by Mary Stone
So why in the hell did she want the man on the other end of the line to assign the request from the FBI to someone else?
“This is Doctor Shadley,” a familiar voice answered after the second ring.
“Hello, Dr. Shadley,” Autumn said once she was satisfied she had pushed the jitters out of her voice. “This is Autumn. Autumn Trent.”
“Good afternoon, Dr. Trent,” the man replied.
To Autumn, Dr. Mike Shadley came across like a cool uncle or a long-time family friend. Even through the phone, she could hear the smile in his words, and she felt at ease.
She was glad she had been able to get ahold of him instead of the other partner, Adam Latham. Dr. Latham smiled just as often as Dr. Shadley, but there was an undertone to the man’s expression that made Autumn’s skin crawl. As much as she wanted to convince herself that she was paranoid as a result of her upbringing, by now, she knew better than to question her intuition.
Pushing past the thoughts of Dr. Latham, she leaned against the passenger side of her car and rattled off all the details she had been given by Winter and Noah. Both Adam and Mike knew about her connection to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and she figured it had been her competitive edge.
“All right,” Dr. Shadley said once she finished her explanation.
“All right?” she echoed, her tone carefully neutral.
“Yeah, all right.” He chuckled. “I’ll send the paperwork over to the bureau. We’ve worked with SSA Parrish and the BAU before. What time is it right now? Little after noon? Everything should be sent over and signed before the end of the day. Congratulations on your first job, Dr. Trent.”
There was no hesitance in his proclamation, no stipulation that she report each and every move of hers back to him and Adam, no suggestion that she be accompanied by a more tenured psychologist. Apparently, Dr. Shadley had the utmost confidence in Autumn’s capabilities.
She was still in a state of dumbfounded shock as she swiped the screen to disconnect the call.
“What. The hell.” Squeezing her eyes closed, she massaged her temples.
On the bright side, she would have a chance to rip off the figurative band-aid on her first day of work.
The “sink or swim” methodology had always been conducive to Autumn’s learning style, and she had never been keen on hand-holding or micro-managing.
If her discussion with Dr. Shadley was any indication, she would fit in her new role at the firm just fine.
22
When Aiden saw Mike Shadley’s name on the electronic form sent over on Autumn’s behalf, his eyes widened.
He knew she had been hired by a private firm, but he hadn’t known which firm.
Shadley and Latham was a nationally renowned organization, and though their staff wasn’t numerous, those they employed commanded a certain level of prestige that was difficult to find elsewhere.
Shadley and Latham wasn’t an entry-level employer for newly minted graduate students.
He had the utmost confidence in Autumn, but the fact that she’d been offered the job straight out of graduate school begged more than one question.
Intelligence and hard work weren’t enough to land such a lofty career. Maybe they should have been enough, but in reality, positions like those at Shadley and Latham were only obtained via personal and professional networks.
In short, if a brand-new Ph.D. graduate wanted a job like the one Autumn had been given, they had to know someone.
Like Aiden, Autumn had come from nothing. She hadn’t been born into the elite academic circles that comprised most of those employed at the elite firm.
Who in the hell did she know? It seemed clear to him now that, no matter the research they’d done into her past during the Schmidt investigation, there was much about Autumn Trent that he still hadn’t learned.
Was her aunt well-connected? Her adopted parents? A college roommate?
A knock at his office door snapped him from the contemplation. He was tempted to send Autumn a text message to ask her about the curious nature of her employment, but he shot the idea down and cleared his throat.
“It’s unlocked.”
The door swung inward with a creak to reveal his unlikely visitor.
There was an unmistakable glint of irritability in Max Osbourne’s gray eyes, but Aiden already knew the reason for the irascibility. And for the first time in recent memory, Aiden wasn’t part of the cause of Max’s sour mood.
In fact, when Aiden had proposed his idea to have a forensic psychologist evaluate Sun Ming, Max had grunted out his approval.
The tenured SAC had taken on the task of informing Sun of the interview they’d scheduled for the following day.
Aiden wasn’t foolhardy enough to try to broach the subject of Ramirez’s suspicion with Sun. Fortunately, she wasn’t under his supervision.
“Parrish,” Max said as he eased the door closed. “I talked to Agent Ming.”
“How’d it go?”
“How do you think it went?” Max’s response was flat.
Aiden drummed his fingers on his desk. “Yeah, fair enough.”
“I didn’t tell her everything. I figure Ramirez can do that herself if she wants to. But I told her that she’s expected here for an evaluation tomorrow morning, and I sent her home for the night. You’re sure this is going to help her, right?”
He nodded. “I’m sure. This’ll prove to Ramirez that there’s no motive. Even if it doesn’t convince her outright, it’ll take the heat off Sun. Ramirez won’t be breathing down her neck anymore.”
At least Aiden hoped so.
“Good. Because we need Agent Ming on this case.”
“Agreed. We need just about any help we can get on this case.” Aiden tapped his finger against the wooden desk as he gave Max a grave look. “It might not be Agent Ming, but whoever’s doing this does have experience in law enforcement. Just because it’s not her doesn’t mean that it isn’t someone just as competent as her. Someone competent enough to leave behind a murder weapon that’s virtually useless as evidence.”
