CHAPTER ONE
2510 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Georgetown University, the next day
Remi Laurent, visiting history professor at Georgetown University, had a hard conversation ahead of her. She had to ask her department head to cover for her afternoon classes. She needed to have a meeting with the FBI.
Again.
So far, the university had been very accommodating in giving her time off to work with the FBI. The dean loved the idea and had finagled several free lectures from FBI agents for the Criminal Justice Department. He also liked the “positive outreach and bridging the gap between academia and the federal government.” Translated into English, that meant he hoped for more federal funding next semester.
The head of the History Department was less enthusiastic.
Cyril Mullen was not only her direct supervisor; he was her lover.
And he was not happy with her new sideline.
She knocked on Cyril’s office door, her heart starting to beat faster. Their relationship had just gone through a rocky patch and had not entirely healed. And here she was about to cause trouble again.
“Come in,” Cyril said in that brusque manner he used when he was busy.
When she opened the door and he saw who it was, that manner disappeared immediately.
“Remi,” he said, smiling and half rising. “Come on in.”
At fifty years old, Cyril was twelve years older than Remi but looked only in his early forties. He had an erect, muscular figure toned by hours on the racquetball court. Only his salt-and-pepper hair swept back over a broad forehead, and the worry lines stamped on his face from the troubles of running an academic department, told his real age.
His smile faltered when she did not close the door like she usually did. This was, he could tell, going to be a business meeting, not a few snatched kisses between classes.
“What’s on your mind?” he said in a more official tone as he sat. Only his eyes remained soft, lingering on hers before straying over her body. Despite her apprehension, Remi smiled back. For a middle-aged academic, Cyril was a remarkably virile lover.
Remi paused, glancing around at the shelves of books on nineteenth-century American diplomacy, many by him, before deciding to rip off the bandage with one quick jerk.
“The FBI asked me if I could go to a meeting at their office this afternoon.”
Cyril’s face darkened. “Nice of them to give you plenty of notice.”
“I’m going to the national office here in D.C. I don’t have to go down to Quantico like last time. They were down at the Quantico office because the head of the new division was teaching there. Now that the Antiquities Division has moved from the experimental phase, it has its offices in the main headquarters here in Washington.”
“How wonderful for them,” Cyril grumbled.
“I’ll only miss my two p.m. class. And perhaps my four p.m.”
“As well as several days of other classes while you go running around God-knows-where chasing dangerous criminals.”
“We don’t know that. I might just have to look at some photos of stolen artifacts, like last week. That job took me all of about three hours.”
And was very disappointing. I was hoping to rush off to another adventure. Instead, I was back to my lectures and grading papers by the early afternoon.
“If it was something like that, they would have emailed you,” Cyril said.
Good point. “I’m sorry, Cyril, but the way the assistant director put it, it sounded important.”
“So no three-hour job looking at photos then,” her lover said with a resigned shrug.
Remi paused, trying to control a mounting irritation. She understood Cyril’s point of view. With the puritanical rules of American universities, they had a hard enough job trying to spend time together. Her absences made it worse.
But still, this was her life, not his.
Of course, he wanted it to be their life. Getting married would stop the objections and solve the problem of her work visa ending at the end of the academic year.
All that made for a good reason not to go to FBI Headquarters. The chance for another mission, the excitement of the chase, the opportunity to actually help people in a real way, those were reasons to go.
And those reasons won out.
“Can you get someone to cover me?” Remi asked. “Only for Symbolism in Art. Germaine could do it. She has a wonderful lecture on Greek Orthodox icons all prepared with PowerPoint and everything. She’s given it several times and wouldn’t need any preparation. The Italian Renaissance Politics lecture is a graduate course. I can just send them an email to work on their papers.”
Cyril huffed. Looked out the window. For a moment he said nothing, and when he did speak the words came out quiet, pensive.
“After you came back from hunting that Cryptex Killer you seemed like a different person. You couldn’t stop moving. You talked a mile a minute. I thought it was just the aftereffects of being in so much danger, but while it subsided it never really went away. Then there was that second case that took you to Italy. I took it badly. I was rude and I’m sorry. But when you came back you were even more distant, not just with me but with everyone. At the faculty meetings you spend most of the time staring off into space. And at that cocktail party Steven held last week you barely said a word. It’s like you’re not here anymore. Your mind is a million miles away. A third caper like that and I think I’ll lose you for good.”
Remi glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was in the hall and then reached across the desk to take his hand.
“You’re not going to lose me, Cyril. You know how much I care about you. But I need to do this.”
They held each other’s hands in a tight grip until footsteps in the corridor made them move apart.
* * *
Three hours later, Remi sat in the office of Keiko Ochiai, Assistant Director of the Antiquities Division. The corner office was cool and comfortable. Remi eased into a padded, ergonomic chair in front of the assistant director’s orderly desk and admired the black and white photos of cattle and ranch hands adorning the walls. This was Mrs. Ochiai’s hobby, taking photos of her father’s ranch and neighboring areas in west Texas.
“It’s good to see you again, Professor Laurent,” Assistant Director Ochiai said in her Texas drawl, an aspect of her that Remi had yet to get used to. If she closed her eyes, she’d imagine some white woman with a plug of chewing tobacco and a shotgun, not a middle-aged Asian woman in an expensive business suit.
“It’s good to be here. Where’s Daniel; I mean Agent Walker?”
“He’s assisting with some routine investigations. We don’t have anything pressing at the moment for the division, although the way things have been in our first couple of months, I don’t think that situation will last for long. Because of this, I wanted to discuss your status in the agency.”
