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"Lyons, you holding up okay?"
Nicky paused. Of course she wasn't. Senator Gregory's daughter was dead, and Nicky had done nothing to stop it. Hell, maybe she even caused it if Frank saw her come up to the cabin. Nicky would never know, because the only two people who truly knew what went on in that cabin were dead.
A thought slithered into Nicky’s mind.Maybe I should just quit. I couldn’t save Masie. Maybe I’m not cut out for this anymore…
"Fine, Chief," she said. “I’m disappointed. But moving on.”
"Good. Get some sleep and come in early tomorrow." He paused. "We need to have an important meeting. It’s about the case.”
Dread filled Nicky's gut.
“What about it?”
There was a long pause on the other end that made Nicky’s palms grow sweaty.
“Just make sure you’re in,” Chief said. “And get some sleep.”
CHAPTER TWO
Anxiety grew in Nicky's chest as she stepped into the elevator at work, squinting against the morning light before the doors closed. In only a few short minutes, she'd find out what the chief meant by "important meeting." She didn't feel overly optimistic, and she hadn’t been able to shake the thought growing in her head like a malignant tumor. The thought that she’d lost her competency as an agent.
Nicky looked at herself in the mirror of the elevator. She looked pale. The light from the door reflected off Nicky's skin. She could see the highlights in her long dark hair and the gaunt look of her brown eyes. Wearing a black, fitted shirt and black slacks, she looked like she'd been stabbed in the heart and died a number of times through the night.
In reality, she just hadn't slept.
There were several reasons why, but the two biggest were Rosie and the senator's daughter.
She was sure that Masie had suffered before she'd been killed. It was a brutal death. Nicky hadn't been able to shake the images of her lifeless body from her mind.
She wondered how much Rosie had suffered. If Nicky were to believe the police and the media, then she'd know that her sister was dead. But the thing was, Nicky didn't believe them. She didn't want to.
When she entered the office, the room was already buzzing with activity. The thuds of the copier, the ringing of the phone, the soft hum of the air conditioning, the sharp click of a stapler, the sound of a pencil sliding across a desk top, the sound of a ballpoint pen rasping the paper, the clinking of silver serving trays on a desk.
Fernando Torres came up to her, his cheeks slightly red, probably from a hangover. "Hey, Nicky, did you hear about the chief's guest?"
"Enlighten me," Nicky said coldly. Ever since their fling ended, Nicky hadn't been thrilled about Fernando's presence in the office. He didn’t exactly handle her ending the fling like a champ.
Fernando raised an eyebrow. "Uh... maybe you should just head into the meeting."
Nicky nodded and pushed open the door to a conference room. Fernando was a persistent snoop, so he'd surely been eavesdropping all morning. Nicky couldn’t believe she’d ever slept with that guy.
Chief Eric Franco was already sitting at the head of the table, a cup of coffee in his hands. He was in his late fifties, but he was fit, with a shock of thick white hair. He was the head of the BAU unit in Jacksonville and he knew more than anyone in the room.
He caught Nicky's eye and nodded to an empty chair next to him. Early morning sun poured through the windows of the room, and outside, the palm trees and apartment buildings of Jacksonville spread as far as the eye could see. It was a hot, arid day.
Nicky sat down and immediately recognized the other faces at the table.
One was that of Ken Walker, another profiler in the office who’d just been transferred there about a week ago. Ken was in his mid-thirties and was considered the most handsome guy in the office, but he was also stern, distant, and cold. Nicky hadn’t exchanged more than a few words with him yet.
Sitting next to him was Kate Pribbenow, one of the FBI's top prosecutors. She was in her forties and had a hell of a career.
Nicky was the youngest one there, only twenty-nine, but she'd worked hard to build up a good reputation at the BAU. Her methods could sometimes bend the rules a little, but she got results.
But there was someone else at the table too.
A beautiful woman in her fifties with ebony skin and matching dark eyes.
This was Senator Amara Gregory.
