Violet Darger | Book 8 | Countdown To Midnight

by Vargus, L. T.

  On stage, Deputy Chief Wickett handed Jackson a binder filled with paperwork and forms and her shiny new credentials. A photo was taken. And then she received the envelope.

  Darger held her breath. Watched Jackson stare down at the rectangle of white paper in her hands.

  The agent peeled the top flap up and pulled out the sheet of paper inside.

  Swallowed.

  Darger remembered living through that moment. Standing in almost the exact place on stage. Clutching that piece of paper that held her first assignment. A single sheet of paper that seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. It felt so strange, to know that this wispy page held so much weight. It knew the next chapter of your life.

  When she unfolded it, there would be Before and After.

  Jackson licked her lips and opened the letter. Her eyes flicked back and forth across the page. Her eyelids fluttered. A subtle lift of the eyebrows. Surprise? Excitement? Alarm?

  “Well, what is it, Jackson? Where ya headed?” one of the other newly minted agents called out.

  Jackson blinked again, startled from her private moment. Her cheeks went pink when she realized she was still standing at the head of the auditorium, all eyes on her. But she recovered quickly, holding the letter high.

  “New Orleans.”

  The room erupted in applause, as it had after every previous announcement.

  The deputy chief stepped to the podium and spoke into the microphone.

  “I just want to say again, how proud we are to have these fine ladies and gentlemen joining our ranks. I know that each and every one of you will make a valuable asset to the Bureau for years to come. Thank you.”

  There was more clapping as the formal portion of the graduation ceremony came to a close. The audience began to disperse. Family members of the new agents hurried over to congratulate their loved ones. The various instructors and supervisors headed for the refreshment area.

  Loshak turned to Darger, eyes sparkling.

  “Almost time for the best part of the ceremony.”

  “Are you talking about the badge-shaped sugar cookies?” she asked.

  “You’re god-damned right I am.”

  He rubbed his hands together, eliciting a snort from Darger.

  “I still don’t understand your obsession,” she said. “They’re good, but not that good.”

  “Hey, I’m not the only one.” Loshak cocked his head toward the refreshment table. “Will you look at those vultures? They all know the cookies are coming out any second now, and they are ready to pounce.”

  Darger shook her head.

  “See, I have a theory about the cookies — about why everyone talks about them. It’s scarcity. They only get made for the graduation ceremony, right? For some reason, that captures all of your imaginations, turns you into raccoons clutching after something shiny. It’s like Girl Scout cookies. You know that Keebler makes those cookies? You can literally buy most of them in the store under different names. Thin Mints are Grasshoppers. Samoas are Caramel Coconut Dreams or something like that. People act like the ones they buy from the Girl Scouts are somehow superior, because they’ve been made to believe they’re scarce. Only available certain times of year. But it’s not real. It’s an illusion.”

  Loshak pursed his lips.

  “Your analogy doesn’t hold up. The badge cookies can’t be bought at the store. They’re made fresh, right here in the kitchens, and those ladies down there protect the recipe like a dragon guards its gold.”

  “You’ve actually tried to get the recipe?” Darger asked. She tried to imagine Loshak bribing a lady wearing a hairnet with a $50 bill or perhaps the promise of sexual favors.

  “No, I just assume it’s a secret recipe. It has to be.” Before Darger could respond, Loshak elbowed her. “There they are. Let’s go.”

  Two women had appeared with trays of cookies and Darger could see the other FBI personnel holding back the urge to mob them before they could even set the trays down.

  Loshak was already on his feet, making a beeline for the cookies.

  “Who’s the vulture now?” Darger muttered.

  Loshak had already wolfed down half of his first cookie by the time Darger reached him. She poured herself a cup of punch.

  “Don’t forget to chew,” she said.

  “Keep cracking jokes,” he said, shoving the second half of the cookie into his mouth. “All that yapping leaves no time for eating cookies, and that means more for me.”

  Darger chuckled and took a cookie.

  Loshak scanned the room and gestured toward a slender dark-haired woman.

