by Loki Renard
“Hi,” he said. “I’m Richard.”
“Jamie,” Jamie said, offering her hand. It was shaken quite nicely, not too hard, not too firm. A perfectly balanced shake.
“You’re new, right?”
“Yes,” Jamie smiled. “My first day.”
“Who have you got for a case agent?”
“Jack Harley.”
“Wow,” he said, smiling. “Is he as much of a hardass as they say?”
“Not sure,” Jamie said. “I really just got here. He’s not so bad so far.”
“Give him time,” the young man smiled. “He’ll make your life hell soon enough.”
A bead of nervousness started rolling around in Jamie’s tummy. “Tell me,” she said, taking the friendly agent partially into her confidence. “What can the case agents do with you if they want to? I mean, if you do something wrong?”
“They can do pretty much as they please,” Richard said. “Your case agent owns you, more or less. They’re the ones who decide what work you do, whether you get promoted. It’s a good idea to stay on your case agent’s good side, put it that way.”
“But they can’t… you know… beat you or anything?”
“Beat you?” Fuzzy brows furrowed in confusion. “No, I wouldn’t think so, I mean… beat you? Where did you get that idea from?”
“I don’t know,” Jamie shrugged. Now she was having a conversation with a normal person, it seemed ridiculous to even think about the possibility of Agent Harley laying hands on her. Large, strong, but possibly tender hands… long fingers stroking sensitive skin…
She snapped herself out of it just in time to grasp the latter part of what Richard was saying.
“…It’s not beatings you have to worry about,” Richard said. “It’s the work. It can be grueling, especially when you get all the grunt work.”
“Like getting the coffee.”
“Like getting the coffee,” he agreed. “I better be getting back. Good luck, agent.”
“Thanks,” Jamie smiled.
She retrieved the coffee as per instructions, carried it back to Agent Harley’s office and placed it on his desk without so much as spilling a drop. Mission accomplished.
“Thanks,” he said, taking a sip. “All right. I have some work for you to do. Best to keep you busy, I think.”
Jamie perked up. “Will we be going out?”
“No,” he said. “We’ll set up a desk for you in here. I want you to review some files.”
“Oh. Review files?” Her lips drooped at the sides. “You mean, confirm that they are files?”
“It will be a little more challenging than that.”
It was a little more challenging than that. But only a very little. Jamie was soon installed in his office, partially obscured behind a wall of fist-thick files that were indeed, files. Strange how coming across a bunch of information on a computer was exciting, but being faced with a smaller amount in the real world was intimidating.
Of course, the files she had been given to ‘confirm’ were not nearly as interesting as the classified ones. Knowing full well she was lucky to still have a job, Jamie tried not to slip into some half-mad dissociative state as a result of her boredom. For the most part, she succeeded. The files she was reviewing were not nearly as interesting as the ones she’d found on the intranet. They were mostly detailed financial records from old fraud cases. It was busy work. Not even that. It was brain-rotting work. The punishment for getting into the system appeared to be having her brain cells murdered by boredom.
It wasn’t what Jamie had signed up for. She’d signed up for action and yes, maybe a little danger. Heck, she’d been promised action and a little danger. The only thing she was at risk of behind the desk was paper cuts.
“Uh, Mr Harley, sir?”
“Yes, Black?”
“How long will I be doing this for?”
“The foreseeable future.”
That was not the answer she wanted to hear. Sitting back behind a stack of paper taller than her head, Jamie chewed her bottom lip and thought hard. Maybe she just needed to be tougher. Maybe she needed to show this agent that she was serious. A force to be reckoned with.
“I think you should take me out.” Gathering her courage, she stood up and looked him dead in the eye. She realized she probably looked like a stack of papers with a head, so she moved out and around to gaze the fellow right in his face.
“Why?”
She was almost surprised that he asked the question. “Well,” she said, “for starters, it’s your job.”
Harley sat back in his chair and fixed her with what would have been a death stare if there were such a thing as a death stare. “Have you anything to add to that, besides telling me what my job is?”
“I didn’t join the FBI to stare at a desk,” she said. “And I’m sorry my vagina disappoints you, but I can’t change that.”
He blinked. Then he blinked again. “Did… your…” He closed his eyes, as if hard resetting his brain. When he opened them again, there was a frown. “That’s not appropriate language for the office, Black.”
“Then take me out of the office.”
“Take you… oh, I’ll take you somewhere if you want to talk like that. I’ll take you over my knee.”
“I’m not afraid of that threat,” Jamie said. “I know you’re bluffing.”
“Bluffing? Hardly.” Jack pushed back from his desk and tapped his thigh. “Come over here and we’ll see who is bluffing.”
Jamie felt her face flush hot. The sensible part of her mind told her to apologize, go sit down and watch her mouth from there on out. The more dominant side of her personality told her to go ahead and call him on it.
Striding forward, Jamie walked around Jack’s desk. She stopped with her hands on her hips and glared down at him. “Are we done with this silly charade now?”
SMACK!
Chapter Two
Jamie grasped at her cheek, her mouth opening in an ‘O’ of surprise. He’d smacked her. An open palmed slap that made contact with her right cheek and left a potent sting in its wake.
