OUR TEAM MET in the parking lot in Riverside next to the tall blue-glass building that housed the FBI on the top floor. I didn’t look up. I didn’t want them to see me do it and think me jealous of their federal aerie.
Eight o’clock in the morning and the sun already beat down on all things not smart enough to hide out in the shade. I stood by my truck, arms folded, with Ned next to me. Sweat rolled down the side of my cheek. Coffman and Gibbs came up. Coffman took the unlit cigar carcass from his mouth. “Lieutenant Wicks wants a word, Bruno, tonight after shift. Meet him at the office.”
Ned said, “I’ll go with you.”
“I didn’t say Bruno and Kiefer, did I, jackass?” He turned and headed for the double glass doors of the building, obviously still smoldering over yesterday’s caper.
Ned said, “I’m going. It’s not right you taking the heat for this thing. We both did it.”
“Let it go. You’re new to the team. You’ll have plenty of opportunities to get chewed out. Just don’t try and arrest and choke out Wicks. He’ll shoot your dumb ass.”
Ned socked me in the shoulder. “And you wonder why I don’t tell you shit.”
“Come on, let’s get in there.”
“No, really,” he said as he tried to keep up. “Coffman already chewed you out. With Wicks jumping on, it’s the same as stepping on your neck when you’re already down.”
“Wicks isn’t like that. He’s not gonna work me over again. It’s something else.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.” But I wasn’t. Not entirely. We made it to the door and entered.
No one spoke in the elevator on the way up.
On the drive over to the FBI office, Ned didn’t ask what happened the night before after he left me on the porch with Chelsea. He knew I wouldn’t kiss and tell, even if it had gone the other way. In fact, he said little, if anything at all. He’d come in the house, talked with Dad, played with Beth, drank a cup of coffee, and we headed out.
Something was eating at him.
I welcomed the silence. I needed to think things through about Chelsea. I played the night before back in my mind over and over and couldn’t be sure if she was interested in getting back together. She didn’t go for sitting on the couch, but the way her hand lingered in mine when she walked away spoke volumes. Didn’t it? I needed to work up the nerve and just ask her out. Take the big step and ask her to coffee. Just the thought of asking her made my heart race.
The elevator door opened. We disembarked into the empty and sterile FBI waiting area.
The same clerk sat on the other side of the bulletproof glass. She saw us, picked up the phone, dialed, said one sentence, and hung up.
Ned said, “You know, we need to get a key to get in this place. I don’t wanna come here every day and feel like we’re waiting to see the principal, the ugly gal with a big wart on her nose waiting with a big paddle.”
Coffman spoke around the dead cigar in his mouth. “That statement tells me a lot about you, my friend. Just keep in mind that I don’t have a wart, but I do carry a big paddle.”
The door at the side opened. An athletically fit FBI agent in khaki utility pants and a red polo shirt said, “Right this way, gentlemen.” We filed through.
He wore his sandy-brown hair with blond highlights, short on the sides and longer on top like a school kid. He looked like a So Cal resident, with tan skin and blue eyes, who took a day off when good surf conditions hit the coast. This time, he guided us right to the door at the end of the hall that led to the robbery bullpen.
Once inside, he led us straight through the rows of Special Agents, who all looked up and stared. He stopped at Chelsea’s desk. Chelsea looked up, caught my eye, and restrained a smile.
Our guide and escort stuck out his hand to Coffman first. “My name is Jim Turner. From now on, I’ll be your liaison agent. I’m taking over for Agent Miller here.” He looked at Chelsea and smiled.
Just that quick, my heart sank to the bottom of my feet.
The smile wasn’t the big reveal though. It was the way their eyes worked each other over, the intimate depth of knowledge that transferred in that briefest of instants. My God. He and Chelsea were a thing.
Ned moved a step closer and elbowed me. He’d seen it, too.
“Knock it off,” I said too loud. Everyone turned to look. I didn’t move or acknowledge them.
I wanted to sock Special Agent Turner right in his perfectly white teeth, make him eat those enamel chompers like Chiclets gum.
Coffman’s pager went off, disrupting the violent, smoldering undertone. “Excuse me, is there a phone I can use?”
Chelsea looked disturbed. She’d seen my grimace and now knew that I knew her nasty little secret, knew that she’d played me for a fool last night. She said, “Please, use this one.” She handed him the receiver. Coffman dialed. Just that quick, I shifted from lovesick to angry. What a fool I’d been.
The smug Special Agent Jim Turner asked Chelsea, “Can I please have the Bogart case?”
She still looked at me, her expression now one of concern. She worried that I’d make a scene, ruin it between her and her beau, tarnish her newly recovered FBI reputation. I guess she didn’t know me as well as I thought she did.
I said, “I’ll get it. It’s in our stack, right?” I moved to the side of the desk and started to go through the pile assigned to us the day before.
“No,” Chelsea said. “It’s not there.” She pulled open her drawer. “I have it right here.” She took out the fattest file folder I’d ever seen, at least five inches thick. She handed it to me, reached in her drawer again, and came out with two more file folders at least three inches, each. “Raymond Desmond Deforest. We’ve named him ‘The Bogart Bandit.’”
Turner said, “Bogart has robbed eighty-six banks, from San Francisco, down to San Diego. We’ve been looking for him for two years.” He gave me a smug smile.
Ned opened his mouth to make a snarky comment. I shoved the two smaller files into his chest. He said, “Hey, take it easy, partner.”
Coffman hung up the phone. “Sorry to piss in your Wheaties, boys and girls, but we’ve been pulled off. We have to go.”
Chelsea stood. “Hold it. According to the MOU your department signed, you are to be supervised and scheduled by the FBI, unless prior approval has been arranged.”
“Yeah,” Coffman said. “My boss said you might say something like that. So he said I can leave two guys.” He turned to us. “Bruno and Ned, you’re it. Me and Gibbs have to go help run down Frank Duarte.”
“Ah, shit,” Ned said. “Gibbs, you wanna trade?”
“No chance, my brother.”
“Oh,” Chelsea said, “I saw on the news that Frank Duarte killed again last night.”
“That’s right, and the press are starting to crucify the department over it.”
“In that case, I understand.”
Coffman said, “Thanks.”
Gibbs smiled and said, “Hey, Bruno, catch ya on the flip, huh, man? We’re out of here.”
Coffman gave me the stink eye, nonverbally telling me to play nice. He turned and left to catch up with Gibbs.
Turner said, “Not to worry. You two won’t be going out in the field anytime soon. It’s going to take you three days at least to read and digest this file.”
Now angry enough to spit, I looked at Chelsea and said to Turner, “I don’t think it’ll take that long. I’m familiar with the Rollin’ Sixties Crip gang.”
He looked at Chelsea as he said to me, “What are you talking about? This has nothing to do with that gang.” Then it sank in and his confusion shifted to anger as he figured out I’d referenced a case I wasn’t supposed to know about, the special one Chelsea told me about the night before, as we sat together on my porch.
No sense me being angry all by myself.