  “Fabroa seemed to have a knack for the forensic psychology stuff,” he said. “Where’d she end up, again?”

  “Dallas, I think.”

  Loshak nodded and sipped his punch.

  “I’ll keep tabs on her. See how she matures these first few years. She could be BAU material.”

  “Looking to replace me?” Darger teased.

  “Maybe,” Loshak said. “I’m not sure I can stay partnered with someone who doesn’t respect the cookies.”

  They stood near the door, and Darger became aware of one of the new graduates having a phone conversation just outside.

  “Thanks. I kind of can’t believe it’s over,” the man said and let out a strained laugh.

  There was a pause.

  “Uhhh… well. I got Cleveland.” The man waited for the other person to respond. “I know, but it’s not permanent, you know? They move people around all the time.”

  Darger cringed, wondering for the first time what this process must be like for someone with a family. It was one thing to sign yourself up for the FBI Academy roulette wheel. It was something else to expect your whole family to go along for the ride with you.

  “No, that isn’t how it works,” he was saying now. “They don’t take requests. And it’s kind of a take it or leave it thing.”

  Loshak nudged her.

  “So where’d you want to end up?”

  Apparently she hadn’t been the only one eavesdropping.

  “I didn’t care.” She shrugged. “Not really.”

  “Come on. Everyone has a preference. They want exotic, like Hawaii. Or somewhere exciting, with a lot of action, like New York City.”

  “I wanted to be here. At Quantico, with the BAU,” Darger said. “But no one gets that straight out of the academy, so I knew I’d have to work my way through those first few years. They could have sent me to Bumfuck, North Dakota, and I would have been happy.”

  “Ah! So North Dakota was at the bottom of your list.”

  “That’s not what I said.” Darger took a bite of her cookie before she went on. “Although it does seem very cold. And very rural.”

  “See, I knew you wouldn’t want any of the quiet, out-of-the-way places. You wanted to be down there in the muck, getting your hands dirty.”

  “That’s me. The Queen of Filth.”

  Loshak smirked, and then his eyes locked on someone across the room.

  “Is that Rodney Malenchuck? I haven’t seen him in ages. I should go say hi.”

  Darger followed his gaze.

  “I can’t help but notice he’s standing conveniently close to one of the cookie trays.”

  “A serendipitous coincidence,” Loshak said, trying to sound innocent. “You coming?”

  “I’ll be over in a minute. I want to hit the ladies’ room before everyone else has a bladder full of punch.”

  Darger went across the hall to the bathroom. As she was washing her hands, Venus Jackson came in, sniffling and holding back tears.

  Jackson halted abruptly when she noticed she wasn’t alone.

  “Oh. Special Agent Darger.” She wiped her sleeve across her cheek. “God, this is embarrassing. I swear I don’t usually cry over this kind of thing.”

  Darger tugged a paper towel from the dispenser and passed it to Jackson.

  “New Orleans isn’t so bad, you know. Good food. Good music.”

  “It’s
not that.” Jackson shook her head and looked down at her feet. “I’m just…”

  “Overwhelmed?”

  Jackson nodded.

  “You’re thinking: I can’t believe this is actually happening. I can’t believe I’m an actual FBI agent. And so there’s excitement. And the relief of the grueling tests being over, finally. You made it through the pepper spray. You completed the mile-and-a-half run. You took the punches to the head and came out on the other side. But then there’s doubt, too. A little voice that says, Wait. Me? I’m not an FBI agent. I don’t actually know what I’m doing. They handed me an assignment and some credentials, but that doesn’t magically transform me into a special agent. What if I’m not cut out for this? What if everyone figures out that I have no idea what I’m doing?”

  Jackson’s eyes went wide.

  “That’s exactly it! How did you know?”

  “It’s called Impostor Syndrome. This irrational fear that you’re less competent than everyone thinks, combined with a fear that you’ll be found out. That everyone will learn you’re a fraud.”

  “You had it, too?” Jackson asked.