“You just hit me! You can’t hit me!”
“I told you I was going to spank you,” Jack said mildly. “Why are you surprised?”
“I’m… you…” Jamie shut her mouth and then opened it again. “You can’t do that. That’s… that’s sexual harassment.”
He raised one of those thick brows in her direction, the lines of his face hard and firm. “There’s nothing sexual about spanking someone who needs a spanking – and who presents herself for one. I didn’t chase you around the room, did I? I told you what was going to happen if you came over here, and you came over here.”
She couldn’t answer that. And whilst she gaped and squirmed, a slow smirk was spreading across his face, a look of satisfaction.
“Look, Miss Black, you’ve got enough attitude to take down a building. That’s not going to fly with me. You might have gotten away with speaking to people like that in college, maybe even in the academy, but this is a professional organization. Here you refrain from references to your… lady parts.”
“Genitals,” Jamie corrected him. “The term you’re looking for is genitals.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “You’re pushing me, agent.”
Maybe she was pushing him. But she was also bored. Terribly, awfully bored. It was obvious that he regretted having taken her on, and that he was trying to freeze her out. Well, Jamie didn’t freeze out easy. She’d dreamed of this job for longer than she could remember and she wasn’t going to waste her life sitting at a desk until her brain fell out.
“Am I pushing you enough for you to take me out and train me?”
“Go back to your desk, agent.”
Jamie refrained from pouting, though on the inside she was all but lying down and kicking her heels and flailing her fists. This wasn’t fair. This wasn’t fair at all. Maybe she should lay a complaint. File a sexual discrimination report. That wasn’t the wa
y to get her career started though. No agent wanted the first thing in their file to be a report like that. Especially seeing as it probably wouldn’t be the first thing in her file. The first thing in her file would probably be the security breach.
Retreating to her paper fortress, Jamie put her head in her hands. Now Agent Harley was even more irritated with her. She’d been pretty far from his favorite person at the beginning of the day. Now she was pretty sure if he did take her out he’d probably drop her in a cornfield somewhere and leave.
“You want to go out?” His gruff voice interrupted her thoughts.
“Yes, sir!”
“Good,” he said. “You can pick up lunch. Cadfael’s on fourth. You know it?”
“I’ll find it,” she said, jumping up from the desk. She had her smart phone, which meant she would never be lost ever again as long as she had battery power. He could have sent her to India and she wouldn’t have been lost as long as she could recharge somewhere.
Cadfael’s was not in India. It was a fifteen minute walk away. Getting lunch wasn’t the sort of FBI work she’d dreamed about, but it was typical rookie work and that she could handle. Maybe this was all just Harley’s way of hazing the new girl. Maybe it was all going to be okay. Maybe later on they’d go and bust bad guys, once he could trust her to get his sandwich.
The order was ready when she got there. A meatball calzone. Typical man food. She picked out a salad for herself. Had to watch the calories. Had to watch her waistline. Had to keep in shape. The fitness tests were behind her and hadn’t been a huge problem, but she wanted it to stay that way. Didn’t want to give Harley any more reasons to hold her back. Zipping back to the office in what she hoped was record time, she delivered his lunch to the best of her ability.
“Here you go, sir,” she said, dropping his sandwich on his desk. “Still hot, I hope.”
“Thanks.”
He didn’t even look up as he said the word. Irritation flashed through Jamie’s body. The temper she’d been trying to rein in was rising. She went to her desk, opened the plastic lid on her salad and took a fork to the lettuce and carrots. The smell of his meatball sandwich wafted across the office, making her hungry with an appetite that the anemic salad could not sate.
The sparking of her temper continued throughout meal time. It took Harley a good ten minutes to even unwrap his sandwich. When he did, the rich smell of onions and meat grew even stronger. In spite of the fact she was halfway through her salad, her stomach growled with hunger.
Dammit. She scowled over her fork as he took a bite.
“Is there a problem, Black?”
She hadn’t realized he was paying attention to her. As far as she was aware, he was ignoring her completely.
“No, sir,” she said, lowering her eyes to her plate. Sliced tomatoes looked at her with bland gazes.
A masculine chuckle emanated from across the room. “Are you sulking?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “That wouldn’t be professional.”
“Professionalism doesn’t seem to be of great concern to you,” he said. “Given your penchant for talking back and breaching boundaries.”
“That’s not fair…”
“That’s talking back.”
Jamie chewed the inside of her lip. “I thought we were having a discussion. You did ask me a question.”
“True,” he admitted. “Look, I’m going to level with you. I think you should consider applying for a transfer.”
“Why?”
“The cases I take tend to be physical and dangerous. They’re no place for…”
“I hope you’re not going to reference my gender.”
“I am,” he said, “because it’s relevant. The case I have at the moment, it’s suited to a male.”
“What is the case?”
“A string of murders,” he said. “Nasty murders.”
If Jamie had been a dog, her ears would have perked up. As it was she rose two inches higher in her seat and fixed her gaze on him. “A serial killer?”
Jack took a bite of his sandwich before replying. “Likely.”
