Читать книгу The Silence That Speaks - Andrea Kane - Страница 7

2

IT WAS 8:45 a.m.

The Forensic Instincts investigative team was hard at work—but not on a case.

Instead, they were scrambling around their Tribeca brownstone, trying to get the place into some semblance of order before their next job applicant arrived.

Having just wrapped up a high-profile corporate espionage case, they’d normally be debriefing. Instead, all their notes, reports, follow-ups and computer files were in uncharacteristic disarray. The phone was ringing off the hook. Their voice mailboxes were exploding. And this was not the way Casey Woods intended to run her company.

She’d made her position clear several weeks ago. The minute their current case was closed, they were hiring a receptionist-slash-assistant. From a small start-up investigative firm, they’d catapulted into a highly sought-after company, thanks to the combined efforts and stellar results achieved by their brilliant team.

Until now, there’d been the six of them, each of whom was a critical and integral part of FI. Starting with Casey herself—who was the company president and behavioral expert, and who had the extensive academic credentials and professional experience to be the firm’s anchor—every member of the FI team had a stand-alone résumé.

They were no longer New York’s best kept secret, and their client list was growing daily. Thus, the need for someone to man the front desk and to assist the team as needed.

So far, they hadn’t had much luck.

At the moment, Casey was upstairs on the fourth floor—the floor that served as her apartment during the few hours that she actually lived there—running a brush through her shoulder-length red hair and adjusting the collar on her green cowl-neck sweater. Hero, Casey’s bloodhound and the team’s human scent evidence dog, was already poised in the bedroom doorway, waiting expectantly for his mistress to leave her apartment and go downstairs to her real home: Forensic Instincts.

“I’m coming, boy,” she told him, looking in the mirror and giving herself a quick once-over, before heading for their morning interview. “God knows what we have in store this time.”

* * *

Ryan McKay was still downstairs in his man cave, affectionately known as his lair, which filled the entire basement level of the brownstone. It was the technology center of Forensic Instincts, complete with their servers—Lumen, Equitas and Intueri, from the Latin words for light, justice and intuition. Part data center, part electronics lab, Ryan had more high-tech equipment than a small university.

Despite its serious purpose, Ryan left enough room to maintain two areas of personal space—his free weights and fitness section, and a small competition ring for his self-built robots.

Right now, he was enjoying neither. He was printing out pages from FI’s just-closed case.

While the pages were printing, he was on his iPad, reading the latest issue of Sound on Sound magazine. The software review of Audio Detracktor was compelling. The reviewer described how it was developed by three of genius college students—a math whiz, a computer geek and a musical prodigy. Audio Detracktor would analyze an audio file, separating the component tracks and instruments into layers. Each isolated layer could be played independently, giving the listener the ability to hear insignificant sounds in a rich recording. Sound on Sound had written about experimenting with Eric Clapton’s “Layla,” Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula” and Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.” They were even able to isolate the sound of a flying guitar pick bouncing off the floor. Guitarists would often lose their picks in midperformance, which is why they always carried extras with them. But to actually hear the sound of a tiny plastic piece hitting the ground? Awesome.

Just as Ryan was about to swipe to the next page, his iPhone began vibrating in his pocket, reminding him of a scheduled meeting. Glancing at his calendar entry, he scowled at its purpose. Interview. Emma Stirling. Another teenybopper receptionist he had to talk to.

He understood Casey’s decision to establish a more professional office environment, as well as to get some help answering the phones and doing odds and ends. But he’d lobbied strongly for a virtual assistant, aka software, installed on one of their servers. A virtual assistant was smart, predictable, not female and never took a coffee or bathroom break.

The perfect receptionist.

Casey and Claire had overruled him. They felt a personal touch was needed. A flesh-and-blood human being, not a machine. Marc was indifferent, although he saw the value of both. And Patrick had been married long enough to know when to avoid a losing situation.