  “Oh yeah. I think everyone has it, on some level. I would bet that every cadet in that room has it, too. Well, maybe not the narcissists.”

  Jackson cocked her head to one side.

  “Wouldn’t a narcissist get weeded out during the Personality Assessment on the Phase 1 Exam?”

  One side of Darger’s mouth quirked upward.

  “Not always. I actually think the Bureau lets some narcissistic personalities in. How else are they going to fill the upper management positions?”

  Jackson let out a surprised laugh and hurried to put a hand over her mouth.

  “Making jokes like that seems like the kind of thing that would get you into trouble around here.”

  “Oh sure,” Darger said. “If an ASAC heard that remark, I’d probably get a formal reprimand. I think it’s a requirement of any of the top brass jobs that you surrender your sense of humor.”

  Jackson stepped to one of the mirrors and checked her makeup.

  “OK, so if everyone feels this way — the impostor syndrome way — what do they do? Because I really don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Of course you don’t. This is all new for you. But you’ll figure it out as you go.” Darger put a hand on her shoulder. “And if you want to know a little secret: the FBI is a bureaucracy like any other. Learn how to color in the lines the way your boss likes, and you’ll be fine.”

  Darger heard Loshak’s voice in her head: How is it you can dish out this kind of advice but are incapable of following it yourself?

  Jackson dabbed at her eyes one last time and turned to face Darger. She put out a hand.

  “Thank you, Special Agent—”

  Darger took her hand, interrupting before she could finish.

  “It’s just Darger now. And it’s no problem, Jackson,” she said with a wink.

  Jackson smiled as she wadded up the paper towel and tossed it in the trash bin.

  Back in the auditorium, Darger paused inside the door, searching for her partner. She spotted Loshak hovering near the refreshments table and wondered if he’d been stuffing down cookies the entire time she’d been gone. But then he turned, and she saw the phone pressed to his ear and the grim set of his jaw.

  Darger’s spine straightened. A case?

  He caught sight of her and started her way.

  By the time he reached her, he was already ending the call.

  “Uh-huh,” he said. “We’ll head out immediately.”

  He tucked the phone back into his pocket and met her eyes.

  “We’ve got an assignment.”

  CHAPTER 2

  They’d lucked out and waited less than an hour for a flight to New York. Now Darger was slouched in the passenger seat of a rented Nissan, watching the heat distortion blur the concrete on the sides of the road.

  The drive from LaGuardia airport to the crime scene in East Hampton would take over two hours. Darger got out her phone and scrolled through the briefing they’d been sent by the local field office.

  Gavin Passmore. Blown to bits when he opened a package containing a bomb. And since the package had originated in New Jersey and thus crossed state lines, the case was instantly under federal jurisdiction.

  “Says here this guy is an actor. Don’t recognize the name,” she said. “His picture looks familiar, but I can’t place him.”

  Loshak nodded and merged onto Grand Central Parkway.

  “Yeah, Agent Fredrick mentioned something about that on the phone. He been in anything I’d know?”

  Darger found Passmore’s profile on IMDB.com and ran down his list of credits.

  “He was a regular on some sitcom for a while, but that was a few years ago, and I definitely never watched it.”

  “Well if you haven’t seen it, I’ve definitely never seen it.”

  “He’s also been a guest on a lot of stuff. All the shows that shoot in New York, looks like. Law & Order. Blue Bloods. The Good Fight.”

  “Never seen any of those either,” Loshak said.

  “You’ve never seen an episode of Law & Order?”

  “Maybe part of one here or there. But I can’t watch shows about fictional murders when I deal with the real thing every day.”

  They passed a construction site where a large cube of steel and concrete was being erected. Probably another parking structure, Darger thought before returning to what Loshak had said.

  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t watched any of that kind of stuff since I became an agent. I thought it was the lack of free time, but I think you’re onto something.” Her eyes dropped to her phone. “Still, this guy looks too familiar. I must know him from something.”