She had forgotten all about the argument and all about lunch, even all about being shipped off to another case agent. She was interested in the case. Very interested. “Let me guess,” she said. “He kills women.”
“Not exactly.” Harley picked up a manila folder and pushed it in her direction. “Have a look. But be warned, it’s not pretty.”
Jamie rose from her desk and picked up the file.
“Seriously,” Harley said. “You look at that, you won’t be able to unsee it.”
She glanced at him and opened the file. The sight that met her was most unpleasant. She’d expected death, but it wasn’t just death. It was worse. She shut the folder quickly and put it back on the desk.
“Sit down if you’re going to faint.”
“I’m not going to faint,” she snapped, steadying herself on his desk. She did feel lightheaded, but she would never have admitted it.
Agent Harley’s tone became sympathetic. “This job is nasty, Ms Black. It’s beyond dirty. It will take a part of your soul. Best to find another case agent, work in fraud or forensic accounting. Something that sees you tucked up nice and safe at night, not out in the dark with the sort of people who do the sort of thing you just saw.”
“If I wanted to be an accountant, I would never have applied for this position,” Jamie replied. “I’m very well qualified in a range of disciplines including…”
“Book smart.”
“Excuse me?”
“Book smart,” he grunted again. “Every female agent is book smart.”
“Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s a good way to end up dead.”
“Well, I intend to avoid that if at all possible,” Jamie said, maintaining her pleasant demeanor. It was almost one o’clock and she felt as though she’d spent the whole day arguing about whether or not she would be allowed to do her job – except for half an hour where she’d been pretty certain she definitely was about to lose it.
“Listen,” Agent Harley said. “I know your accomplishments. I reviewed hundreds of applications before I picked you. But the fact of the matter is, this isn’t a suitable position for you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know what I see,” he said. “I see a bright young woman with her whole career ahead of her. I see someone who doesn’t need to become accustomed to the sorts of things you just saw.”
“I don’t want to be reassigned.”
Harley snorted. “You’ve got nerve, I’ll give you that much. Right. If you want to do this job, you’re going to have to get used to the mess. Report to the morgue at City Central and observe Dr. Saunders do the autopsy of your friend in the folder there.”
*****
So he was trying to gross her out. Fine. Jamie was prepared for grossness. Matter of fact, she was looking forward to it. This was work. Actual work. She was very familiar with the hospital. She was even familiar with the pathologist, Dr. Sandy Saunders.
“Jamie,” the woman greeted her. Dr. Saunders was a woman in late middle-age. Her curling gray hair was covered with a surgical cap. She’d pulled down the matching mask far enough to talk, and probably to grab a sneaky cigarette. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“Outside of class, even,” Jamie smiled.
“I knew you’d be back,” Dr. Saunders said, her kind green eyes twinkling. “You had the aptitude.”
“My case agent wants me to observe,” Jamie said. “But I’d be happy to assist, if you want the help.”
“Absolutely.” Dr. Saunders drew back the sheet, revealing a male in his mid-forties. He was rather unzipped, open from stem to stern.
“Here,” Saunders said. “Glove up and hold this pancreas.”
Jamie put her hands out and received the organ, handling it with delicate care. She subsequently placed it into an organ dish. Bit by bit, they took the subject apart until it seemed the
y had all the bits and pieces that made up a person. Laid out like that, it was hard not to look at a man as if he were a machine. It almost seemed as though they could plug it all back in and wake him up, and he’d be fine.
“Any theories on the cause of death?”
“The toxicology screens are a bit odd,” Dr. Saunders said. “He had very elevated enzyme levels in the liver and, of course, he’s missing his right foot. And his skull isn’t precisely intact. And there are bullet wounds in the back and intestines… and…”
“So the cause of death is more or less everything.”
“It’s a matter of working out the order of things,” Dr. Saunders said. “And not missing the subtler signs. Yes, he was subjected to severe trauma, but there’s more at work here. I’ll be biopsying all the organs.”
“You suspect poison?”
“There’s certainly something in his system,” Dr. Saunders replied. “It doesn’t match any of the usual suspects, but I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
Jamie had no doubt about that. Dr. Saunders was known for her tenacity. She’d not let herself be beaten by some odd poison or noxious substance.
They were elbow deep in innards when a knock at the door heralded the arrival of Agent Harley, no doubt expecting to find her a tearful mess under the gurney. At Sandy’s acknowledgment he came on in. Jamie couldn’t take her eyes off him. He oozed virility, or at least, so it seemed to her. She found herself following the lines of his body as he walked towards the table.
Jack Harley had one of those bodies, broad shouldered, narrow hipped, built somewhere between a dancer and a bouncer. He was strong, but he looked agile too. There was a particular way he moved, a certain flexibility in the hip region that gave Jamie a head full of impure thoughts.
“How is the examination going?”
“Fine,” Jamie said. She was glad he was seeing her at work, juggling organs like a bloody butcher. She made a point of staring him dead in the eye as the pathologist handed her a distended kidney. If he thought she was scared of death and body parts, he hadn’t read her resume properly. Pathology happened to be one of Jamie’s primary interests. She was more at home in the morgue than she was in the mall he probably imagined she liked.