Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
The tie feels like a noose around my neck, but a knock at the door distracts me from hating on the damn thing for too long.
"Twice in less than a month?" I say as I open the front door and see Kincaid standing on the front stoop. "It's not a good sign."
"Remember when I was here a few weeks ago?" he says, stepping past me and into the house.
"How could I forget?" I ask with a frown as I close the front door and follow him to the living room.
The man has never had a problem making himself at home, and he doesn't hesitate to take a seat on the couch.
"Do you want to be more specific?" I ask when he doesn't speak.
"You talked about being burned out."
I swear the man has a listening device in my head or something.
"I did," I confirm.
"How do you feel about coming back into the fold?"
I shake my head immediately but stop short of telling him no right off the bat. Could this be the change I need?
"Hemlock wouldn't like me coming in and stepping on his toes. A supervisor in that house and a president? I don't see a good outcome at all."
"Oh, you wouldn't be a supervisor."
I tilt my head, half-confused and half-offended by the offer.
"You want me to come back and take a demotion? Come on, Diego. Get real."
"I can't offer you a spot at the head of the table, but you'd be doing fieldwork. I wouldn't put you in the house as a supervisor to the other guys. A team lead down the road is possible though."
I can tell by the way he's laying it all out that he isn't trying to trick me, but the man has to realize that, at my age, there's a lot more to making decisions than just simply jumping at an opportunity that is laid at my feet.
"If you're not interested at all, I can see if one of the others at the house wants to take it," he says with no level of pressure attached to it.
I know I should tell him thanks but no thanks, but curiosity, one of my flaws, gets the best of me.
"What do you have?"
"Senator Robert Dyer reached out to me about a case. There's another senator's daughter who is missing."
"But that senator isn't looking for her?" I say, my suspicions already up.
"He died five years ago. The older sister is the one who initiated the call to Senator Dyer."
"What do you think we're working with?" I ask and realize I phrased it as if I'm already agreeing to take the case when he smirks at me.
"I'm not sure. She has a history of causing problems, so it could be nothing. But an initial look at the case has some red flags and cause for concern. So I'll need an answer from you quickly."
I want to shoot him down right now. He could go to the house from here and have someone on the case within a couple of hours, but I see this as the offering that it is. It's an option when I thought I only had a choice between retirement and staying on the hamster wheel.
"Can you give me a few hours to think it over?"
"Of course," he says as he stands, shaking my hand before walking out the front door.
Curiosity eats away at me as I make my way outside and to my car, waving at him as he rides away in a dark SUV with his son-in-law Hound behind the wheel. I have no idea why the man stayed in the vehicle, but I imagine I didn't give a very good impression that last time they were in town, when all the shit went down with Hemlock and Zara.
The drive into the office takes forever, but as much as it should probably annoy me, I relish the delay. I picture myself driving right past the non-descript building, imagining that I'm on a motorcycle rather than in this eco-gas-friendly car that was issued to me by ICE years ago.
But I don't drive by. I can't. I've been called in for a meeting with my supervisor, and these always go one of two ways. I doubt he came all this way to pat me on the back for clearing the list that was discovered in some of the sex trafficker, Nathan Adair’s, things before he went underground.
I don't bother wasting any more time when I park. I climb out of the car, resisting the urge to tug at the tie around my neck. I've worn one often for the last thirty years, yet it's something I've still never gotten used to. I think the day I do will be the day I need to hang it all up. Maybe that nursing home Mike talked about a few weeks ago isn't such a bad idea.