“My status?” Remi didn’t think she had a status. She had twice been a civilian consultant on important cases, and once on a minor issue; but when she wasn’t working on something for the FBI, she was a normal citizen.
A French citizen, and one whose work visa would be running out at the end of the next semester. Then it would be back to the Sorbonne, the most prestigious institute of higher learning in France.
And one that, sadly, never got her involved in any murder cases.
“Yes,” the assistant director went on. “I’ve been speaking with my superiors, and we feel that you have been an excellent asset to the agency. It would be a shame to lose you when the academic term ends. Requesting an extension to your work visa when you are only a part-time civilian consultant would be tricky, so the agency feels that its needs would be better served if we offered you full-time employment.”
Remi blinked. She herself had suggested this at the beginning of her and Daniel’s second case, but they had dismissed the idea. She had never held out much hope that they would come around.
What had changed?
“I see,” Remi said, suddenly unsure of herself. She had become resigned to being only a civilian advisor and suddenly being offered what she had asked for put her off balance. “If you don’t mind my saying, this is quite a change from the agency’s previous position.”
Assistant Director Ochiai smiled. “You’ve convinced them. You convinced me after you solved the Cryptex Killer case. But those in the higher echelons never thought we’d be getting a second serial killer case that would involve your talents. Now of course the chances of a third such case occurring are slim to none, but our division will see a lot of work across borders that will require specialist knowledge. You would make a perfect fit.”
“Would I continue to work with Agent Walker?”
“You’ve worked well together. I don’t see any reason to split up a winning combination.”
Remi let out a slow breath and leaned back in her seat. Why did Ochiai’s answer fill her with equal parts excitement and dread? Daniel was a bit of a brute, but he had a caring side too, as well as a moody side he tried very hard to camouflage beneath a rough exterior. The man was almost as much of a puzzle as the cryptex she was still trying to solve. She found herself thinking about him a lot and missing him when she wasn’t on a case. He was so unlike the pleasant academics with whom she spent most of her time.
Ochiai must have caught something in Remi’s expression because she went on, “I know you have responsibilities at Georgetown, and Agent Walker has mentioned that you might get your visa extended through other means,” Ochiai gave her a knowing smile, “but the FBI would very much like to have a more established working relationship with you.”
“If I say no, would I be able to continue as a civilian consultant?”
“Of course. You’re too good an asset to lose.”
That made Remi’s chest puff up with pride. For such an accomplished law enforcement official to say that was a rare compliment indeed.
But then doubt washed over her. What had Cyril said about feeling like he was losing her?
“Then I’ll have to respectfully decline,” Remi said.
The words came out quickly, and once they were out Remi regretted them while at the same time feeling relieved that she had said them. Moving from academia to the FBI would be a one-way path. If she stayed in the agency for more than a few years, and they’d certainly expect that, her academic life would be over. She knew what it was like on investigations. She wouldn’t have time for much research. Those who didn’t publish on a regular basis soon faded from the scholarly community.
All her work learning Latin and climbing the academic ladder would vanish and be forgotten.
And then there was Cyril’s reaction to think of. She hated to feel like his emotions had any control over her, but she loved him; and if changing careers, something she wasn’t even sure she wanted to do, hurt her relationship, then it wasn’t worth it.
Assistant Director Ochiai was studying her. Remi realized she hadn’t followed up her answer with an explanation, lost as she was in her own conflicting emotions.
“I think it’s best if I stayed in academia and worked as a civilian consultant. I’ll be … staying on after this term, so I’ll still be available.”
Ochiai smiled, a knowing, warmer one this time. “Then I guess congratulations are in order.”
Remi managed to smile back. “Thank you.”
She could feel the tension rising in her. Telling someone she would be getting married, even someone who didn’t know Cyril, made her feel trapped.
But why? Cyril could be moody, even petulant, but he was also a loving man, a brilliant scholar, and one who volunteered much of his spare time to charity. There was so much to love about him.
So why this tension? Why this reluctance?
These thoughts swirled through her head and she and Ochiai shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. They chased her down the hall and pressed down on her in the elevator. In the underground parking lot. they flitted around her head like ghosts, her echoing footsteps sounding like their mocking laughter.
“Hey.”
Remi let out a little squeal as she stopped short to keep from bumping into the man in front of her.
Agent Daniel Walker.
The FBI agent wore his usual black suit and tie, rather poorly tailored for his tall, broad-shouldered frame. His soft middle didn’t help the effect. Remi felt like introducing him to Cyril’s tailor, not that he’d go. He didn’t care about fashion any more than he cared about nutrition.
Daniel wore his brown hair cut short. His brown eyes, often hard, were at the moment soft with amusement.
“Are you psychic or something?” the FBI agent asked.
“Oh, hello. Psychic?” Remi said, still flustered.
“I was about to call you and here you are.”
“Oh. I, um, had a meeting with Assistant Director Ochiai.”
Daniel looked confused. “Oh. Didn’t know that.”
“What were you going to call me about?”
Daniel smiled one of those lopsided, cocky smiles of his. “I want to whisk you away to a fun-filled vacation in Italy.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“An American expat has been murdered in strange circumstances. Very strange circumstances. I thought we could go check it out. It’s right up your alley.”
Remi wasn’t sure what alley he was referring to. She still hadn’t learned the American idioms. There were almost as many as there were in French.
“Would the assistant director approve my going?”
“She will if I ask. I don’t think she’s familiar with the case. It just came down the wire.”
“When would we have to go?”
“Now.”
Remi’s breath caught.
Daniel c****d his head. “Is that a yes?”
“Yes.” The word came out as quick and as unplanned as her refusal to Ochiai, but with far fewer mixed emotions.
- Writer
