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thesygerproject · 5 years

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Excerpt: Ch. 1

“Agent Miller, I have to say I was very surprised to find out that you would be joining us,” Jackson said. “We’re so glad you could make it.”

“Glad to be here,” Nathan said politely.

Dominic continued to make polite small talk with Jackson. Never having been one for pleasantries, Nathan tuned them out and scanned the room, noting who was working in the facility and who was a trainee. Which of the trainees were just killing time until the talk, and which ones were wrapped up in their work. Two trainees were already sitting in the front row, both leaning over the same notebook propped up between them, with a third sitting just behind them, leaned forward to speak quietly with them. The only other person in the front row was a young brunette woman sitting at the end, legs stretched out and arms crossed, head leaned back and eyes closed. She probably didn't even know there was anything going on in this room today. A couple other trainees were scattered throughout the chairs, some laughing together and others focused intently on the two raised chairs in the front, as though staring at them would make the session begin sooner.

"But we can get one if you want," Jackson said.

“Sorry?" Nathan’s attention snapped back to the agent.

Jackson turned his head to give Nathan a strange look while Dominic laughed. "I said we wanted to keep it casual, so we just put a couple of chairs on the stage. We decided against pulling out a podium, but we can get one for you if you want.”

“No, it’s fine,” Dominic said, resting a hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Ignore him. He’s not good at human interaction.”

Nathan roughly shook Dominic’s hand off and shot him a half-hearted glare. “So when are we getting started?” Nathan asked, turning back to Jackson.

Jackson looked between them, apparently amused at the interaction, before answering. “In about ten minutes, the rest of the group should be in here. Whenever most of the kids get in here I'll go up and introduce you. The recruits were pretty excited when we told them that you’d both be joining us.”

Nathan thought he was just being polite, but it only took about seven more minutes for the room to fill. A few trainees were even left standing along the back wall or sitting in the aisles on either side.

"Didn't expect this much of a turn out," Nathan muttered under his breath.

Jackson laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, which Nathan shrugged off habitually. “Are you kidding? You two had a damn near perfect record in violent crimes. You’re practically celebrities around here.” With that, Jackson walked up to the stage and picked up the microphone that was sitting on one of the chairs. “I'm glad you all could make it," he said, pausing as if he expected some kind of response that he didn’t get. "You all hear me talk enough, so I'll skip the speech and get right to it. Our guest speakers today worked together in the violent crimes division of the FBI for nearly two decades, mostly chasing down serial killers and hired guns. Since then one of them has retired, and the other has transferred to the white collar division. But both of them have generously agreed to come out today and answer any of your questions about their experiences in the field and past cases. So now, here are my good friends and colleagues, Senior Special Agents Dominic Greerson and Nathan Miller.”

Nathan forced a smile as he followed Dominic onto the stage and dropped into the chair beside the older man, doing his best to ignore the applause from the gathered group.

“How are you all doing today?” Dominic asked into the microphone. He got several excited though indistinguishable responses. “Alright, well let’s just jump right into it. Who has a question? Oh, that’s more than I was expecting.”

About two dozen hands immediately went into the air. One of them belonged to one of the two trainees that Nathan had seen sitting in the front row. He was surprised to see that another belonged to the young woman sitting on the end, whom Nathan had thought to be asleep and unaware of the event.

"Alright, let's start in the back," Dominic said, pointing over the heads of most of the group. "You there in the corner.”

The man stood and accepted the microphone that was extended to him by one the staff walking along the aisles. ”How did you both start working with the FBI?" He finally asked.

Dominic looked to Nathan for a second, eyebrows raised in a silent question. In answer, Nathan took the microphone from him to answer first. “Well, since I was a kid I wanted to be in law enforcement,” he said. “My father was a police officer in Baton Rouge. So I decided to become a police officer. I worked my way up to homicide detective, and after that,” he hesitated a moment, ignoring the feel of Dominic’s eyes burning into the side of his head, but just shrugged and finished the story as quickly and cleanly as he could. “I guess the FBI was just the next logical step for me. Dom?” He added, handing the microphone back to his former partner. The questions went on that way for about an hour, mostly asking about each of their respective backgrounds in the FBI, and a few questions about specific cases they had worked. Several questions were asked about the Phantom Fires, which Nathan answered as carefully as he could.

"What was it like the first time you had to tell a victim's family that they were dead?" Asked a young trainee in the front row. She looked barely old enough to buy alcohol, but with the kind of determination in her eyes and voice that Nathan’d had when he was just starting out in the Bureau.