“What’re you thinking so far?” Max asked as he crossed his arms.
Aiden shook his head. “I don’t know. Hopefully, the forensic psychologist tomorrow can be of some help there too. Obviously, whoever the killer is, they’re familiar with crime scene investigation. The weapon we recovered didn’t just have a serial number that was scratched out, it didn’t have a serial number.”
“So, it’s someone who’s familiar with the black market sale of firearms?”
“It’d go hand in hand with them having law enforcement experience. If they’re a cop, they know where to go to buy weapons like that. That was a Barrett rifle, but I don’t think it was made by Barrett.”
Running a hand over his buzzcut, Max blew out a sigh. “Seems like the more we find out, the more damn questions we wind up with. There’s no telling where that weapon came from. Could’ve been made in the Philippines, in Indonesia, in fucking Afghanistan. Shipped over here and sold by one of the cartels or the Russians. Either way, trying to trace it won’t get us anywhere. It’s just going to spiral into a bigger and bigger mess.”
“Then hand the rifle over to the ATF,” Aiden suggested. “They’ve got the databases for arms dealers. They’d probably have someone who knows where it came from, if nothing else. If we can establish a general geographic area where we think the weapon was sold from, or even just the organization that sold it, it might help once we have a suspect.”
Max had started to nod before Aiden finished. “That’s a good idea. I already told Amy I’d be here late tonight, so I’ll head down to forensics and get it started.”
Aiden relaxed a little. “All right.”
The SAC paused just short of the door handle. “Real quick, Parrish.” His gray eyes flicked back over to Aiden. “I appreciate you backing me up on this. I know you and Agent Ming don’t like one another all that much, and it says something that you can set that aside.”
Aiden was seldom at a loss for words, but at the unexpected compliment, all he could manage was a nod and a stiff, “Thank you.”
Before her visitor could knock, Sun turned the deadbolt and pulled open the heavy door. He had sent her a text message to advise that he’d left work for the night, but she still had only half-expected to see him so soon.
Bobby Weyrick’s amber eyes shifted up to meet hers as a slight smile crept to his unshaven face, the scruff just a shade darker than his dark blond hair.
For the past few months, that smile was one of the only bright spots in her life. She returned the expression as well as she could before she stepped aside to wave him into the dim apartment.
“You still not turning on your lights?” he asked, the words laden with his native Tennessee accent.
“I was just lying on the couch, watching the fish,” she answered with a shrug. “Do you want anything to drink?”
“Got any of that beer left?” He propped one hand against the drywall as he stepped out of his shiny black dress shoes.
Sun wrinkled her nose. “That Black Star stuff? What, you think I drank that shit? I figured you’d know better than that by now, Bobby.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” His grin did something funny to her insides.
“Yes,” she confirmed. At his lighthearted tone, her smile came a little easier.
“Then I’ll take one of those off your hands.”
“I almost drank one when I got home tonight.” With a sigh, she made her way to the kitchen. Behind her, Bobby’s footsteps were little more than a whisper of sound.
“Why?”
“I was out of vodka,” she muttered, prying open the stainless-steel refrigerator door.
As she handed him a cold glass bottle, she didn’t miss the flicker of concern in his gold-flecked eyes. It wasn’t the same type of condescending concern to which she’d become accustomed in the last six months.
It was genuine, and she knew it was genuine.
Though Bobby Weyrick was only a month older than Sun, he was a self-proclaimed old soul. When he had first pointed out the quirk, her immediate response had been to ask him if he was the reincarnated avatar of an Ancient Egyptian deity.
She’d never been a fan of the term “old soul,” and whenever a person used it in conversation, her first thought was of the sun god, Ra. Rather than huff and puff, however, Bobby had burst into laughter.
With a hiss and a light clink, he twisted off the top of the brew and dropped the cap on the granite counter. She pulled herself from the recollection to flash him a quick smirk.
“I didn’t drink that gross ass beer because I went and got more vodka,” she admitted as she pulled open a cabinet door to retrieve a clear bottle of mid-grade vodka.
The announcement might have sounded hum-drum to anyone else, but Bobby knew the challenges with which she’d been faced since the shooting at the Riverside Mall.
The corner of his mouth turned up into the start of a smile. “It’s a little ironic, you know. You calling my beer gross while you’re talking about going out to buy that nasty stuff.”
Sun rolled her eyes in feigned exasperation. “That’s why you mix it with something else. What kind of monster do you think I am, anyway?”
“The kind that drinks straight vodka, apparently,” he chuckled, though the sound held a worried edge.
“Turns out it’s easy to get over anxiety when you’re pissed,” she said as she plucked a clean glass from the dish drainer in one of the two stainless-steel sinks.
“I saw your message,” he replied, nodding as he took a swig of the bitter IPA. “You said Max sent you home early. Why?”
Lips pursed, she dropped a handful of ice cubes into the pint glass before she returned her gaze to Bobby’s gold-flecked eyes. She was surprised at her reluctance to mention the reason for her unexpected meeting with the Violent Crimes’ SAC.
