Leslie Parrish - Pitch Black

A book in the Black Cats series, 2009

Bruce-thanks so much for being my beta reader, my sounding board, and a fantastic husband. None of this would be possible without you.

To Janelle Denison, Julie E. Leto, and Carly Phillips-the constant messages of support, griping, friendship, kvetching, laughter, and companionship are some of the best parts of my day. Thank you for stepping outside your own reading boundaries to help me with this project.

Sincere thanks also to Leo A. Notenboom (www.ask-leo.com) for the technical advice and consultation. All the computer expertise is his… any errors are entirely my own.

Nine Days Later

From the outside, the Hoover Building looked like every other D.C. government facility built in the sixties. Square and boxy, with limestone-tinged concrete walls, it lacked the crisp, white grandeur of the monuments farther down on Pennsylvania Avenue or ringing the Mall.

In fact, to Alec Lambert’s slightly jaded eyes, it looked a little like a prison.

Considering his feelings more resembled a convict’s than a special agent’s on this cold winter morning, that wasn’t inappropriate. Because walking through the doors of FBI headquarters for the first day of his new assignment felt like the start of a sentence for a heinous crime.

Yeah. A heinous crime: trusting the wrong woman. And getting shot for the privilege.

It had been a hard lesson, but he’d definitely learned it. Because his error in judgment had not only landed him in the hospital with a couple of bullet holes in him; it had come at a much higher cost.

Another agent’s life.

The incident in Atlanta had wounded him physically and crushed him emotionally. It had destroyed his chance to nail the serial-killing bastard he’d obsessed about catching for the last three years, because it had also cost him his position in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. And it had cost him a friend, Dave Ferguson, whom he’d known since his academy days.

That was what kept him up nights.

He could have been tossed out of the FBI altogether. Maybe the higher-ups had figured it would be better to keep him close, saturated in the memories so he could torture himself over it even more. Round-the-clock atonement.

Which was, perhaps, why he’d so desperately wanted his job back.

“Last chance. Don’t blow it,” he kept reminding himself as he worked his way through security, finally arriving on the fourth floor. It was time to report to his new boss, the guy who’d saved his ass from having to work as a department store security guard. Wyatt Blackstone.

“Special Agent Alec Lambert,” he said when he reached the outer office of the FBI’s newest Cyber Action Team, or CAT, as someone with no imagination had started calling them. After a widely publicized case last summer, the media had taken things a step further, picked up on an in-house nickname, and started calling Blackstone’s team the Black CATs. Wonderful .

The receptionist, a dour middle-aged woman with graying brown hair and drawn-on eyebrows, studied his ID. “You’re expected.”

Rising from behind her government-issue metal desk, she gestured for him to follow. Alec did, keeping pace as she led him down a narrow hallway. Lined with groaning bookshelves and dented file cabinets, the dimly lit corridor also boasted a few framed black-and-whites of the Hoover glory days. They were smeared with dust, some lopsided. Everything combined to provide a dull backdrop that was probably invisible to the people who worked in this place from day to day. But to newcomers, it was like stepping into a time machine and coming out in 1970.

Each staccato click of the woman’s heels on the dingy tile floor stabbed into Alec’s brain, an audible emphasis of his change in status. No longer a hotshot agent with the Behavioral Analysis Unit, about which TV shows and movies were made, he was the black sheep now. Far from being a respected, experienced criminal investigative analyst, he was a newcomer to an already established team, the members of which had to have heard everything about him.

Well, everything except the truth.

Forcing himself to focus, he noted the small, cluttered offices they passed. Each office had another of those old metal desks buried under stacks of files and paperwork. But they also had state-of-the-art computer equipment. Way better than the POS laptop he’d been using for the past few years at the BAU.

That was probably a perk of being a part of the Cyber Division. They might be stuck in offices that hadn’t been renovated since the Carter administration, but the Black CATs got good computer equipment. Even if they were new and on probation. Kind of like him.

“You’ll be in there,” the receptionist said, not even slowing her stride as she pointed into a shadowy, empty office. Or closet. He couldn’t be sure which.

“Great,” he muttered.

She must have heard the tone in his voice. “We hear they’re going to move us to better quarters if things pan out.”

Alec had been briefed by Wyatt Blackstone during his interview down at Quantico. He was well aware that Blackstone’s team’s future, like Alec’s, was up in the air. Apparently the supervisory special agent had pissed off the wrong people, though Alec didn’t know the details.

“How’s that looking so far?” he asked.

She gave him a tight, impersonal smile. “We manage to keep busy.”

He’d like to know how. This particular CAT was unlike any other in the agency, and it focused on a new type of Internet-related crime. Rather than ferreting out weak, pimple-faced college students who liked to unleash viruses into the world’s computers, or perverts who exchanged vile pictures of little kids in pedophile chat rooms, this team investigated murder. Internet-related killings.

It sounded very limited. Besides, most of the cases would probably involve interaction with the BAU and ViCAP-the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program-some members of which were notoriously territorial with their files. As he had been mere months ago.

He’d been driven and focused, working seventy-hour weeks and not often accused of playing nice with others. While doing his own job to the best of his ability-and the detriment of his personal life, as most women he’d dated could attest-he’d sought to learn everything he could about profiling. The next coveted supervisory special agent position to become available should have had his name written all over it.

Until Atlanta. The screwup, the shootings. After that, the only thing his name had ended up on were a slew of hospital reports and disciplinary actions.And a Dear John e-mail from his girlfriend, who’d decided the glamour of dating an FBI agent faded when bullets started flying.

Alec’s chance to become a senior profiler in the BAU was over. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t be using his profiling skills, however. Because he suspected they were the reason he’d been plucked from the verge of termination and thrown into the Black CATs’ den. Blackstone had enough computer geeks, it seemed. He needed a behavioral analyst, his own unofficial pet profiler. And Alec had fit the bill, even if he was an outcast.

He wasn’t complaining. It sure beat civilian life or practicing law with the degree he’d obtained a month before applying to the bureau.