by Robin Mahle
“Hey,” Duncan leaned into Kate’s doorway. “Welcome back.”
“Same to you,” Kate replied.
“Fisher’s ready. We’re meeting in the conference room.”
“Right behind you.” Kate gathered her files and followed Duncan.
“Okay, folks. It’s late. We’re all tired and want to go home,” Fisher began. “Let’s get up to speed on the day’s events so we can start fresh in the morning. Scarborough, why don’t you get us off the ground.”
“Duncan and I flew out to L.A. and met with the Riverside field agent. An agreement was reached to allow his witness to obtain a temporary visa in exchange for his statement.” Nick reached into his files. “This was the sketch they came up with.”
“I immediately got on the phone with Agent Palmero in Houston where he transmitted the sketch that he received from Dr. Valente. I have that right here.” Duncan slid it toward the middle of the table.
“And this is what our primary suspect looks like.” Walsh tossed a picture onto the table. “It looks to me like we have ourselves a match to one Dr. Theodore Bishop.”
“But it doesn’t stop there,” Kate began. “Levi and I were in Providence and tracked down the medical school records of Bishop after Fisher was kind enough to call in a few favors to get us a speedy warrant. We also talked to a few people at the hospital where Bishop served his residency.”
“It turned out that most everyone who either worked with him or went to school with him knew there was something off,” Walsh added. “But no one did anything about it. Bishop skated through his medical training. None of the higher-ups bothered to call him out when something smelled funny.”
“Are we all in agreement then?” Fisher scanned the room. “We hunt down Bishop and bring him in as a suspect?”
“We need Palmero’s help,” Nick said. “This was his initial investigation and while it appears to span across California as well, I think it has to go to Palmero to bring him in.”
Fisher nodded. “Agreed. Does anyone happen to know where we can find Bishop?”
“According to the National Registry, Bishop works for a station in Charlotte,” Kate said. “We should gather the team and head to Charlotte.” She peered back at Nick. “Palmero can take the lead.”
“Just bear in mind that we’re still a long way from proving anything right now,” Fisher added. “We have no conclusive evidence that it was Bishop who intentionally caused the deaths of these rescue victims. Only that he was spotted with them. And the validity of at least one of the witnesses could be in question.”
“Riverside’s witness,” Nick said.
“Yep.”
“What about the wrongful death suit?” Kate asked.
“Wrongful death implies negligence, not intentional homicide,” Fisher replied. “What we need is hard evidence. Without a doubt, there’s enough here to bring him in for questioning, which is what I suggest we get lined up now. Scarborough, let’s huddle up in my office and we’ll call your buddy, Palmero. We need him to head to Charlotte where the rest of us will meet up with him.” Fisher looked around. “Let’s all go home and get some sleep. I have a feeling tomorrow will be a wild day.”
15
When Nick and Kate were at home together, they relished in each other’s company. The moments were rare, and they took full advantage of them whenever possible. Tonight was different. They returned home separately, and Nick was already inside when Kate opened the door.
“You beat me.” She secured the door behind her.
Nick was in the kitchen with his head in the refrigerator. He pulled up. “Hey. I noticed you and Walsh talking and didn’t want to interrupt so I just took off. You hungry? I can whip up something for us.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine.” She placed her coat on the hook near the door and set down her carrier bag. “Wouldn’t mind a big glass of water, though.” She walked into the kitchen.
Nick filled up a glass from the fridge. “Here you go.”
“Thank you.”
“Well, I’m starving. You don’t mind if I make something, do you?” He pulled out a package of hotdogs and buns.
“Not at all.” Kate returned to the living room and kicked off her shoes before dropping to the sofa sectional. “Fisher seems to have a handle on the investigation, don’t you think?”
“Absolutely. I appreciate how he’s handled all of this. Considering this was a buddy of mine who asked for help.” Nick pulled the dogs from the microwave and lined them with ketchup inside the bun.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to say anything, but Fisher asked me what I thought of Palmero.”
“Why would he ask you that?” Nick shoveled half the dog into his mouth while standing at the breakfast bar.
“He thinks Palmero might be a suitable candidate for Quinn’s job,” Kate replied.
Nick choked down the food. “What? I had no idea Palmero was interested in a move to Quantico, let alone in that position.”
“I’m not sure he is. Fisher made it seem like he might consider it though, were they to discuss it.”
“It would be a promotion for him.” Nick wiped away a spot of ketchup from his lip. “Palmero’s a hell of an agent but this would be a new challenge. I’m surprised Fisher would take him into consideration.”
“Well, it could be a case of just trying to fill a list.” Kate sat up when Nick returned to the sofa. “I like the guy. I just don’t know him well enough to make an assessment. I might get that chance, though, since he’s meeting us in Charlotte tomorrow.” She studied his face and with her thumb, gently rubbed at the corner of his mouth. “You missed a spot.” She held his gaze and smiled. “So much has happened. So much has changed.”
“Change isn’t always a bad thing,” Nick replied. “We can get better. We can be better.”
“Nick, I know this demotion has affected you. How could it not? But you don’t talk about it. You haven’t gotten mad or yelled or screamed about it. I have no idea how you feel because you won’t tell me.”