What would Bobby think of her if she said that the Associate Deputy Director had labeled her a suspect in the murders of Tyler Haldane and the two others? Would the pieces click together in his mind like they had in ADD Ramirez’s?
No. She ought to know better by now.
Of all the discussions she and Bobby had over the last few months, he’d never once become judgmental. Arguably, he knew her better than anyone else in the Violent Crimes Division, and maybe anyone else in the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation.
If there was anyone who would side with her against the allegations, it would be Bobby Weyrick.
“Sun,” he murmured. “Are you all right? What’s going on?”
As he reached out to clasp her shoulder, she finally snapped her attention away from the glass of ice and vodka. The warmth of his touch elicited a long-forgotten flutter in her stomach, and she wasn’t sure whether she should recoil from the sensation, or revel in it.
Resting one hand against the back of his hand, she nodded. “I’m fine. I was a little pissed, and I guess maybe I still am, but I’m all right.”
“What happened?”
She heaved a sigh as she squeezed his hand. “They think that I might’ve had something to do with the Haldane murder.”
As she twisted open a bottle of cranberry juice, he took in a sharp breath.
“Why?” he asked after a pause.
“Because…you know how Haldane was shot from almost a mile away, right?”
“Right.”
“And the weapon that was used was a Barrett M98 Bravo. Not a weapon that most civilians have just lying around in their gun safes. Not really something you take out to the range.”
“Not unless your range is at a military base,” he put in. “Rangers use M98Bs.”
“Were you a ranger?” she asked, glancing over to him as she topped off her drink.
She knew Bobby had spent more than six years in the army, but aside from some of his specific experiences, they’d never broached the subject of his job in the military. Each time she had tried, he changed the topic, and she respected his decision to keep that part of his life in the past.
Shaking his head, he took another long drink from the brown bottle of beer.
“Something like that,” he answered. “That’s why I didn’t join straight out of high school. You’ve got to be twenty-one to be in Special Forces, unless you’re some kind of hotshot, I guess. But I knew that’s what I wanted to do, so I worked a bunch of bullshit jobs in restaurants until I was old enough.”
“Why’d you leave?”
They had drifted away from the initial topic—from the damn Haldane investigation—but she wasn’t in a hurry to circle back.
He shrugged as his eyes met hers. “Just got tired of the military life, I guess. Moving around all the damn time, taking orders from guys who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. I was stationed in Fayetteville to start, and I liked that well enough. But then they moved me out to Fort Riley in Kansas, and Fort Hood after that. And I don’t know what it is about it, but I can’t handle that Midwest climate.”
She smiled. He’d bitched enough about the temperature in Virginia too.
“My NCO was friends with an FBI recruiter at Quantico, so I started asking him what he knew about working at the bureau. The more he told me, the more I thought it was time to make a career change. Working for the bureau seemed like it’d be rewarding, you know?”
Sun forced the smile to stay in place. She remembered feeling that sense of altruism.
“Being able to help people and make a difference, feel good shit like that. My NCO said he could hook me up with a spot in Richmond, and that was that. I might be on the night shift, but it beats the hell out of living in Texas. Do me a solid and don’t tell Dalton I said that.”
Despite the stressful end to her day, Sun laughed at the request. “Don’t worry. My lips are sealed.”
In the ensuing silence, she sipped at her vodka cranberry. She could almost gauge how badly her day had gone by the strength of the drink she mixed when she returned home from work. Today,
the beverage was potent enough to warm her throat as she drank.
“Is that why they think you’ve got something to do with Haldane?” he finally asked. “Because you’ve got experience making shots like that?”
Wordlessly, she nodded. “I don’t have an alibi for the times when any of the three of them were killed, either.”
“But when Haldane was killed, weren’t you…” He paused to fix her with a knowing look. “You were here, and I was with you.”
“I know,” she managed, though her voice was hardly above a whisper.
How could she forget?
She had never done anything like that before, didn’t even think she could do anything like that. No matter the reassurances Bobby offered her, the guilt still gnawed at the back of her mind.
Bobby and Kara Weyrick’s marriage might have been over in all but a legal sense, but the fact remained that he was married.
It didn’t matter that his wife’s affair had started well over a year ago and that it still hadn’t stopped. It didn’t matter that he’d abandoned his wedding ring a few weeks earlier, or that whenever someone asked about it, he merely advised that the band had been damaged.
The man was married. Period. End of story.
Sun was almost thirty-one, and by now, she should have known better. After all, how many stories—how many damn Lifetime movies—had been made about the married man who led his mistress on for months or years with the promise that he planned to divorce his wife? And in all those stories, how many of the men actually followed through with their promise?
She grated her teeth at the thought and took an even longer pull from the potent cocktail.
For god’s sake, she wasn’t a starry-eyed twenty-something who had her head stuck in a fantasy that would never come true. In a month and a half, she would be thirty-one. She wasn’t a college student or a damn intern—she was a federal agent with an impressive record of arrests and case closures.
“Just tell them, Sun.”
His soft statement jerked her out of the spiral of self-loathing as she flashed him a wide-eyed stare.