Allison Brennan - Stalked

“What’s wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when I see you.” She hung up and walked back to the main building, then down to the basement.

Hans was still in Tony’s office.

“I thought you’d left,” he said.

“Sean’s waiting for me.”

How she managed to keep her voice calm she didn’t know. She didn’t even know why she’d come down here to confront Hans.

Except she had to know the truth; she wasn’t going to take Laughlin’s word as gospel.

“Did you overrule my hiring panel?”

“Who told you that?”

“Am I here illegitimately?”

Hans didn’t say anything, and Lucy knew it meant that Laughlin hadn’t lied. Her chest tightened with a vise of pain, regret, and betrayal. And anger.

“How could you?”

“You’re supposed to be here, Lucy.”

“You’re the only one who thinks so.”

“You never understood what you were up against with the panels.”

“I never wanted you, or anyone, to pull strings.”

“The odds were stacked against you. All I did was level the field.”

“You overruled the panel!”

“No one knows that.”

She laughed bitterly. “Someone does.”

He didn’t say anything.

“I thought you were my friend, Hans.”

Hans rose from behind the desk. He leaned forward, palms up. “I am your friend.”

“A true friend would let me succeed or fail on my own merits. I don’t want be an FBI agent if cheating is the only way I can be here. Yes, I earned this. Yes, I deserve to be here, but if no one else thinks so, I don’t want it.”

She reached into her purse and took out her wallet. She didn’t have a badge or gun to turn in, but she had her new-agent ID.

Hans grabbed her wrist when she held the ID out to him. “Don’t be rash.”

“Let go.”

He didn’t. “When you helped put Fran in prison, you made enemies. You knew that would happen. Getting a fair panel at that time would have been next to impossible.”

“I don’t want this anymore.”

“Yes, you do!”

“Don’t tell me what I want or don’t want.” Lucy’s chest heaved. She would not cry. The tears that were threatening weren’t sadness but anger, a rage she’d never quite felt before. Not like this. She’d felt fear, and panic, and regret, but not this fury of being manipulated and used, made worse because it was someone she had respected. “Who knew? Kate? Dillon?”

Hans shook his head. “Assistant Director Stockton agreed with me, and we were the only two who knew, other than the panels. Who told you? We may have a security problem.”

“It’s not my problem.” She jerked her hand free and dropped her ID on the desk.

“I’m not accepting this. Think about it over the weekend.”

She shook her head. “I trusted you.”

Lucy walked out. She didn’t know if she’d return.

Sean knew something was very wrong as soon as Lucy slid into the passenger seat of his Mustang. But she didn’t talk about it. With Lucy, it had to be on her terms. He tried to engage her in conversation, but she was only half-listening.

“We’re going to New York,” Sean finally said.

“Sure,” Lucy said.

“And we won’t be back for a week, but I’m sure that’ll be fine with your superiors.” He glanced at her. She was still looking out the window, oblivious to his joke.

“Sure,” she said. Then she looked at him. “What are you doing?”

“You’re lost in a world that doesn’t look very fun.”

“Hans pulled strings to get me into Quantico.”

Sean froze. How had she found out? Had Hans told her?

Lucy continued. “They didn’t deem me fit for the FBI, and when Hans found out he overruled their decision. Both hiring panels rejected my application. I should never have been admitted.”

Shit. No wonder she was in so much pain. “He told you that?”

“No. But does it matter?”

“Yes. It matters. I don’t care what a panel of bureaucrats thinks, you worked your ass off to get to Quantico, more than anyone else.”

“I gave him my ID. Not as dramatic as handing over my gun and badge, but it was all I had.”

“You can’t.”

Sean crossed over three lanes of traffic and pulled over into the breakdown lane. Lucy clutched the dashboard and stared at him as if he’d jumped from an airplane without a parachute. “What are you doing?”

He slammed the car into park and turned to face her. “You can’t just quit.”

“I did.”

“You’re not a quitter.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Don’t tell me how I’m feeling!”

Sean wanted to go back to Quantico, but forcing Lucy to confront Hans now wasn’t going to help. No one could force Lucy to do something she didn’t want to do. He had to convince her to go back on her own.

“Hans did not accept your resignation.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m going back.” She sighed and took his hand. “Sean, this is my decision to make. Yes, I earned my spot. I absolutely should be an FBI agent. But people know. They know someone pulled strings to get me this spot, and that bothers me more than anything. Remember a few months back when I told you if I didn’t make it, I’d be okay?”

“Of course.”

“I’m going to be okay now, too. I’ll get through this.”

Sean didn’t doubt it, but that didn’t mean she should quit. “Don’t do anything rash.”

“I won’t. But you understand, right?” She squeezed his hand, imploring him with her eyes.

He kissed her. “I understand. Whatever decision you make, I’m behind you.” Sean took a deep breath. “But this conversation is not over.”

“It’s over for now.”

Sean reluctantly agreed and pulled the car back in with the traffic. “We’re going to New York to retrace Tony Presidio’s steps.”

“Why?”

“Hans asked me to.”

“Great.” She closed her eyes.

“I’ll have you back by six p.m. tomorrow. I promise.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, you do.”

He should tell her that he’d known. Right now-except he couldn’t. She was angry and upset and he didn’t want to compound the situation by telling her that Senator Jonathon Paxton had told him two months ago that Hans had pulled strings. What would it have helped? She already didn’t speak to Paxton anymore, and then Sean would have had to explain why Paxton told him, and that was opening a big fat can of worms Sean didn’t want to open.

So he remained silent. If Lucy wanted to be an FBI agent, she should be-there was no one here more qualified or capable.

Sean changed the subject and told her the plan. “Patrick is joining us at the airport. We’re flying into Newark. Bob Stokes, the cop you flagged for me from Weber’s first book, died of a heart attack last month. Patrick’s going to pull the report and talk to his partner and widow.”

“You think there’s something suspicious about his death?”

“He was in his early forties and close to Rosemary Weber. He’d been the responding officer at the scene, and had gone on record as believing the parents were holding back. Patrick’s going to snoop around there, while we go to New York City and retrace Tony’s steps. Hans thinks we may be able to find out why he was so hot to look at his notes. You’re the last person to have seen them; they’re fresh in your head.”

“But he was intimately familiar with the case.” Lucy paused, then said, “It’s hard to kill someone by heart attack.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Tony died of a heart attack. He had twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system, which may have been a contributing factor. Or coincidence.” Lucy took out her cell phone.