A Neighbor’s Lie

“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 ass.

“She doesn’t exactly seem like a people person, does she?” someone said from behind her.

She turned and saw the man who had walked with her down to the floor—the handsome one who had asked if she had any violent tendencies.

“No, she doesn’t.”

“Imagine having most of your courses with her at the academy,” he said. “It was miserable. Speaking of which…I don’t remember you being in any of my courses or modules.”

“Yeah…I’m sort of new. I was placed in this department this morning.”

A look of mild shock came over his face. “Oh, okay. Well, welcome to ViCAP. I’m Kyle Moulton and if your new partner doesn’t want to have lunch with you, I’d like to take her place.”

“Help yourself,” Chloe said, finally falling in behind with the rest of the group. “It’s fitting of my day to say the least.”

“How so?”

“Because nothing else has really gone as planned, either.”

Moulton only nodded as they left the auditorium. Even though Moulton was a stranger (albeit a handsome one), it was nice to have him by her side as they walked to the catered lunch waiting for them elsewhere in the building. She was afraid that if she had to step into this uncertain future completely alone, it might make her rethink everything.

“Plans are overrated anyway,” Moulton said.

“Not to me. Plans mean structure. Plans mean predictability.”

“I don’t think predictability was in the job description for our positions,” Moulton joked.

Chloe smiled and nodded but had never quite looked at it that way. Quite frankly, it frightened her a bit. Which made no sense, really. Her life had never been anything more than an unpredictable pile of utter crap, so why would her career be any different?

Luckily, she had learned to roll with the punches. And if snotty bitches like Nikki Rhodes happened to obscure her path along the way, then Rhodes could either adapt or get the hell out of her way.

CHAPTER THREE

The following morning, Chloe got a rude awakening to how the remainder of her career would be structured. Her phone rang at 5:45, the call coming from one of the assistant directors who worked under Director Johnson. She had barely managed to croak out a raspy “Hello?” before the man on the other end started to speak.

“This is Assistant Director Garcia. Is this Agent Chloe Fine?”

“It is.” She sat up in bed, her heart hammering as a surge of adrenaline flooded through her, kicking out the remnants of sleep.

“You’re to meet Agent Rhodes in Bethesda at seven a.m. You’ll be working together on what we believe is a pretty open and closed case of gang violence, likely from MS-13. Any questions should come directly to me, at this number. Agent Rhodes will be given the exact same information. Following this call, the address will be texted to your phone. Do you have any questions, Agent Fine?”

Chloe was sure she had some questions, but they were hiding in the wake of her first actual assignment.

“No, sir.”

“Good. Be safe and smart out there, Agent Fine.”

And that was it. That was how she got her first assignment. She knew that they would not come like this in the future; they’d been told this much at orientation yesterday. Still, it was quite an effective way to kick off her first day on the job.

She’d already laid her clothes out and showered the night before, doing everything she could to make sure she would not be late for whatever awaited her on the first day. She dressed, grabbed a bagel with some cream cheese, and poured a thermos of coffee that she had set to brew at 5 a.m. last night. During all of this, the text from Director Garcia came through, giving her the address in Bethesda. When Chloe got to her car, only fifteen minutes had passed since the call had come in.

She’d been to Bethesda, Maryland, several times so she knew it was a quick drive—a little less than half an hour, especially leaving this early and getting in front of the miserable morning commuter traffic. Once she was out of the grind of DC’s streets and onto more open lanes, she plugged the address into her GPS and saw that she was only twenty-two minutes away.

She found herself wanting to call Danielle. She felt herself driving toward one of the more memorable and meaningful moments in her life and felt the need to share it with someone. But she knew Danielle would still be sleeping and that she would also probably not understand the excitement of it. And that was fine with Chloe. They had different interests and passions, and neither one had ever been particularly great at faking their enthusiasm.

She arrived at the address two minutes ahead of the time her GPS had given her. It was a rundown one-story apartment building, the kind that was usually visited by the police at least a dozen times over the weekend for violence, drugs, sexual assault, and just about anything else imaginable.

She’d fully expected to be there ahead of Rhodes but was a bit dejected to see the other agent not only already there, but walking up the porch steps toward the crime scene.

Annoyed, she parked along the side of the street and hurried up the sidewalk. She made it up to the porch just as Rhodes opened the door to head inside.

“Good morning,” Rhodes said, clearly not meaning it.

“Good morning. What did you do…fly here?”

Rhodes only shrugged. “It doesn’t take me very long to get ready in the mornings. It’s okay, Agent Fine. This isn’t a race.”

As they stepped inside, they saw a man standing in the center of a small cluttered living room. He turned toward them and his eyes seemed to hang on Agent Rhodes for a moment. She was wearing very modest black slacks and a conservative white top. Her hair had been straightened and although she’d claimed she took very little time to get ready, it was obvious that there had been some makeup work done that morning.

“You with the bureau?” the man asked.

“Yes,” Chloe said quickly, as if making sure the man knew there were two agents present, not just the tall pretty blonde one.

“Agents Rhodes and Fine,” Rhodes said. “And you are?”