Nightshades Read Free

having to sit still for so long. He’d been interviewing for the promotion all day, working his way up the chain to Deputy Director Marcia Harding.
    “I feel that I’m the best person to implement the FBI’s evolving mission in Chicago,” he began again. “The operational changes require a dedicated field agent, not just a supervisor—”
    Harding’s eyes narrowed. “Cut the shit, Alex. I didn’t ask you what the job requires, I asked you why you want it. Why on earth would you want to transfer into the BPI at this point in your career?”
    Alex opened his mouth to start again, but before he could speak she added, “And don’t tell me what you think I want to hear. I changed your diapers, I can tell if you’re lying to me.”
    “Yes, ma’am.” Alex took a breath, composing his thoughts. Unlike the last two interviewers, Harding had known him for years. She wasn’t about to just hand over the gig, even knowing no one else wanted it. “I don’t agree with what the media is suggesting about the BPI,” he said carefully. “The director wouldn’t have created the division if she didn’t think the threat from shades was a serious one. I know that internally we consider the BPI a place to send fu—er, screwups and trainees, but I think this division is going to be as important to the Bureau as Counterterrorism was in the early 2000s, or Cyber in the 2010s.”
    She nodded, the suspicious expression finally beginning to clear up a little. Harding was in her midfifties, a naturally rounded woman with short gray hair and gray eyes that had cut right through Alex since she’d babysat him as a child. The trainees had bestowed the rather obvious nickname of “Bureau Battle-ax.”
    “Go on,” she said.
    Alex leaned forward in the visitor’s chair, ticking off points on his fingers. “First off, if I get this job, I’ll be the youngest SAC in the BPI. Even my mother wasn’t a SAC until her late thirties. Secondly, the shades interest me. You know that I majored in biology; I think the science aspect is fascinating. Finally, if I can straighten out this mess in Chicago, I’ll have made my bones in the agency. I’m tired of everyone assuming nepotism got me here.”
And just a little afraid it’s true
, he thought, but knew better than to say out loud.
    Harding cocked a pewter eyebrow. “Ambition? That’s your reason? People are dying.
Agents
are dying, and we’re no closer to understanding why the shades have changed their behavior. Surely a promotion can’t be worth running straight into a death sentence.”
    “Of course not,” Alex said. “But I don’t plan to get killed.”
    “Neither did any of the others.” She sighed heavily. “Your mother wouldn’t want this, Alex. She wouldn’t have wanted you to put your life in even greater danger just to climb the Bureau ladder.”
    Alex felt himself tensing. “With respect, Deputy Director, my mother is dead. She doesn’t want or not want anything anymore. But the fact that she was never a part of the BPI, never a part of the shade investigations, that’s exactly why I want to go.”
    Harding tapped her blunt fingernails against her desk for a moment, eyeing him. Alex fought not to start fidgeting. He could tell from Harding’s face that she wasn’t convinced. “Did you see the
Post
this morning?” she asked finally.
    He nodded. “They’re calling for the Chicago BPI pod to be disbanded altogether. But that can’t be something you’re seriously considering.”
    She just stared at him for a moment, and Alex had to bite down on his indignation. “Ma’am, agents aside, those shades have taken six teenagers and outright killed another. How could the Bureau just let that go?”
    “There’s no conclusive evidence tying the disappearances to the shades,” she pointed out. Before Alex could respond, she raised a hand and added, “I know, the murder of that teenage girl was almost certainly a shade attack, but the outright disappearances . . .