Stalking Page 6

  Her family—her, her mother, father, and older brother—had made their living as peddlers, hocking junk they’d collected from yard sales and selling artwork her mother and older brother would create. Ana had been almost forgotten about, artless and untalented in the ways her family had prized. It had hurt her the way they’d ignored her.

  It had surprised them when Ana had chosen the FBI as a career. She’d deflected, defied the family tradition of being artists and nomads and searched for security in a world they wanted no part of.

  She’d not spoken to her family since she’d told them she’d been accepted to Indiana University at the age of seventeen.

  Georgia was her family. Matthew, Georgia, and Brockman. Tompkins, Royal, Chalmers, even Whitman. And to Ana, her new family was everything.

  Chapter Two

  Fin McLaughlin eyed the crowd of agents with the experienced eye of a behavioral analyst. Some of them would be his new team. And it burned him that he’d not be allowed to pick which ones. Fin was very particular in who he wanted at his back, yet for the first time since he’d become a Unit Chief six years ago, he’d have no say.

  That privilege rested with Director Dennis. And like the older man had said, he had a definite list in mind.

  “Funding has been approved,” Dennis said to the crowd. “For a new division. It will be based here in St. Louis. Primary focus will be on a new age of crime. Crimes don’t just cover one area anymore. We have pedophiles committing cyber crimes, we have sex crimes blending into violent crimes, we have terrorism intermingling with gang activity. This new division will seek to address all those overlaps by the blending of specialists in every area. No more ordinary run of the mill field teams will be coming out of St. Louis. Calls to us—this division—will be special requests that only our teams can solve.”

  Fin scanned the crowd, beginning in the front two rows, and tuning out the political words. Fifty plus people crammed the room. Seventy percent were male. Most were in their thirties, forties, or fifties. A handful were younger. Half a dozen were older.

  They all had the jaded look of law enforcement in their eyes. It was a look McLaughlin saw in his own eyes whenever he’d look in a mirror.

  Dennis droned on. Fin flexed his prosthetic hand and readjusted it a bit. There was a thread or something between it and the stump that was his forearm. He’d have to remove it later. Right then, he focused on the deputy director. “Our only order of business is team restructuring, especially within my directorate.”

  There were discontented murmurs from the crowd then. Fin straightened. He hadn’t known Dennis would be screwing with the teams under his command that severely. People were bound to be unhappy having their teams jerked around. He would be. One man stood and glared at the platform. “The Complex Crimes Unit is not part of your directorate; there will be no changes to my team.”

  “I’m not finished.” Dennis’s words were frozen.

  The man sat, though with obvious reluctance. Fin studied the two men and the looks that passed between them. Definite history, bad history.

  “With all due respect, sir,” another man said from near the middle of the room. “Our teams are highly functioning as they are. My unit has an incredibly high solve rate. I’m not sure rearranging that will be in the best interest of the Bureau.”

  “Dr. Brockman, thank you for your input. That brings up another thing. For those of you who are part of a highly functioning team, you will most likely not be impacted significantly. Some of you may be reassigned to cover any other gaps. We will still have the field intelligence groups and the investigative services groups and the undercover operations formative group. They’ll just be under my jurisdiction instead of Lewis Whiler’s. And the Complex Crimes Unit—you’ll be moving up two floors to this directorate. You’ve been reclassified. Len will be calling off a list of names of agents to be reassigned. We will also be forming a master task force, under my direct leadership. This team will be the front leaders. They will be the best and brightest this office has to offer and will set the future course for this division. When SSA Len calls your name, please stand.”

  Fin watched as the first set of agents were reassigned, most having very unhappy expressions on their faces. Another five minutes passed and nearly every agent had been reassigned or told to stay with their current unit.

  Dennis stepped back to the front. “Those of you who’ve been reassigned, you’re dismissed. The rest of you, please stay seated. You’ll receive instructions shortly.”

  The majority of the crowd filed out. Eleven people remained: Fin, Dennis, the two men who’d spoken—Hellbrook and Brockman, three other men, two brunette women, and two redheaded women.

  This was Deputy Dennis’s elite team, Fin realized. His new team. He straightened. Looked them over carefully. Hellbrook was furious, it was in the way his shoulders were rigid. The young redhead on his right wasn’t even listening. The three younger male agents were all waiting somewhat impatiently. Fin just glanced over them. The two brunette women were on opposite sides of the room, and seemed opposite in personality, from Fin’s first impressions. One was Hispanic, seemed a bit edgy, squirming in her seat near the front. The other was small, attractive, and businesslike. Cool and calm. She turned and said something to the redhead on her left.

  Fin’s gaze followed her movement. The hair was dark red. Warm. Straight. It tugged at him, familiar. The body was small. Delicate. She moved a lot, her foot tapping, arms crossing and uncrossing. She didn’t want to be there. Brockman reached behind the brunette and squeezed the redhead’s shoulder. She turned, became more visible.

  Fin’s hand tightened as a rush of remembered pain shot through him. Starting with his prosthetic. Psychological remembrance of the morning in June six years ago, when he’d lost the hand, and of the woman who’d been with him at the time.

  Anastacia…

  Calle J. Brookes is first and foremost a fiction writer. She enjoys crafting paranormal romance and romantic suspense. She reads almost every genre except horror. She spends most of her time juggling family life and writing, while reminding herself that she can’t spend all of her time in the worlds found within books. Calle J. loves to be contacted by her readers via email and at www.CalleJBrookes.com.

  To my daughter, always.