She felt a burning behind her eyes and forced it to stop.
No. No more. She’d let herself grieve yesterday. No doubt she’d have more issues in the future. But now she had a home invasion case to solve and a murder investigation to track. She didn’t delude herself that the police would allow the FBI to run anything.
Smarter heads would prevail. Jane was too close to the case; she knew that. Still, she knew more about the perpetrators than anyone. So she’d make herself valuable and help as needed.
And if the police didn’t show sense and ask her for help, then she’d take steps to do what needed to be done.
Her way.
After getting dressed and seeing no sign of her uncle, she left the house for a much-needed jog. A few hundred meters into it, her uncle joined her.
He didn’t say anything, just ran in companionable silence with her for three miles.
Back at her apartment, he left her with a promise to return later in the day to check on her.
“I don’t need you to check on me.”
“So I’ll see you at six.” Ignoring what he didn’t want to hear, as usual. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and left her with a “lock your door” thrown over his shoulder.
She did, annoyed he thought he had to remind her of something so simple, then cleaned up and dressed, prepared to head into the office.
Saturdays at the FBI slowed down a little, but not by much, not when the agents had working cases to solve. And Jane had been dealt a doozy of a hand with Matthew’s demise.
Not to be insensitive, but his death didn’t relate to the home invasions as more than a distraction. She’d thought about it during her car ride and realized she needed to focus on what she knew. Not on daydreams of beating the crap out of August Kaminski and the Bednareks before shoving them in dark cells for life.
Wrapping herself in the tight mantle of efficiency that had stood her well for most of her life, she focused on two things: reading the file TS Cooper had sent, which meant getting someone techie to help her, and dealing with her boss and praying she wouldn’t have to handle the Scotts as well.
She’d deliberately avoided the main area where she saw them talking to SSA Grimshaw and ASAC Haversham, and the SAC—Special Agent in Charge. The big boss.
Down on the main floor, she sought TS Teri Chapman’s desk. Teri, low and behold, was working today.
Bingo.
“Hey, Teri, can I borrow you for a minute?”
Teri’s expression softened. “Hey. How are you doing? Everyone’s talking about what happened.”
“It’s been rough. No lie. But I need to focus on business as usual so I don’t lose it.”
“I hear you.” Teri became all business. “What do you need from me?”
“A few things, actually. Can I borrow a workspace for a little while? The senator is upstairs with my boss, and I don’t want to get caught up in that. I need to work, not deal with angry and grieving parents.”
“Sure. Use Mark’s space.” She pointed to the cubicle next to them.
“Perfect. Also, I wasn’t able to track down TS Cooper. The file he sent me was corrupted, so I couldn’t get into it.”
“Can I take a look?”
“Sure. Let me pull up my email.” Jane moved to the adjoining cubicle and logged in. Then she looked through her emails and found the one from Cooper. “You want me to send it to you?”
“Please. I just want to see if maybe I can get around some issues. I fool around with tech support sometimes, since we have limited manpower and there’s always someone with a computer issue.”
Jane snorted. “You mean agents who forget to plug something in or turn something on?”
“Well, yes, but I was trying to be delicate about your special agent feelings.”
Jane chuckled, surprised she could feel mirth after yesterday. But then, blurring yesterday made her job easier to do. She still felt like a hollowed-out shell, but she was dealing.