Ryan’s pocket buzzed again. Time to stop procrastinating and get this over with. Full of attitude, he marched upstairs ready to meet and nix Emma Stirling.

* * *

The rest of the team was already congregated in the second floor’s main conference room, pouring coffee and settling down around the sweeping oval conference table.

Marc took a gulp of black coffee and eyed Ryan. “Nice of you to join us.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “You look thrilled to be here.”

Ryan scowled. “You know how I feel about this. I was about to do something useful—like order a cool state-of-the-art app while I was preparing the case wrap-up. Instead, I’m here, ready to meet another substandard candidate.”

“Great attitude.” Claire walked over just in time to hear Ryan’s statement. “Did it ever occur to you that we might find a white elephant? There are still a few of those out there, you know.”

“Is that a prediction, Clairevoyant?” He loved to get at her with that nickname he’d coined.

“No.” She shot him a don’t-get-me-started look. “It’s an optimistic fact.”

Patrick was already seated, scratching Hero’s ears. He glanced over at them. “Play nice, kids. We have a reputation for professionalism to uphold.”

“Yes, we do.” Casey seated herself at the head of the table. “And, like it or not, we’re going to eventually have to hire someone. My standards are as high as yours, Ryan. Maybe higher. But I’m not giving up. This place is not going to continue as chaos central.”

“I hear you.” Ryan got himself some coffee and turned to peruse the group. “So should we do rock, paper, scissors to decide who’s going downstairs to let this one in?”

“I can handle that electronically, Ryan.” An invisible computerized voice echoed from everywhere in the room, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling video screens began to glow. A long green line formed across each panel, pulsing from left to right, bending into the contours of the voice panel.

“Good idea, Yoda,” Ryan replied. “Disarm the Hirsch pad when the doorbell rings and advise our job candidate to come upstairs. That alone should scare the shit out of her.”

Casey couldn’t help but smile at Ryan’s assessment. As for Yoda, Ryan’s extraordinary artificial intelligence system, he’d become an honorary FI team member. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that he wasn’t human. Then again, he’d been built by Ryan, who was very human. Bottom line? Ryan was a genius and Yoda was omniscient.

“Has everyone reviewed this candidate’s application?” Casey asked.

“Yup.” Marc was his usual straightforward self. “She sounds like a juvenile delinquent who never did hard time.”

“She sounds like a kid who needs a chance,” Claire chimed in. “She was bounced from foster home to foster home and spent a lot of time on the streets.”

“I have to agree,” Patrick said. “I know she’s got a juvie record, and that would normally turn me right off. But in this case—her parents died in a plane crash when she was eight. There were no relatives to take her in. So she spent ten years in the system. That’s tough.”

“And we’re not exactly squeaky clean ourselves,” Marc commented drily. He glanced at Patrick. “Other than you, Special Agent Lynch.”

“Not so much anymore,” Patrick retorted. “You’ve corrupted me.”

The whole group chuckled.

“Yeah, we’re the maverick investigators,” Ryan said, coining a phrase from an article written about them. “So, if this girl has a brain, I’m willing to cut her some slack.”

“Some slack?” Casey repeated, shooting Ryan a look. “I’m hoping you’ll do more than that.”

“I wouldn’t count on it. I still think a virtual assistant would be the best choice.” Ryan held up both palms to ward off oncoming arguments. “But I’ve accepted that I’ve been overruled. So let’s get this show on the road.”

Right on cue, the doorbell sounded.

“Applicant number twenty-seven has arrived,” Yoda announced.

“Punctual.” Casey glanced at her watch. “Okay, Yoda, go ahead and let her in.” She interlaced her fingers on the table in front of her. “Oh, and, Yoda? Leave out the applicant number when you announce her. Just stick to her name. Applicant twenty-six nearly took off when you made that reference. Let’s not scare off applicant twenty-seven. It’s starting to sound like we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel and each one of them is it. Either that, or we’re looking for perfection and can’t find it.”