“How can I get mad at something I brought on myself? It’s not fair to Cam. It’s not fair to the team, or you. I made my bed, Kate. What can I do but accept it and move on?”
“Maybe I want you to be mad.” She turned away. “Maybe I want you to feel something about what happened in Rio. About how angry I was with you when you sided with Quinn.”
“I didn’t side with him…”
“You did. You said I shouldn’t have asked Dwight to follow him and that he had the right to be concerned by that. I mean, the guy was blackmailing us. What was I supposed to do?”
“I don’t want to go through this again,” Nick sighed. “We’ve been having this argument for months now and nothing changes. You get pissed, I feel like shit and we go to bed and start all over the next day as if none of it happened. You’re facing censure, Kate. You should be preparing for the hearing. The outcome could change the trajectory of the rest of your career.”
“I know that. Quinn gets a nice cushy transfer. I get censured.”
“Not yet you haven’t. It hasn’t been decided yet,” Nick added. “But that doesn’t change the fact that you haven’t forgiven me for what I did in Rio. I haven’t forgiven myself either. But the idea you haven’t; that’s what I can’t take.”
He was right. They’d circled around this same argument for months and it was usually Kate who brought it up. It had just become so infuriating that Nick refused to get angry about Cole’s decision to demote him. But maybe what it was really about was that he refused to get angry at her. He wouldn’t engage her, and she felt she had beaten him down as a result. It was as if he’d become a man with no fight left in him. A man who had given up on his dream; given up on her.
Kate turned back to him and placed her hands on his cheeks. “You were a man to be reckoned with. A man who stood down for no one if he thought he was in the right. When we first met, and you barged into my hotel room and Marshall was with me. The look on your face. I�
��ll never forget it. You looked at him as if he should have been ashamed of himself.”
“I was a different man then. Yeah, I knew he shouldn’t have slept with you. He was a cop and you were the victim. But on looking back, how am I any different now?”
She pulled away her hands. “I’m no longer a victim, for one thing. But I need to know you still have that fire inside you. That fight to stand up for what you believe. You pulled me out of a hole I’d fallen in after Marshall died. You convinced me I was on this earth for a purpose and you showed me that purpose. I’ll never be able to repay that. But something changed somewhere along the line.”
“I fell in love with you. I did everything in my power to protect you from the Bureau and from yourself.”
“But I didn’t need to be protected,” Kate said. “That’s where all this went wrong. It isn’t just about the drinking. It isn’t just about Rio. It’s about who I am supposed to be and maybe I’ve been diverting my attention from the heart of the matter. Blaming you for putting the team in danger in Rio.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t. We were all quite capable of handling ourselves, but I put it on you. That wasn’t fair.”
“Kate, what do you want me to do? Scream at you? Will that make you feel better? Do you want me to fight for my old job back because I’m sorry to say, that ship has sailed.” He paused for a moment and studied her. “Do you want me to quit?”
“No. No, of course not.” Kate stood from the sofa.
Nick rose and faced her. “You want me to be who I was when we met. Hungry, wanting to catch every bad guy out there. You want to see the fire in me again.” He moved closer to her and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest.
Kate was surprised by the move and hesitated to give in. Desire quickly overcame her need to pursue the pointless argument. Nick had that effect on her even still. This wasn’t the way to provoke change; they both knew that. But it seemed that once again, the root of the problem would be pushed aside for another day.
Bishop’s shift ended as his partner pulled into the station. He jumped out of the truck and grabbed his reports and medical bag. The sun peaked over the horizon amid the partly cloudy skies and brisk air. Most of the city still slept, but for the few who witnessed the orange and yellow-streaked sky, it made working nights just a little more tolerable.
“Hey man, I’ll see you tonight, right?” Desmond asked. “You aren’t going to bail on me again?”
“I won’t. I’ll see you tonight. Get some sleep.” Bishop watched as his partner left the building. He had other plans and walked into the locker room. “Morning.” He said to another tech.
“Did you just get back?” the man asked.
“Sure did. It was a pretty quiet night though,” Bishop replied.
“Good. Maybe today will be quiet too.” He slung a bag over his shoulder. “I gotta roll out. Catch you later, Bishop.”
“Catch you later.” Bishop had suspected who it was who had left the troubling image in his locker. And he waited for that person to come on shift.
Bishop walked into the breakroom and poured a cup of coffee, keeping a close eye on the back door where the employees entered. It seemed as though his wait was growing too long. His coffee was finished. But then, the man in question arrived.
“Bishop? I’m surprised to see you still here. Shouldn’t you be heading home?” The man asked.
“Yeah. I was just finishing some reports to hand in to the boss. Hey, is that your Mustang out there?”
“It is. She’s a beaut, right?”
“Sure is. I wouldn’t mind checking it out if you have a minute,” Bishop said.
“Sure, why not? Come on. I’ll show you what she’s got.” He grabbed his keys and walked into the parking lot. “It’s cold as shit out here this morning.”