Nathan still remembered that moment perfectly. He held his hand out for the microphone. Dominic handed it over and leaned back in his chair. “When I was a detective, usually my partner at the time or another police officer made the call. The first time I had to tell a woman that her husband was dead, it was my first case with the Bureau,” Nathan said. He gave a wry smile and gestured to Dominic. “This guy said I had to be the one to tell her. Of course, I didn't want to do it; not on my first case.”

“It builds character,” Dominic said loud enough to be heard even without the microphone.

"That's a lie,” Nathan said without missing a beat or even glancing at his former partner. A few people laughed with him.

"Do you ever get used to it?" The girl asked.

"No," Nathan said. He glanced around at the subdued crowd before looking back at her, finally raising the microphone again to speak into the silent room. “You'll learn what to say, and how long to keep your mouth shut before you say it. But you will never get used to it. And you shouldn’t.”

Nathan paused in the silence and glanced at Dominic. The older man just gave him a smile and shrugged one shoulder; a silent confirmation. Nathan turned back to the girl. “You know what Agent Greerson said to me when I asked him that same question? He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘The day when that becomes easy, the day when you can look into a woman's eyes, tell her that she's a widow, watch her break down in tears, and not feel a thing, you hand in your badge and walk away.’” Nathan leaned back in his chair and looked out at the rest of the room.

Dominic’s voice echoed through the room even without the microphone, carrying over the silence. “When you lose what makes you human, you lose what makes you a good agent,” he said. Nathan remembered the hardened look in Dominic’s eyes when he’d said those same words to him decades ago. He could swear he felt that same hardened gaze boring into the side of his head, but didn’t look over to Cath the man’s eyes. The silence lingered for a long moment before Dominic spoke again. “I think we have time for just one more question.”

A couple hands raised in the air, one belonging to the woman down at the end of the front row, the one that had appeared to be asleep in her chair before the talk.

“Front row on the end there,” Nathan said, gesturing to her. He ignored the look he got from Greerson, who had been taking the initiative the entire session of leading the conversation and choosing the questions. The woman had been intently listening to every question asked and every answer given. She’d raised her hand at every point that Greerson was selecting someone to ask a question. She also just had a look in her eyes that made Nathan feel slightly off balance, and he couldn’t pinpoint why. Maybe it was the confidence clear in her gaze that never left the stage, or how everyone else was either typing away on laptops or scribbling in a notebook, while this woman just sat unmoving, attention never wavering, and yet Nathan had no doubt that she could recite back every question and answer given during the last hour verbatim.

The woman stood up and looked from Dominic to Nathan with all the confidence of someone who knew what she was talking about, and didn't give a damn who disagreed with her. She didn’t wait to be brought a microphone before she spoke, but still her voice carried.

"Where's Jessica Langer?" The woman asked.

Nathan's confident demeanor didn’t falter—he was too practiced for that—but he instinctively tensed at the question. He could feel tension rolling off of Dominic in waves, but didn’t dare turn to look at him. The small gesture would give away too much information. It would let this would-be agent know that she was right; that she knew something that only a handful of people knew. That only a handful of people should ever know.

Nathan was thankfully saved the trouble of answering when the silence was broken by someone laughing from the back row.

"Dead," someone called out. "Killed by the Phantoms."

"Maybe you should know what you're talking about before you open your mouth," another person yelled. More laughs broke out through the room, but still the brunette never broke eye contact with Nathan.

"Your friend's right," Dominic finally said. His laugh only sounded slightly forced, and Nathan wondered if the woman could tell. It took him all of half a second to decide that she could. ”Jessica Langer died in a Phantom Fire fifteen years ago. You should read your case files more carefully."

The young woman shifted her gaze to Dominic, the side of her mouth quirking up just slightly, barely noticeable. She knew that Dominic was lying. Nathan didn't know how in the hell she knew that Jessica Langer was alive, but somehow she knew it. Still, the woman didn't call his bluff right there. She only nodded and kept that confident smirk on her face. "Sorry," she said, sitting back down. Her gaze met Nathan’s again for a moment. ”My mistake."

As soon as she sat back down, Jackson jumped onto the stage. Dominic stood and handed the microphone back to him. "That's all the time we have for questions," Jackson said. "Thank you, Agents Greerson and Miller, for joining us today."

His statement was followed by a warm applause from the group as Nathan followed Dominic from the stage. He looked around for the young woman, but could already see her retreating out the double doors, already engulfed in a sea of students leaving the auditorium.

"Hey, Jackson," he heard Dominic saying in a forced casual tone. "Who was that?”

#original writing #mystery novel #original work #tsp: writing #tsp: nathan #tsp: dominic #writing #the syger project #my writing

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