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Quantico, Virginia
“Iheard you beat him.”
Kenna pulled on her polo shirt and sat on the edge of the twin bed to put on her boots. She grinned at her roommate. “You bet I did.”
Cecilia Warren, a Nebraska native, tipped her head back and laughed. Her red hair swung from a ponytail. Freckles dotted her pale skin and rosy cheeks. She was barely five two and had flipped a six-foot man onto his back yesterday—before ultimately being defeated.
Kenna hadn’t tapped out. “He might think he’s all that, but it felt good to give him a run for his money. You know…for the sake of making the FBI better.”
Cecilia nodded, a grin stretching her mouth wide. “Right. That’s why.” She laughed.
Kenna hadn’t been entirely joking. If these macho guys thought they were all that, and she showed them they could be wrong on occasion, maybe they’d strive to be better—or make less assumptions about women. “I can try, anyway.”
Kenna finished lacing her boots and stood. She glanced over her shoulder at the drawer where she’d tucked away a photo of her father. Taken the day he’d been sworn in as an agent with the FBI. Years before her birth. He quit right around her sixth birthday to become the private investigator he’d been for years, before he turned his journals into books, which were then turned into movies.
One of the guys had hidden a movie poster under her pillow.
Another sang a famous theme song every time she walked by.
They all thought she was here to follow in his footsteps and try to do the same thing. Like she only wanted the glory her father had when it was all based on the ways he’d embellished their lives?
No thanks.
Kenna was only interested in following his true legacy—the one that brought her here to FBI training. It might sustain her, and it might not. They’d questioned if the drive to make him proud would keep her on the straight and narrow as an agent, or if she would eventually lose her grasp because the focus was on a memory that would fade with the coming years.
You don’t know me, and you never knew him.
No one did.
Cecilia nudged her. “There he is.”
They walked in silence past the recruit from Arizona, Ramon Santiago. No one else spoke to him.
The guy had an edge that didn’t seem to fit with the Bureau—but maybe they wanted all types.
Women who could pass for Sunday school teachers like Cecilia. Guys like Ramon who could slip easily into a Hispanic gang nearly anywhere. One of the recruits had suggested Kenna might easily blend in at a strip club, so she’d added a small dose of laxative to his coffee—just enough to get his stomach rumbling all day during class.
Cecilia continued, “I heard he was under suspicion as a kid when a series of animals went missing in the town where he lived.”
“Which is where?” Kenna glanced over, rolling her eyes. “Because I have no idea where to even start looking. Has he even told anyone where he grew up? Or who he is?”
“Maybe it’s some kind of special recruitment. Like he’s here as a test to see if the rest of us are paying attention to what’s going on around us.”
“So file a report with your concerns.”
“You really think I should?” Cecilia said.
“It’s that or sleep with the instructor so you can ask.” Afteranothercomment from one of the male recruits, it had become a running joke.
“Right. Between the studying and classes, working out, and the chronic lack of sleep…I’ll get right on seducing someone in charge to satisfy my curiosity.”
Kenna chuckled, which turned into a yawn.
“Coffee time.”
“Always.” Kenna nudged Cecilia ahead of her into the dining hall. The line nearly reached the door, so they hung back.
Ramon edged past them and headed for the water station. Instead of getting a cup, the guy cupped his hands under the running stream from the fountain and lifted the water to his mouth a few times. Kenna could hear the slurping across the room, drawing attention from a few people already eating.