“Yes, sir.” Bishop walked behind him a step or two until they approached the black newer-model Mustang. “Now that right there is a work of art.” He looked to the man. “How the hell did you afford something like this on our salary?”
“The wife and I live with my parents.”
Bishop eyed him, figuring he must’ve been in his mid to late 20s. “Oh, cool. You’re married, huh?”
“Two years. No kids though. Wifey wants to move out of the folks’ house before we start having kids.” He unlocked the driver’s side door. “Get behind the wheel, if you want.”
Bishop smiled and slipped onto the black leather seat. “Nice. Leather seats, too. Very nice.” He caressed the leather-wrapped steering wheel and ran his fingers across the buttons on the center console. “Man, I sure could use some wheels like this.” He stepped out again and pointed to his car. “That’s my piece of shit over there.” While the man gazed over at the car, Bishop grabbed the needle and plunged it into his neck.
He cried out as he grabbed his neck. “What the fuck, man? What did you just do? You crazy son of a bitch!”
“You think I don’t know it was you who drew that picture? You have no idea what I’m capable of.” He held the man’s gaze. “Well, I guess you do now.”
As the man’s legs wobbled, Bishop lowered him onto the driver’s seat. He checked for onlookers, but no one was around. Upon turning back to the man, he shook his head. “I’ll bet your parents will be glad you won’t be taking up space in their house anymore. Maybe your wife can find a real man.” Bishop closed the car door and headed to his own car, pulling away before anyone noticed what had happened.
It had been an impulse move. An idea he couldn’t shake during his shift last night. There was nothing he despised more than being mocked. These pissants who thought they were smarter than he was. If he’d planned it right, thought it through, he could’ve covered his ass, but the guy pissed him off. Just like his co-worker Lucinda had before he left for Nassau. She’d laughed at something he’d said at dinner. The first dinner he made for the department, and so he put eye drops in her chili. She missed two days of work and thought she had the flu. No one suspected a damn thing. This time wouldn’t be so easy to cover up.
The team was on the first flight to Charlotte. Agent Palmero was en route and scheduled to arrive an hour after their flight. A briefing had been arranged with the Charlotte FBI Field Office in order to bring up to speed the local office and the Charlotte Police.
On arrival, the operation would split into two. One team to go to Bishop’s apartment building and one team to go to his place of employment. In the early hours of the morning, Walsh had been on the phone with the Charlotte Police who said they would assist in Bishop’s arrest when he returned from his shift. No one wanted to spook him, and the operation had to be covert.
The landing gear dropped, and Kate flinched. She’d gotten better at controlling her nerves while flying and only occasionally reacted.
Nick squeezed her hand. “Almost there.”
She smiled in return. Last night had brought back the man Kate wanted, if only in the personal sense. He’d summoned a passion she hadn’t felt from him in too long. Maybe they were breaking through the wall between them. Maybe this was the first step, reestablishing the love they had for each other. It seemed as though that was never really in question. They could love. It was the rest of it that had begun to crumble around them.
The door opened and the team deplaned from the private jet operated by the BAU.
“The Charlotte Field Office sent a car for us,” Walsh said as he started into the aisle. “We’ll wait for Palmero there.”
“Good. Thanks.” Nick followed behind while Kate waited for Duncan.
“I expected to see Fisher with you,” Kate said as Duncan walked along the aisle.
“He decided to hang back and didn’t think we needed him to come along for this,” she replied.
“Oh.” Kate started ahead. “Guess I should get used to Fisher’s management style.”
“He might be wanting to play it safe for right now. Hands off and all that,” Duncan added. “But I wouldn’t
count on it staying that way.”
They made their way down the staircase and onto the tarmac where a woman stood in front of an SUV.
“Morning. I think you’re our ride.” Nick offered his hand. “I’m SSA Scarborough. This is the team. Agents Walsh, Reid and Duncan.”
“Good morning. I’m Agent Bingham, Sarah Bingham. Hop in. I’ll take you to our office.”
Kate hadn’t worked with a lot of women at the Bureau, with the exception of a handful. Vasquez, for one and now Duncan. There was Georgia Myers, but Kate preferred not to think about her if she could help it. So she was always pleased to meet another female agent. She’d come to learn that it was sometimes easier to get certain things accomplished with a female counterpart than a male one. All stereotypes aside, it was no lie that male agents tended to assert themselves more. As if they felt less secure in who they were. Women didn’t do that so much, not from what Kate had seen so far.
“What area do you work in, Agent Bingham?” Kate asked as they stepped inside.
“CID. Narcotics trafficking.”
Kate nodded. “Nice.”
The FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division, or CID, was part of a larger department inside the Bureau and handled a wide range of investigations. Drug trafficking was just one.
Bingham started the engine. “The office isn’t far. Should take about half an hour to get there.”
Nick was in the passenger seat. “Another agent is flying in from Houston and should be here in about an hour.”
“I’m aware. They’re sending another car for Agent Palmero.” Bingham pulled away from the curb. She looked to be in her early thirties and wore her blonde hair in a pixie cut; very short, but neatly styled. Her skin was fair and dotted with light freckles at her nose. The conservative cut of her pants suit complimented her boyish figure.
