Nine.
A sense of loss filled her. She had almost been one of the group, just another new agent among many. But no one else here had these fears, this overwhelming sense of panic. While everyone had baggage, hers still weighed her down. Without a hard shell, she wasn’t going to survive the stress of training.
She only hoped she could find a balance between putting up the barrier and having friends.
Ten.
She dropped down, hoping everyone in the room thought the sweat coating her skin was from her exertion and not the simmering panic attack.
But she’d won. This time, she’d battled and won.
She stared at Harden. His expression was unreadable.
He turned his back to her and looked at the assembled group. “Twenty laps. Go.” He didn’t look at Lucy but said, “That means you, too, Kincaid.”
She caught up with Reva, kept to her slower pace, but felt better being in the middle of the pack instead of leading or trailing. Her sister-in-law Kate, who’d worked as the cybercrimes instructor at Quantico for years, had told her to blend in as much as possible. Do well, but keep her head down, don’t stand out. Somehow, no matter how much she wanted to be just like everyone else, she’d never been good at keeping a low profile.
Lucy was on her third lap when the new-agent class supervisor, SSA Paula Kean, stepped into the gym and approached Harden. As Lucy passed Kean and Harden, Harden said, “Kincaid, SSA Kean needs you for the rest of the class. I’ll expect you to make up the laps tonight.”
“Yes, sir.” She grabbed her towel from her gym bag and put it around her sweating neck, then followed Kean out of the gym.
They walked down the hall toward Kean’s office. The senior agent was in her forties, tall and thin, with shoulder-length brown hair. She wore little makeup except for shiny lip gloss. “Do you know Special Agent Suzanne Madeaux?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am. She’s out of New York.”
“She’s on the phone for you about a homicide.”
“In New York?”
“She said she had to speak with you immediately, didn’t give me any details.” Kean sounded irritated, but Lucy couldn’t tell if it was because of the interruption or the lack of information.
When Sean’s seventeen-year-old cousin Kirsten Benton went missing last February, Lucy had helped him track her to New York, where they landed in the middle of a serial killer investigation led by Suzanne Madeaux. Lucy had talked to Suzanne a couple of times since but always related to the Cinderella Strangler investigation, statements, and paperwork.
Lucy sat in the chair across from Kean’s desk. The supervisor sat down and surprised Lucy by putting Suzanne on speaker.
“Agent Madeaux?… Paula Kean here. I pulled New Agent Kincaid out of class; she’s here in my office.”
“Am I on speaker?”
“Yes. I’m Kincaid’s class supervisor; unless there’s a reason this needs to remain confidential, I’ll be in the loop.”
“Understood,” Suzanne said. “Lucy?”
“Hi, Suzanne.”
“I’ll cut to the chase. Have you been contacted by a true crime writer, Rosemary Weber? She’s writing a book about the Cinderella Strangler case.”
Lucy’s chest tightened. She remembered the conversation she’d had with Weber, and it wasn’t one of her finer moments. She’d never told anyone to go to Hell before.
“Yes. It was the Friday before I reported here.”
“What did she call about?”
“The Cinderella Strangler investigation. She told me you were cooperating.”
When Weber said that Suzanne had already talked to her Lucy had been at first stunned, then angry, then deeply sad.
“She said that? No way was I cooperating.”
Lucy thought back to the conversation. “She strongly implied it. I assumed that’s where she got my name.”
“I guarantee, Lucy, I did not give her your name. I met with her as directed by my boss and listened to her proposal, but offered no information.”
Lucy was both relieved and upset with herself for being manipulated by Weber. “I should have called you. But I didn’t tell her anything about the case.”
Kean interrupted. “Agent Madeaux, what was so urgent that you couldn’t speak with Kincaid later?”
“She’s been murdered. Last night, in Queens.”
Weber had been killed? Before Lucy could ask any questions, Suzanne continued.
“NYPD thinks there may be a connection between whatever project Weber was working on and her death. I’m creating a time line, and because Kincaid’s name was in her notes, I needed to know if and when she spoke to her. Lucy, what was she fishing for?”
“She wanted to interview me about my involvement with the case. I said I had no involvement, and that’s when she said she’d been talking to you and NYPD.”
“I wish you’d called me.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t,” Lucy said. “She was very pushy. I cut her off, and eventually had to hang up on her. I blocked her calls after that.”
“Did Sean talk to her?”
“He didn’t tell me if he did.” She didn’t think so-Lucy had told him about the conversation; he would have said something to her.
Kean said, “Kincaid, as Agent Madeaux knows, special agents are not allowed to speak to reporters of any stripe without prior permission from a superior. You should have reported the conversation to me when you arrived.”
Before Lucy could comment Suzanne said, “Weber has published three books, all related to federal investigations, and there are interviews with multiple agents in her files. There’s a few at Quantico now, and I’ll be contacting them if the investigation seems to be pointing at her work as a motivation for the killer.”
Kean reapplied her lip gloss, though she didn’t need it. “I suggest then that you speak to Assistant Director Hans Vigo, our liaison with national headquarters.”
Suzanne said, “The doc got a promotion? Cool.”
Lucy smiled, reminded that Suzanne was both smart and outspoken. After a rocky beginning, Lucy had grown to like the seasoned agent and secretly hoped they could work together in the future. Lucy was relieved that Suzanne hadn’t discussed her, professionally or personally, with the reporter.
Kean cleared her throat and gave Lucy a disapproving look.
“Do you need anything else from me?” Lucy asked Suzanne over the speaker.
“I’ll let you know if I do. Ciao.” She hung up.
Kean said, “Don’t let Agent Madeaux’s investigation cloud your focus, Kincaid.”
“I won’t, ma’am. May I go back to PT?”
Kean nodded. Lucy left, confused by why her supervisor had wanted to listen to-and participate in the conversation. But Lucy dismissed the unease, more concerned about what else Rosemary Weber was researching-and if her files on Lucy went further back than February.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lucy sulked in her room after her shower. Between the humiliation of the pull-ups and the call from Suzanne about Lucy’s name being part of the Rosemary Weber murder investigation, she thought she was entitled to a bout of self-concern. She’d been so preoccupied with the events of the day that she’d performed poorly on the PT drill after she’d returned from Suzanne’s call. It went from bad to worse when Lucy noticed both SSA Kean and field counselor Special Agent Laughlin had observed her failure.
“Agent Kean was watching everyone,” she mumbled to herself. That was the class supervisor’s job, to assess all new agents from day one through graduation. More than ten percent of new agents at Quantico dropped out or were expelled for a variety of reasons. The odds were with Lucy to make it, but because of the difficulty in getting here in the first place she had to be better than everyone else.
But Laughlin was a different problem. Every new-agent class was assigned two field counselors-mentors-not only to observe but also help the new agents with their studies, questions, and any concerns. From the beginning, Lucy had felt uneasy around Laughlin and suspected he disliked her. Which was silly because they’d never met, he’d never specifically said anything to her, and she couldn’t think of a reason he would have an issue with her. That he had been watching her so closely made her doubly nervous.