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"I hope that won't be a problem."
Graham didn't respond right away. He almost never did, preferring to measure his words with a straight-edged ruler. He said exactly what he meant when he spoke to another so that there was no misinterpreting his meaning.
He took his time walking around her office, perusing the new furniture, artwork, and unique antiques that she'd put on display. She'd turned off the overhead lighting hours ago, preferring the muted, golden illumination coming from the desk lamp that she'd brought in from home. The security recessed lighting strategically placed in the ceiling added to the quiet ambiance. She wasn't sure if he was trying to decipher some hidden part of her by studying the décor, or if he was steadying himself to talk about his daughter's murder.
Her irritation eased its grip in response to acknowledging his pain. Losing his daughter and then his wife so close together had been a devastating tragedy. It had been a series of events that would have brought most men to their knees. She understood his need to brace himself for the subject at hand.
As for Brook, she wasn't much for putting her personal life on display, either. She had never been known to wear her heart on her sleeve.
Maybe the two of them had more in common than she'd originally wanted to admit.
Graham was still leisurely making his way around her office, and she fought the urge to become defensive in her choice of design. She'd gone for more of a classic and impersonal approach to decorating her office, and she was content with how it had all come together in the end. She'd chosen black furniture to offset the white walls, with a matching black leather couch that she'd positioned against the far wall underneath a large portrait that was the heart of the room.
She'd seen the painting in an art gallery on 8thStreet NW in D.C.
The upscale yet quaint storefront had been established for local artists to display their work, and she liked to frequent there when she had a spare minute, which was virtually never. Nevertheless, the unique piece had caught her eye when she'd been walking by their shop. She still wasn't sure what had attracted her to the piece in the first place, but it had been the title that had intrigued her the most—Polar Opposites. The landscape of D.C. had been inverted halfway through the canvas, exposing some of the city buildings upside down.
"Interesting artwork."
Brook wasn't in the mood to reflect upon her choice of art.
She'd chosen the first executive office closest to the reception area. She'd fully expected Graham to question her over the choice, but he hadn't said a word to her. She honestly didn't care about others' opinions, or the subjective order of precedence implied by them. She had her reasons for wanting to monitor the comings and goings of their clients, just as she had a purpose for keeping Graham Elliott at a professional distance.
His three-day schedule of stopping by unannounced was hampering her standard way of operating, but she'd never let him know that it bothered her. Besides, he was technically her business partner in this project. These offices were more his than hers, and she would do well to remember that.
"Brook, this new venture is entirely yours," Graham specified, as if he could read her mind.
He finally came to stand next to her in front of the large windowpane. He had no idea that he'd practically mirrored the sentiment that had been in her head, just the other way around. He slipped both hands into the pockets of his black pants as he surveyed the falling snow, but she didn't trust his tranquil stance. He wasn't a man who knew how to relax. His soul was always in conflict.
"I simply fund the firm as a silent partner. I want no say in how you run the day-to-day operations, nor how you conduct your cases or the hiring and vetting of your staff. It and they are solely your choice and your responsibility."
Brook had noticed that the flurries were falling heavier than they had been an hour ago. The meteorologist had called for a couple of inches of snow, but she'd bet it would be closer to four by morning. The snow was large, fluffy, and dry. It would drift easily in the accompanying wind. It would also make for a messy commute, but she only lived a couple blocks down. She'd make the walk, and well before the city streets were filled with impatient drivers or the sidewalks were occupied by rushed and irritated pedestrians.
She waited for Graham to say something else—anything else—to give her an indication of why he'd paid her another visit. As he'd just mentioned, it usually had something to do with the financial setup of their new consulting firm, but there had been nothing of late that couldn't have been communicated through email. She highly doubted that tonight's visit was going to change her view of things, either.
S&E Investigations, Inc.
Not an ingeniously clever name for a business, but she hadn't wanted her surname to be put on display. Hell, it wasn't even the surname that she'd been given to at birth. She'd chosen it from a clipboard at the courthouse the day that she'd gone in to change her name at the age of eighteen. Sloane meant absolutely nothing to her, other than that it gave her a bit of distance from her past, thus some level of security.
S&E Investigations, Inc. had been established to take exceptionally difficult cold cases that had never been solved due to a multitude of reasons. The ones where the files had been boxed up to gather dust on some shelf in an administrative file storage locker. The same ones where families were left behind with no answers as to why their loved ones had been taken from them in such a brutal or mysterious fashion. She understood more than most what it was like to be on that particular end of a criminal investigation, but she didn't like being forced into the private sector in an attempt to give them closure. The only saving grace was that she would no longer be forced to shelve cases for purely political reasons.
Brook had told herself a thousand times over the last two months that she'd get used to the change, but she'd been uneasy about the transition ever since she'd handed her resignation letter into the FBI. Being a consultant instead of an actual employee of the agency had technically made such a move relatively straightforward.
Still, not having the backing of such a powerful organization made her feel somewhat vulnerable.
She didn't wear vulnerable very well.
"Have you explained the situation to them?"
And there it was…the true reason behind his visit.
"You mean have I told the three individuals working for me that my brother is a serial killer?" Brook left Graham standing by the window as she returned to her desk to collect the blazer to her black pantsuit. She'd left it hanging over the back of her chair earlier when she'd been unpacking boxes to settle into her new office. "No, I haven't. It's not really a thing a person brings up in casual get-to-know-you conversation. And before you follow up with the other question that's on your mind, the answer is tomorrow morning at ten o'clock."
Brook slipped her arms into the blazer before fastening the three buttons underneath the lapel. She then began to collect her laptop and the two files that she wanted to comb through regarding odd incidents that could be related to his daughter's murder. Given that she only slept three to four hours a night on a regular basis, she would use the time to make notes for her newly assembled team, providing them with an initial point from which they could kick off the investigation first thing tomorrow morning.
"Did you at least contact the lawyer who I suggested to you the other day?" Graham asked as he turned around to face her. He seemed concerned about her situation, which told her that he was very well aware that she was withholding information from the FBI. "Vivian is exceptional at her job. I keep her on retainer."
Brook picked up her favorite pen off the desk and slid it into the side pocket of her briefcase, which was more of a leather bag than anything else, to buy herself some time. She didn't want to talk to Graham about her brother, and she certainly didn't want to make this a confessional about the fact that she was misleading her former supervisor. Graham might suspect that she was concealing vital evidence from her former colleagues at the Bureau, but she needed to make sure it stayed that way.