“That would be accurate,” Yoda pointed out.

“True, but we don’t want to intimidate the girl before she even gets upstairs.”

“Very well, Casey. Name only.”

Yoda’s words were punctuated by the beeping sound of the alarm system as he disarmed it.

* * *

A loud thunk resounded in the FI hallway as the large steel bolt retracted, unlocking the front door.

“Please enter the building and proceed to the second floor,” Yoda instructed the young woman at the door. “Make a right turn into the main conference room. Your interview will be conducted there.”

“Thanks.” Without so much as a flinch, Emma Stirling walked through the foyer as the door bolt reengaged behind her. She climbed up the winding staircase, and paused on the landing to run her fingers through her hair and adjust her tote bag on her shoulder. Then she entered the conference room.

She fought back a smile as she saw the all-too-familiar startled reaction from the team at large. It was the same as everyone who’d read her history. They were expecting a scraggly looking brat from the streets. Instead, they were getting the equivalent of a prep school cheerleader—all blonde, blue-eyed and composed, with a fashionable short skirt and a formfitting top.

She’d worked hard to perfect that image.

“I clean up nice,” she said, putting aside the looks of surprise and assessing the challenge she was about to face.

Emma had done her homework.

The pretty, authoritative redhead at the head of the table was Casey Woods, the president of Forensic Instincts and a brilliant analyst of human behavior. On either side of her were two hot guys—one dark and brooding, the other sexy and charismatic—Marc Devereaux and Ryan McKay, respectively. Marc was Casey’s right hand, a former navy SEAL and former FBI agent in the Behavioral Analysis Unit in Quantico, Virginia. Quite simply, there was nothing Marc couldn’t do or couldn’t make happen. Ryan was nothing short of a techno-wizard and a strategy genius.

The willowy blonde who looked like a fairy princess was Claire Hedgleigh. Emma didn’t quite get what it meant, but Claire was a claircognizant and had an amazing psychic gift that took her into scary but productive places to help solve cases. The older conservative-looking guy was Patrick Lynch, a retired FBI agent with over three decades of law enforcement experience, and who grounded the team when they pushed the boundaries a little too far. Oh, yeah, and the cool bloodhound sitting up tall, ears erect, was Hero—an FBI-trained human-scent evidence dog whose olfactory sense was second to none.

Pretty thorough, Emma thought with an internal grin.

“Job candidate Emma Stirling,” Yoda supplied. “Twenty-two years old. Currently unemployed and available immediately. Have a seat at the table, Ms. Stirling.”

“Yes, sir,” Emma replied, looking around to see where the voice was coming from. It was the same voice that had greeted her in the doorway.

She placed her tote bag in the empty chair next to Patrick, but remained standing.

With self-taught courtesy, she proceeded to walk around the conference room table, shaking hands with each team member. First, she squatted down to stroke Hero’s ears. “He’s great. What’s his name?” she asked.

“Hero,” Patrick responded. He helped her to her feet and shook her hand. “I’m Patrick Lynch. Nice to meet you.”

“Same here.” She moved on to Marc and Ryan, who were sizing her up as they greeted her. She made sure to touch each man’s arm with her left hand. Men appreciated that in business introductions.

As she approached Claire and Casey, she tripped and toppled forward, struggling to right herself as they caught her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her face turning bright red. “I get clumsy when I’m nervous. And I’ll never get used to high heels.”

“We hear you,” Casey said with a chuckle. There wasn’t a woman alive who didn’t understand the battle between fashion and comfort.

“We certainly do,” Claire echoed, intent on putting the poor girl at ease. “Men don’t have to juggle looking great and professional without limping home. It’s one of the hardships of being a modern woman.”

“Thank you for understanding.” The color was fading from Emma’s cheeks as she regained some of her composure. Sheepishly, she made her way back to her seat and gratefully sank into it.

Once she was settled, Yoda continued. “Application and résumé displayed on the main screen.”

