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“We took a chance hiring someone as young and inexperienced as you are. Your transcripts were impeccable, and you passed our initiation at the top of the class. Is this your first job out of college?”
“No, sir.”
“No? I don’t recall seeing any other professional experience on your resume.”
“I was a barista the summer after my undergrad.”
His eyebrows pulled together, and I immediately regretted what I had said. “I know that’s not the advanced skills job you’re talking about,” I added.
“No, it isn’t,” Grummond agreed. “I’m sure you were adept at putting creamer in coffee, Barrett. But this is the big leagues.”
“Yes, sir.”
“This assignment means a lot,” he held my gaze. “This is where you prove your stripes. This is where you show the Bureau that we weren’t wrong to hire you.”
“You weren’t wrong,” I told him confidently. “I’m not going to let you down on this investigation, sir. Don’t worry about that.”
Of course, if he knew what I’d done on the first day of my assignment.
I gritted my teeth.It doesn’t matter. It’s not going to happen again. It was a stupid, one-time thing, and nobody’s ever going to know about it, so that’s that.
“I want to have faith in you,” Grummond took in a sharp breath. “I want to believe you can do it. But I can’t help noticing that you didn’t file a report yesterday.”
“I haven’t found anything yet,” I told him, surprised. “I didn’t have anything to report.”
“You’re still expected to file a report at the end of every working day,” Grummond stated plainly. “You need to account for every decision you make, Barrett. You need to explain every choice you make in detail. When I read your reports, I should feel like I was with you in the room.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Is that degree of detail essential if I haven’t found anything yet?”
“Of course, it is,” the creases on his forehead deepened. “It’s critical, Barrett. Because I can’t know for sure how acute your powers of investigation really are, it’s possible—more thanlikely—that you would overlook something only I would realize was a problem. This is your very first assignment. You could easily miss things that a more experienced eye would notice. That’s why you have to report on every single thing you do.Nothingcan be overlooked. That’s of the utmost importance.
I hated that he didn’t trust me. I supposed it did make sense, of course. I knew I could conduct a thorough investigation, but Grummond didn’t know me that well yet. It made sense that he wanted to oversee my investigation and ensure I was doing a good job.
“All right,” I told him. “I’ll make sure I file those daily reports from now on. I’m sorry.”
I did my best to sound contrite, but maybe I laid it on a bit thick even though I understood what he wanted from me and why I wasn’t feeling bad about the fact that I hadn’t submitted any reports so far.
This wasn’t a high-stakes investigation. I’d been around the SEALs all my life. I was sure I wasn’t going to find any serious malfeasance. What was Grummond so worried about?
“You see that you do that,” he snapped. “I don’t want you to go the same way as the last young woman we hired.”
I couldn’t help myself. “What do you mean?”
“She was just about your age, and we gave her a similar investigation to the one you’re on right now, only hers was at the Pentagon. We had every expectation that she would do well—she was an impressive candidate when she was hired.”
“What happened?”
“Well, she failed in her investigation. She gave the Pentagon a clean report, and barely a month later, it came out that someone working there had embezzled some money.”
“An honest mistake?”
“Yes, but not one this department can afford. We had to find something else for her to do. Something where the stakes weren’t as high.”
“You mean… was she fired?”
“No, nobody wanted to fire her for making a mistake, but we also couldn’t put her on any more cases, so she was transferred out. She’s working as a congressional clerk now.”
A congressional clerk? That was an alarming thought. Of course, there was nothing wrong with that job, but it was a far cry from what I hoped to achieve. I swallowed hard. “Are you saying that if I don’t do well investigating the SEALs—”