  Darger left IMDB and simply typed the actor’s name into Google. One of the results at the top of the page was a YouTube video of a coffee commercial. She played it and instantly recognized Gavin Passmore standing at a kitchen island. Steam coiled up from the mug in front of the actor, a smile that could only be described as cocky curling the corners of his lips. As he lifted the mug, Passmore’s gaze locked onto the gleaming black surface of the coffee, and then as he blinked, his eyes pivoted to look straight into the camera — the brashness of the smile somehow intensifying. His voice came out deep and textured with fine grit sandpaper.

  “He’s the guy from those coffee commercials! The ‘rich brew’ guy.”

  At the next traffic light, she held out her phone for Loshak to see.

  “Oh right… ‘When I’m in the mood for a rich brew, I make a cup of Café Castro Midnight.’”

  Darger chuckled at the impression, Loshak’s voice having gone gravelly and low-pitched.

  “Yep. That’s him.”

  Even with the Nissan’s air conditioner blasting, it felt like a city summer in the car — that August sunlight glinting off the concrete, angling through the windows, generally trying to scorch everything it touched.

  They motored through the urban sprawl of the city. Apartment complexes and condos. Churches and liquor stores. And traffic. Unending traffic.

  This was New York. Roughly seven million people crammed onto a 1400-square-mile spit of land. She averaged it out in her head. Five-thousand people per square mile. The residential buildings here were more like giant sardine cans.

  Darger scanned the file again. It was short. So short she could read the entire thing in about five minutes. She wished she had more, but they were coming in on this one early. The team on the ground had only had time to send them the barest of details before she and Loshak hopped on the plane in Virginia. And now that same team probably had their hands full processing the gruesome scene.

  She squirmed a little in her seat, antsy to get to the East Hampton home where the bomb had detonated. She tried to not look at the clock, knowing it would only annoy her to see how much further they still had to go. She made it a whole minute before caving. Eyes flicking. Numbers read. Sure e
nough, they still had almost two hours to go.

  The further they drove, the less the buildings and houses crowded the sides of the highway. The trees filled in, and the neighborhoods she spotted through the greenery looked more and more suburban. Tightly packed houses instead of concrete behemoths. Here and there a brick wall divided the side of the highway with whatever lay on the other side. Probably apartment buildings. Or maybe a golf course or hotel. These people wanted to live near the big city, but they didn’t want to see half a million cars zipping by on the expressway every time they looked out the window.

  She checked her email, hoping for an unexpected update from the local field agents. Nothing. She tossed her phone into her bag and swiveled to face Loshak.

  “So why does someone target a B-list actor with a mail bomb?”

  Loshak shrugged.

  “Could be anything. Professional jealousy. Angry ex-girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Maybe he had a stalker.”

  “Someone obsessed with the Café Castro guy, huh? I guess that sitcom had some big fans, even if it’s been a few years. I saw some headlines suggesting there have been rumors of a reunion. But I wonder…”

  Darger trailed off there. After a second, Loshak spurred her on.

  “What?”

  “I mean, it could turn into a serial thing. Lots of bombings do, you know?”

  Loshak waited a second. Then let out a sigh and shrugged.

  “There’s always something so… ambitious about a bombing,” Loshak said. “It takes research and effort and planning to make a bomb. So I can see where you’re coming from. But we should probably let the evidence and background fill in before we start leaping to any grand conclusions.”

  “But if this was as simple as a personal vendetta, they could have taken him out with a gun. Or a knife. Hired goons with baseball bats.” She gazed out the window and frowned. “A bomb is so over the top.”

  They were quiet for a few moments, and then Darger shook her head slowly.

  “I have a feeling this is just the beginning.”

  CHAPTER 3

  On the far end of the island, they swapped the Long Island Expressway for a two-lane country road. They rolled through quaint little neighborhoods with yards bordered by picket fences and rose bushes. They passed vineyards and orchards and historic inns. The sprawling shingle style homes and Colonial Revivals with their expansive lawns were a far cry from the massive apartment buildings looming over the city just a couple of hours away.