to engage her in conversation, but she was only half-listening.

  “We’re going to New York,” Sean finally said.

  “Sure,” Lucy said.

  “And we won’t be back for a week, but I’m sure that’ll be fine with your superiors.” He glanced at her. She was still looking out the window, oblivious to his joke.

  “Sure,” she said. Then she looked at him. “What are you doing?”

  “You’re lost in a world that doesn’t look very fun.”

  “Hans pulled strings to get me into Quantico.”

  Sean froze. How had she found out? Had Hans told her?

  Lucy continued. “They didn’t deem me fit for the FBI, and when Hans found out he overruled their decision. Both hiring panels rejected my application. I should never have been admitted.”

  Shit. No wonder she was in so much pain. “He told you that?”

  “No. But does it matter?”

  “Yes. It matters. I don’t care what a panel of bureaucrats thinks, you worked your ass off to get to Quantico, more than anyone else.”

  “I gave him my ID. Not as dramatic as handing over my gun and badge, but it was all I had.”

  “You can’t.”

  Sean crossed over three lanes of traffic and pulled over into the breakdown lane. Lucy clutched the dashboard and stared at him as if he’d jumped from an airplane without a parachute. “What are you doing?”

  He slammed the car into park and turned to face her. “You can’t just quit.”

  “I did.”

  “You’re not a quitter.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Don’t tell me how I’m feeling!”

  Sean wanted to go back to Quantico, but forcing Lucy to confront Hans now wasn’t going to help. No one could force Lucy to do something she didn’t want to do. He had to convince her to go back on her own.

  “Hans did not accept your resignation.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m going back.” She sighed and took his hand. “Sean, this is my decision to make. Yes, I earned my spot. I absolutely should be an FBI agent. But people know. They know someone pulled strings to get me this spot, and that bothers me more than anything. Remember a few months back when I told you if I didn’t make it, I’d be okay?”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m going to be okay now, too. I’ll get through this.”

  Sean didn’t doubt it, but that didn’t mean she should quit. “Don’t do anything rash.”

  “I won’t. But you understand, right?” She squeezed his hand, imploring him with her eyes.

  He kissed her. “I understand. Whatever decision you make, I’m behind you.” Sean took a deep breath. “But this conversation is not over.”

  “It’s over for now.”

  Sean reluctantly agreed and pulled the car back in with the traffic. “We’re going to New York to retrace Tony Presidio’s steps.”

  “Why?”

  “Hans asked me to.”

  “Great.” She closed her eyes.

  “I’ll have you back by six p.m. tomorrow. I promise.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  He should tell her that he’d known. Right now—except he couldn’t. She was angry and upset and he didn’t want to compound the situation by telling her that Senator Jonathon Paxton had told him two months ago that Hans had pulled strings. What would it have helped? She already didn’t speak to Paxton anymore, and then Sean would have had to explain why Paxton told him,
and that was opening a big fat can of worms Sean didn’t want to open.

  So he remained silent. If Lucy wanted to be an FBI agent, she should be—there was no one here more qualified or capable.

  Sean changed the subject and told her the plan. “Patrick is joining us at the airport. We’re flying into Newark. Bob Stokes, the cop you flagged for me from Weber’s first book, died of a heart attack last month. Patrick’s going to pull the report and talk to his partner and widow.”

  “You think there’s something suspicious about his death?”

  “He was in his early forties and close to Rosemary Weber. He’d been the responding officer at the scene, and had gone on record as believing the parents were holding back. Patrick’s going to snoop around there, while we go to New York City and retrace Tony’s steps. Hans thinks we may be able to find out why he was so hot to look at his notes. You’re the last person to have seen them; they’re fresh in your head.”

  “But he was intimately familiar with the case.” Lucy paused, then said, “It’s hard to kill someone by heart attack.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Tony died of a heart attack. He had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system, which may have been a contributing factor. Or coincidence.” Lucy took out her cell phone.

  “Who are you calling?” Sean asked.

  “I’m sending Hans an e-mail. I don’t want to talk to him right now, but when I found Tony on Thursday there was a bottle of Scotch on his desk. They should have it tested. Just in case.”

  Sean waited while she sent the e-mail. “Lucy, who told you that Hans pulled strings?”

  “Laughlin.”

  Sean wanted to deck the guy. “You don’t think there’s something suspicious about that?”

  “Yes, I do. It tells me that Kate knew and didn’t want me to find out. It’s what they had to have been arguing about when I walked in. And it would explain why Kate wouldn’t tell me the truth when I confronted her about it.”

  She glanced back down at her phone and said, “Well, I guess I’m not the only one with a suspicious mind. Hans had a forensic team come in from the FBI lab last night. They took the Scotch bottle and glass and collected trace evidence. They’re testing everything at the lab, and running an expanded tox screen on Tony’s blood work.”