Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111860 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 559(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 373(@300wpm)
Lennon felt a buzz of both agitation and anxiety. Lieutenant Byrd set his coffee aside and opened a file sitting on his desk in front of him. “You want me to train him?” Lennon asked. She was in no way interested—or qualified, for that matter—to train anyone. Half the time, she was busy managing herself. “He’s not just a fed, he’s a rookie?”
Lieutenant Byrd’s dark gaze met hers. “I don’t know his exact background, just that he’s an agent. Apparently, he’s thorough and good at his job, and has a real way with the down-and-out. But he’s never worked in a city. He hasn’t seen crime like we see here. Get him acclimated. Help him collect the answers the FBI wants and send him on his way.”
He has a real way with the down-and-out. What did that mean? “Criminals or victims?” she asked suspiciously.
Lieutenant Byrd stared at her for a moment, obviously rewinding the conversation to determine what she was asking about. “Both.”
Both. What did that say? No wonder she hadn’t known how to read him. But at least if he’d worked with victims of any kind, he wasn’t only a paper pusher. “Anyway, I thought you were putting me with Penny.” Lennon resisted a grimace. She sounded like a brat. She was sitting there with her arms crossed and her lip jutted out, too, like a brat. She unlatched her arms and put her palms on her thighs. Why did the thought of partnering with an FBI agent rankle her so much anyway? Why did those dark, sleepy eyes make her feel . . . unsteady? Like running away. She hadn’t been consulted when her last lieutenant had placed her with Tommy five years before, either, and that had ended up being the best thing that could have happened to her, both professionally and personally. Tommy was like the older brother she’d never had, and his wife was like a sister.
But she’d liked Tommy right off the bat. She’d gotten a good feeling about him, and they’d clicked immediately.
They were a natural team.
“Penny’s transferring,” Lieutenant Byrd said.
“What?” Penny hadn’t said a word about leaving. Not that they were close friends, but they’d worked together for years. “Transferring where?”
“Sacramento. There was an opening, and she applied. I wrote her a letter of recommendation. It happened quickly. I think she needed a change of scenery.”
A change of scenery. Apparently, everyone around here needed a change of scenery. “Who else is leaving?”
“Today? No one. But if your point is that everyone is leaving the SFPD, then Agent Mars is one of the only ones arriving. Let’s all be grateful. We could use the help.” He picked up his cell phone, pressed some buttons; then she heard a ding on her phone in her pocket. “I forwarded you the agent’s number, in case you didn’t get it from him yesterday.”
“Humph.”
“Is there anything else?” Lieutenant Byrd’s voice broke Lennon from her thoughts, and she looked up to see her boss leafing through the papers he’d removed from the file. Lennon sighed. She was obviously being dismissed.
“No, nothing else,” she said, standing.
“Good.”
She exited Lieutenant Byrd’s office and went back to her desk, dropping down into her chair.
“I heard you’ve been partnered up with a fed,” Adella Haffey said from her nearby desk. “Lucky you. Is he hot at least? One of those young bucks who’s eager to bust down doors?”
Lennon rolled her eyes. Whether Agent Ambrose Mars was eager about anything, she had no idea, but he wasn’t exactly a “young buck.” She’d estimate him to be midthirties. Lennon smiled but turned away from Adella, who was looking at her expectantly. With all the tragedy they dealt with constantly, one would think police officers could rise above turning the precinct into a middle school dance, but experience told her they couldn’t. Or chose not to. There was constant internal drama. She glanced over at Tommy’s empty chair for a moment and then took out her phone, ignoring the text from Lieutenant Byrd that she knew was Mars’s contact information and dialing a different number.
Just when Lennon thought Tommy’s wife Sam’s voicemail was going to pick up, she answered, sounding slightly breathless. “Hey, Lennon.”
“Hey. You sound like you just ran a marathon.”
She let out a breathy laugh. “I might as well have. I left my phone upstairs and had to hustle my pregnant butt to get it. You called at a good time, though, because my two little wild men just got picked up for school. Thank heavens for carpool.”
“I won’t keep you long. You should take the opportunity to rest.”
“No rest for me. I’m in full nesting mode. How’s work?”
“Fine. Another day, another shooting, another stabbing.” She cringed as soon as the words left her mouth. She didn’t want to bother Sam with death and destruction right now when she should be focusing on life and new beginnings. “Anyway, sorry, you don’t need to know about the crime rate in San Francisco when the point was to get away from all that. How’s Tommy?”