As he spoke, the large middle screen lit up, and Emma’s paperwork appeared, the pages arranged side by side.

“That’s just the good stuff,” she told them, having glanced up at the information displayed. “I’m sure you know the rest.”

“We do.” Casey leaned forward and studied the young woman. “We’ve all read every word. The bottom line—you were a juvie. According to our research, you were guilty of a lot more than you were convicted of. You were incredibly good at getting off.”

Emma startled. “What?”

“Not the reaction you were expecting?” Casey asked. “Sorry. We’re nothing if not thorough. We’re also not easily shocked. Or were you hoping we would be and that we’d bounce you out of here so you could feel vindicated and like you’d put one over on us?”

“I...” Emma was visibly taken aback.

“I like the wide-eyed innocent thing,” Ryan commented. “You’ve got a great combo going there—a disarming exterior and an iron core.”

“You’re smart, too,” Marc added. “You did research on each one of us.” He read the surprised widening of her eyes that she fought to conceal. “The way you studied each of us as you walked around—which you made sure to do,” he explained, answering her unspoken question. “Like you were making mental connections. That was your tell.”

“Wow, you people are just like the articles say.” For the first time, Emma looked impressed. “So let’s say I came here to mess with your minds, and you figured me out. You also guessed I was a lot guiltier than my record shows. Then why are you interviewing me?”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Casey asked.

“You just said so yourself. I’m a criminal.”

“A former criminal,” Patrick qualified.

“And a good one,” Ryan said, ignoring Patrick’s scowl. “Here at Forensic Instincts, we not only admire excellence, we demand it. Also, you’ve got guts. Guts are a requirement for working here.”

“True,” Casey said.

“Plus your background piqued our interest,” Claire couldn’t help but interject. She pointed at herself. “And before you size me up further, yes, I am the soft touch of the team. I felt a pang of compassion when I read your history. That’s the upside. The downside is that none of my team members is as squishy as I am. So you’ll have some convincing to do.”

Emma acknowledged that with a nod. “I figured as much.”

Casey raised her chin. “Do you want this job?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because it sounds way cooler than the other jobs I was applying for.”

“But you didn’t think you’d get it.”

“Truthfully? No.”

“Honesty. Another refreshing virtue.” Casey glanced around the table, making eye contact with each team member and reading their reactions.

Emma used that time to look around again, puzzled as her gaze searched the room. “I don’t know where it’s based, but I like your virtual intelligence system. How come you didn’t make that your assistant?”

“Smart girl,” Ryan muttered.

“Because Yoda is overworked,” Marc answered for the group.

“Yoda?” Emma grinned. “Great name.”

“Really smart girl,” Ryan muttered again.

Only half listening to Ryan’s wisecracks, Casey was eyeing Emma as their job applicant kept asking questions. What was going on in that cunning little blond head?

The girl was sharp. She was a walking contradiction. And she had a curious mind. She had the brains and the balls to fit right in.

But was she trustworthy? Loyal? Those were key requirements in Casey’s hiring practice.

Only one way to find out.

At that moment, Emma pushed back her chair and rose. “I want this job. What do I have to do to get it?”

“Prove yourself,” Casey responded.

“How?”

“A probationary period. Say, three months. Minimum wage. Show me unwavering loyalty to Forensic Instincts—the company and the team. Hard work. Good work. No bullshit. No games. Up front all the way. Then we’ll talk.”

“Fair enough.” Emma paused, chewing her lip. “In that case, I guess I should start out on the right foot, boss.” She reached into her tote bag and groped around for a minute. “Here you go.” She pulled out Patrick’s wallet, Claire’s bangle bracelet, Marc’s switchblade, Casey’s day planner and Ryan’s iPhone, placing each item in front of its respective owner. “No bullshit. No games. Up front all the way.”

You could have heard a pin drop as the team members each stared at their just-confiscated belongings.

“And who knows?” Emma added with an impish grin. “I might even teach you guys a thing or two.”