A Neighbor’s Lie. Блейк Пирс
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also lends itself to your knack for evidence. Plus, if I’m being quite frank, the Evidence Response Team has a quite large group of first-year agents this time around. Rather than you getting lost in the crowd there, I think you might fit well within ViCAP. Is that something that might interest you?”
“If I’m being honest, I don’t know. I’d never really thought about it.”
Johnson nodded but Chloe was pretty sure his mind had already been made up. “If you’re up for it, I’d like for you to just give it a try. If you find after a few days that it’s not a good fit, I will personally see to it that you are seamlessly placed back into your current slot with Evidence Response.”
She honestly wasn’t sure what to say or what to do. What she did know, though, was that it made her feel rather accomplished and proud to feel that her director felt so strongly about placing her in a department solely based on her skills and positive feedback from her peers.
“Yes, I can work with that,” she finally answered.
“Fantastic. There’s already a case I want to place you on. You’d start on it tomorrow morning. Maryland State PD has been running it, but as of this morning, placed a call for assistance. I’ll be placing you alongside another agent that finds herself without a partner. The one she had been assigned folded under the pressure and called to resign yesterday.”
“Can I ask why?”
“With the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, some of the crimes tend to be a little gruesome. It happens to some new recruits…they make it through training, seeing the sample cases and even the real-life scenarios. But in the end, realizing they’ll be living in it…it’s too much for some.”
Chloe said nothing. She tried to fathom having to make such a decision and it was beyond her. She’d been wanting a job like this for as long as she could remember—for as long as she knew the difference between right and wrong.
“Will I need any additional training?”
“I’d recommend more firearms training,” Johnson said. “I’ll make sure that’s all set up for you. Your previous scores from Evidence Response enrollment in terms of firearms look quite good, but you may want a few extra skills in that area once you really get into the thick of ViCAP—should you decide to stay on.”
“I understand.”
“Well, unless you have any questions, I guess you can go ahead and get started with orientation downstairs. You’ve still got three minutes before it starts.”
“No more questions at the moment. And thanks for the opportunity. And the trust.”
“Of course. I’ll handle all of the paperwork and someone will call you about your assignment by the end of the day. And Agent Fine… I have a good feeling about this. I think you’ll be a remarkable asset to ViCAP.”
It was then, as she stood up to leave his office, that she realized that she had never been very good at accepting compliments. Perhaps it was because she had never received very many of them throughout her younger years. Now she simply smiled awkwardly and made her exit. The knot of nervousness that had been in the pit of her stomach was gone now, replaced by a flying sensation that made it feel as if her feet weren’t even touching the ground as she made her way to the elevators.
Orientation was about what she had expected. It consisted of a list of dos and don’ts that came from a collection of seasoned agents. There were examples of cases gone wrong, of cases so bad that past agents had quit over them or even committed suicide. The instructors told miserable tales of murdered children and serial rapists who had not, to this very day, been apprehended.
As these stories were passed along, Chloe could hear little murmurs of uneasy conversation in the crowd. Two seats to her left, she heard a woman whispering to the man beside her.
“Apparently, my partner heard these stories before us. Maybe that’s why he bailed.” She said it in a bitchy way, a mean-girl sort of way that instantly annoyed Chloe.
With my luck, that’s the partner-without-a-partner Johnson wants me paired up with, Chloe thought.
The session eventually ended for lunch. When it did, the instructors on stage broke the crowd up into the specific departments. When Chloe heard Evidence Response Team called, she felt a small pang of sorrow. She watched as about twenty recruits walked down to the stage and collected on the right side. Knowing that she was supposed to be among their numbers less than three hours ago made her feel a little isolated, especially when she saw that some of the agents seemed to have already formed friendships.
When the agents in the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program were called, she got up and headed for the floor. The crowd she walked with was smaller than the Evidence Response Team. Including herself, she counted only nine. And one of them was indeed the woman who had made the comment about her partner quitting.
She was so focused on this woman that she didn’t notice the man stepping up beside her as they made their way to the floor.
“I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I feel like I need to be hiding my face. Being part of a program with the word violent in it…makes me think people are judging me.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever thought of it that way,” Chloe said.
“Well, do you have a tendency towards violence?”
He asked it with a smirk and it was that smirk that somehow helped her to realize that the man was extremely good-looking. Of course, the comment about a tendency toward violence skewed it a bit.
“Not that I know of,” she answered awkwardly as they reached the floor where their group was gathered.
“Okay,” the instructor, an older gentleman dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt, said. “Lunch first, then we’ll meet up in Conference Room Three to go over some details and run through a Q and A. Before all of that, though…” He paused here and looked at a sheet of paper, scrolling through it using his finger. “Is there a Chloe Fine here?”
“That’s me,” Chloe said, nearly breaking into a sweat from having been singled out in this group of people she did not know.
“I need to speak with you for a moment, please.”
Chloe walked toward the instructor and saw that the gentleman was also beckoning another agent forward.
“Agent Fine, I see here that you are a new addition to ViCAP, directly from the recommendation of Director Johnson.”
“That’s correct.”
“Good to have you. Now, I’d like to you meet your partner, Agent Nikki Rhodes.”
He motioned to the other agent that he had beckoned toward him. Sure enough, it was the bitchy woman from earlier. Nikki Rhodes smiled at Chloe in a way that made it clear that she knew she was beautiful. And even Chloe had to admit it. Tall, perfectly tanned skin, sparkling blue eyes, sickeningly straight blonde hair.
“Nice to meet you,” Rhodes said.
“Likewise,” Chloe said.
“Now, you two go enjoy lunch,” the instructor said. “From what I understand, you’ll be working a case early tomorrow. You were both at the top of your class, so I expect to hear some very big things about the two of you.”
Rhodes gave her a smile and Chloe could feel the fakeness of it. She hated to automatically assume someone was not a genuine or authentic person, but her gut had always been spot on with things like this. The instructor had turned to join the rest of the group, leaving the two women alone. Noticing that the eyes of a superior were no longer on them, Rhodes turned and walked away without saying anything at all.
Chloe kept back from the rest of the group for a moment, trying to get her head straight. She’d woken up this morning excited to start her career as a member of the Evidence Response Team. Everything for the foreseeable future had essentially been planned out. And now here she was, placed into a department she was not very familiar with, assigned to a partner with a stick up her