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My laugh spills out. There is a slight playback in my headset, and my laugh sounds godawful. I choke the laugh down, self-conscious of the unattractive noise. But when I glance at Ryan, the corners of those growly lips are up, amused for once.
“My father is an academic. I can’t remember a time when I questioned if I would pursue a doctorate. I don’t think my father did either.”
“So he’s big shit?” He turns his head, and his ice-blue irises study me. “That’s what Jack said.”
The informal language contrasts with Ryan’s demeanor, and another laugh escapes, but that awful, windy headset playback shuts it down fast.
“Yes. That’s one way of putting it.”
“So big you had to move to a different continent to escape his shadow?”
I let out a confirming sigh, which comes across like a wind funnel in the headset microphone.
“Everyone knows my father. There isn’t a continent I could move to where his reputation wouldn’t precede me.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
“I mean, in academic circles.” I rest my head against the headrest. “Where did you go to school?”
“Naval Academy. Four years. Did not remotely feel the need to continue my education.”
“No master’s?”
“Nope. And I could have. There are guys in the military who go on, get an MBA. Some go to medical or dental school.”
“But not you?”
“No.”
“What made you choose military?”
“I wanted to fight the bad guys.” He stares straight ahead, but his face softens. He looks more human, less soldier. “The towers falling proved bad guys existed in the world.”
“As a kid, I had a morbid fascination with serial killers. Jack the Ripper and the like. I’ve never doubted that there were darker sides of the human condition.” Silence returns, and I reposition myself in the seat. “Well, you seem to do well with your business. And you still go after bad guys. And, as you pointed out, you’re not saddled with massive student loans. But neither am I. I have dual citizenship. The government covers undergraduate coursework. My postgraduate coursework carried fees, but my father is a professor at the University of Edinburgh. I have debt, don’t get me wrong. It’s hard to go ten years as a student and not accumulate debt. But I’m not as bad off as, say, my American counterparts.”
“Do you miss being a student?”
“Aren’t we all students? Students of life?” The philosophical question posed by my academic friends feels trite, so I add, “There’s always something new to learn.”
“True,” he agrees. “But I’d prefer to hire those who spent ten years learning than spend ten years taking tests and writing papers.”
A vibration pulses in my back pocket. I lean forward to retrieve my phone.
Timothy:How’s the case going? Nothing on the news yet.
Right below Timothy’s text, I notice a text from Sabrina.
Sabrina:Are you working with FBI agents? Ask them to meet us out for beers. Please! Please! Pretty please!
I respond to Timothy first.
Me to Timothy: Still going. Client keeping it out of the news. How did class go?
Me to Sabrina: No FBI.
Now that we know she’s a runaway, I’m not sure the FBI will agree to get involved.
Sabrina: But cops? The Arrow men?
