Allison Brennan - Stalked

She spotted Class Supervisor SSA Paula Kean standing with Agent Laughlin right behind Lucy’s station. They hadn’t been there during the first round.

Laughlin caught her eye, then said something to Kean, who nodded, and glanced at Lucy.

She swallowed and turned her back on them. Put on her ear and eye protection, checked her weapon, reloaded. Focus on the routine. Focus on what she knew.

When Kosako cleared them to shoot, Lucy’s muscles froze. She couldn’t shoot if she was this rigid. Her first shot missed the target completely, hitting the dirt hill behind. She mentally ran through her inner procedures to calm herself, but she was now behind everyone else, and that made her more tense. Her neck ached the more she tried to force calm.

What did Laughlin want from her? What was going on between him and Kate? It was obvious Kate didn’t like him, but she had refused to explain exactly what was going on. Had he threatened Lucy and Kate was trying to protect her? That would only make it worse. Kate should know that.

Yet all this speculation was only making Lucy more worried. She couldn’t focus and was the last to finish. She knew she’d done poorly.

Carter leaned over and asked, “What happened?” He looked at her hands. “You’re shaking.”

She didn’t want to talk about it. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Laughlin watching her, neither smiling nor frowning. Just staring.

“I choked,” she said.

“If I hadn’t seen it, I wouldn’t have believed it. I didn’t think anything fazed you.” Carter sounded worried, and while she appreciated his concern, she didn’t want anyone to worry about her. He glanced to where she’d been looking and said, “Is there a problem between you and Laughlin?”

She sighed and tried to keep the hitch out of her voice. “I don’t know.”

Kosako finished going through the scores and shook his head. “Saturday morning, everyone will be here at the range for extra practice.”

He looked directly at Lucy. “I’m surprised, Kincaid, I had high hopes for you after day two. It’s about consistency. And from what I’m seeing, Sanchez is better than you because she’s consistently a bad shot. When your partner is depending on you, are you going to hit or miss? When it’s not fun and games, are you going to choke?”

Lucy’s chest felt like it would explode with shame and embarrassment. She’d let the pressure of being watched interfere with her performance.

She stood ramrod straight and said, “I won’t choke again, sir.”

Kosako said, “Let’s hope you find your comfort zone, because if you shoot like you did today you won’t be around for graduation.”

She turned to gather her equipment. Usually, cleaning guns with her friends was both fun and social-but when she saw Agent Laughlin staring at her, her stomach sank, and she finished as quickly as possible.

*

Lucy focused intently on her classes that afternoon in a futile effort to block out her failure at the gun range. The deep concentration left her with a throbbing headache.

Thirty-two. I got a damn thirty-two!

That it wasn’t the real qualification test didn’t matter; it was that she’d failed because someone had been watching her. She hadn’t been able to focus on the target, only on why Rich Laughlin disliked her and what it had to do with Kate.

Four weeks ago when Lucy first walked onto campus, she hadn’t seen anything to make her think that either of the Class 12–14 mentors had an issue with her. Seward was from Denver, Laughlin from Detroit. Laughlin hadn’t been particularly friendly, but he hadn’t been critical, either-not until after she walked in on him and Kate yesterday.

But did it really matter? She’d allowed his presence to affect her performance and by doing so had jeopardized everything she’d been working so hard for. Who could she blame but herself?

Because it was still too hot to run, Lucy asked Margo if she wanted to swim, but Margo had plans with Reva for their online course work. Lucy went to the gym and stretched, then worked on free weights, then the punching bag. She was surprised no one was around. Normally at the end of the day a dozen agents from the three classes currently in rotation would be working out, including staff.

She wanted to swim. In the locker room she changed into her blue one-piece Speedo, then redressed in her shorts and gray T-shirt with her last name stenciled on the back. It was against the rules to swim without a partner, and she hoped to find someone when she got to the pool.

She opened the door-empty.

“Dammit.”

“You weren’t planning on swimming alone, I hope.” Harden’s voice behind her made her jump.

“No, sir.” She closed the door. “I’d hoped someone was already inside.”

“You want to swim that badly?”

She didn’t know what to say. If she said yes, he’d think she was reckless and would have gone in alone until she saw him. If she said no, he’d think she was wishy-washy or lying.

Instead, she said, “Swimming is a stress reliever.”

From the small twitch at the corner of his lips, he hadn’t expected the answer. Sean would call that his “tell,” a physical sign of either lying or surprise.

“I have some time.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The humidity in the room hit Lucy like it always did, warm and thick, but she’d gotten used to it since being here.

“I won’t be long,” she said.

“Take your time. Want me to time you?”

She raised an eyebrow. “I planned to relax, not compete, sir.”

He seemed mildly disappointed but nodded and walked over to the mats and free weights in the corner, checking for wear and damage.

Lucy removed her outer clothes and dove into the water, the temperature a few degrees warmer than she preferred. Soon her body adjusted and she swam perfectly centered in the middle row. The pool was half Olympic length at eighty-two meters, a good practice size. She’d been on the swim team in high school and college, had been good enough to try out for the Olympics, but her heart hadn’t been in it after everything that had happened when she graduated from high school. Still, water was the one constant in her life, from her time before Adam Scott and his cronies raped and nearly killed her to now. She was certified in water search and rescue and had recertified earlier this year.

She had to find a way to ignore Agent Laughlin, but the more she thought about him the more she realized that something was up with Kate. Kate had said Bureau politics, and Lucy wanted nothing to do with jockeying for power. She just wanted her badge and a position. She’d earned it, and she couldn’t let someone else’s game stop her.

And then there was Harden, who had forced her into the center of attention yesterday. But Harden had to be tough on them because it was his job to make sure they were all fit when they left. It wasn’t personal with him.

As she realized the difference between what Harden did yesterday and how Laughlin made her feel today, she realized that it was personal with Laughlin. That she’d solved one problem but now faced another, bigger issue irritated her. She swam harder, focusing on the fluidity of the water, her breathing, and her strokes.

And she realized that in the back of her mind was the murder of Rosemary Weber.

What if she was digging into my past? What if she planned to write a book about what happened to me?

No one Lucy cared about would have talked to the woman and so much about what had happened to Lucy was still sealed, but that didn’t mean Weber couldn’t have made Lucy’s life a living hell trying to dig up the facts. And because Lucy’s rape had been shown on the Internet, there were still digital files out there. She’d never truly be free of her past.