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Laura took a deep breath.
“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Nate muttered.
“Agents Lavoie and Frost, don’t just stand around out there,” Division Chief Rondelle barked from inside his office. There was no way he could see them – the door was closed. Laura thought incredulously that he must have somehow managed to hear Nate’s low voice from through the thick wood.
Laura gave Nate a helpless shrug –it doesn’t matter if I’m ready or not –and pushed the door open.
“Sir,” she said immediately, heading over to stand in front of his desk. They always seemed to stand in this room. They were there for a briefing or to be shouted at, and nothing else.
“Report,” Rondelle said immediately.
Nate and Laura exchanged another look. “We were able to identify the location the killer had taken his would-be last victim through analysis of his previous crimes,” Laura said. “We got there in time to save her and bring him into custody alive.”
“I know about that part,” Rondelle said, staring both of them dead-on. “I have that report on my desk. What I want to hear about is why you were there in the first place.”
“Sir?” Laura asked. “We noticed the old cold cases were all similar and saw they must have been connected.”
“And how did you know to look at those cases in the first place?” Rondelle asked. When there wasn’t an immediate answer, he continued. “I have another report on my desk here saying that the case files weren’t accessed recently until one Dean Marsters from the tech department opened the first one. And lo and behold, in his call logs I found a call from your personal cell number, Agent Frost. Right before he looked up the case. So, do you want to tell me why Dean Marsters was looking up cases for you if you didn’t even know about them until that point?”
Laura started to open her mouth, trying to think on the spot – but apparently, Rondelle wasn’t yet done.
“I know you didn’t know anything about any of the cases until then because neither of you have ever accessed the files,” he said. “Nor has anyone else in this entire office. In fact, nor has anyone in any police system for at least a year. So, what I’m wondering is, how did you even know to ask Dean to look them up for you?”
“We had an anonymous tip-off,” Nate said. “At first, we weren’t sure it was even legitimate. That’s why we didn’t say anything at first. But when we checked out the location and discovered that it had been the site of a previous murder, we started to take it seriously. We just didn’t have any evidence – it was all gut instinct.”
“And you couldn’t have told me this when I called you? Or after you realized the cases were connected?” Rondelle demanded.
“We thought you would be mad that we were chasing a hunch,” Laura said, risking an ad-lib. “Actually, Agent Lavoie thought we should come back to HQ and leave the case alone. It was me who insisted. I just had that feeling – and my gut is never wrong. I didn’t want to take the risk that the tip-off was right and there was an active killer in the region.”
There was a little sadness in having to claim that someone told them what to look for. After all, it erased the skill it had taken on their part to actually put the pieces together. Still, it was better than being quizzed on the truth.
Rondelle looked both of them over carefully for a long moment. Laura thought he was going to accuse them of lying. She almost opened her mouth to say something, anything, to throw herself on the sword so at least Nate’s job would be safe.
Then Rondelle sighed and shook his head. “Next time, you come to me from the beginning,” he said. “I don’t care what you think or believe will happen. You tell me. If I find out you’ve been investigating on your own again, I’ll suspend you and you can do it on your own dime. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” Nate and Laura both muttered at the same time.
There was a pause. Rondelle shook his head again. “I know you two have some… way of doing things. Some secret. I’m not stupid. I did my time as an agent, remember. But, frankly, so long as you keep getting results, I don’t care. Don’t tell me. Keep doing whatever you do. Just… remember that you answer to me.”
Laura and Nate nodded quietly, both of them keeping their heads bowed so as to show their respect.
“I was an agent myself, remember,” he went on. “I know the temptation to get your information from less than clean sources, just to make sure you get it. If you feel you can't tell me where you get your informants from, then it may be best to reassess who you work with. If I find out you're backroom dealing, you're gone, or worse, you're going to prison. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” Laura said, her voice quiet. Nate murmured the same. Rondelle was way off the mark, but it didn’t matter. So long as they kept him thinking they were dancing along the line, and that was why they didn’t want to say anything, he wouldn’t press them further. It was better this way.
“Alright,” he sighed. “Dismissed.”
It wasn’t the praise they might have hoped for after solving the case – but it would do.
***
Laura settled down at the kitchen counter, feeling like she was just getting off a rollercoaster ride. There was something in the ritual of coming over to Chris’s place after a case was finished. Coming over for coffee and conversation, a debrief into the real world again, a chance to remember she was more than just an agent and that the world contained more than just evil.
Chris set the steaming cup of coffee down in front of her and Laura inhaled the bitter scent, feeling herself coming back to normal.
“So, you didn’t get yourself stabbed, shot, burned, or knocked unconscious on this one?” he asked, like he needed to double-check.
“No,” Laura confirmed with a smile. “I got off totally scot-free.”
