Chapter Two

The Agent

The heated porcelain of the mug warmed my hands. Rather, it was the still-steaming joe inside it that did the trick. Inhaling slowly, I took in the rich scent of the Ethiopian coffee. That smell that clung to coats, soft shirt collars, and the drab office walls of the Bureau of Investigation. I loved that smell—so thick and black you could taste it without the risk of burning your tongue.

But I didn’t take a sip. I only drank coffee if I needed to, which wasn’t often. Being an insomniac, my brain was just wired that way. Helpful for stakeouts.

“How is it, Mr. Clemmons?”

I looked up to see Miss Lowensky watching me with baby-blue eyes and an eager smile, leaning on the edge of her chair. She had rolled away from the desk a bit, freeing her dark mid-calf skirt and stocking legs from their prison. The typewriter in front of her was untouched—and had remained untouched since I walked through the door.

Lifting the mug in a cheers-like motion, I returned her smile. “Best cup o’ joe in all of DC, ma’am.”

Miss Lowensky flushed with happiness, her pale cheeks coloring under her cheaters, and she leaned forward a bit more, her blonde bob brushing her jaw. “Well, you just let me know if I can get you anything else.” As she spoke, her voice dropped an octave in an almost purr.

While most nineteen-year-old men would jump at the chance to neck an older, attractive broad like Miss Lowensky—which was surely what her body language and tone were implying she wanted from me—I knew better.

You don’t neck your boss’s secretary.

I’d been going on my own assignments for a year now, and Barbara Lowensky, secretary to Matthew McCarney, head of the BOI’s Specialized Organized Crime Division—SOCD for short—had been making me coffee for only two months. She still had yet to realize that I never drank any of it.

I raised the mug to my lips and pretended to take a sip of the coffee I hated. It would be too awkward to correct her after all this time. “Thank you, Miss Lowensky.”

“We’ve known each other long enough. Call me Barb,” she insisted, tucking a tress of gold hair behind her ear and looking up at me from under long, mascara-covered lashes. I tried not to blush like a schoolboy and cleared my throat before replying, “Well, um, Barb, call me Colt.”

Barb seemed to almost hop in place with excitement. She leaned further over the arm of her chair, scanning me up and down. “I’ve always thought Colt is a swell name. It’s so…strong. You know, like the gun.”

That seemed to be everyone’s first thought. I preferred to connect my name to its origin, which was the term for a young male horse. But then, maybe my mother had named me after the gun. I’d never known her to ask.

“Is Mr. McCarney free yet?” I set the mug down on the side table and glanced up at the simple clock hanging on the opposite wall. It was coming close to forty minutes. I’d waited for longer before, but today I was antsy. I’d arrived at the BOI at six o’clock in the morning, a mere thirty minutes after I received the call.

It was unusual for me, a junior agent, to be called in so early in the morning. I had no idea what to expect once I stepped through McCarney’s door.

I rubbed my sweating palms on my thighs—blaming them on the steaming mug of joe.

Barb blinked and looked up at the clock on the wall, as if she’d remembered why I was here in the first place.

“I’m sure it won’t be too much longer. Mr. Sawyer is in there with him. They should be wrapping up their meeting.”

“Sawyer? As in Jimmy Sawyer?”

“Yes, that Mr. Sawyer. They’ve been in there since I got here at five thirty.” She leaned further still, this time a conspiratorial lean instead of a flirtatious lean. “Something big happened, Colt. A real sockdollager.”

“You don’t say.” I edged up in my chair. Maybe Barb could give me a clue as to what to expect. Preparation was the mark of a good agent.

“Oh, yes. It’s got Mr. McCarney all in a tizzy. Never had so many calls in and out of the switchboards during the night. I don’t know the details, but something has the SOCD by the storm.”

“Where did it happen?”

Jimmy Sawyer was a field agent. If he was the one debriefing McCarney, it likely happened outside of Washington.

“Boston,” Barb said, her voice a hush as a doorknob rattled.

The office door swung open, revealing the head of the SOCD, Mr. Matthew McCarney, my boss. My legal guardian.

McCarney wore the same clothes from yesterday. In fact, I doubt he’d even left the office. His gray suit was a little rumpled, and a faded coffee stain peeked out from under his vest. Unlike most modern men, McCarney chose to keep with the three-piece suits and starched collars.

“Clemmons,” he addressed me wearily, running a hand over his trimmed brown hair peppered with silver. He loosened his tie with two fingers. “Let’s get this over with.”

“Yessir.” I stood and nodded toward Barb. “Thanks for the cup o’ joe.”

She gave a close-lipped smile, her finger tapping the side of her jaw as she scanned me up and down.

My cheeks heated uncomfortably.

McCarney raised an eyebrow at his secretary, and Barb ducked her head, scooting her chair back under her desk and returning to her pile of papers. Her fingers danced over the keys in an almost blur, and I realized why she hadn’t bothered to type with me around. She could afford to dawdle—she was the fastest typist I’d ever seen.

McCarney’s office was dim, probably due to the field agent who sat in one of the chairs opposite the big, cheap desk in the center of the room. A ficus plant stood in the corner, the only color brought to the place. The rest of the furniture and walls were shades of gray—the stapler, typewriter, papers, fountain pens, paper clips, and used coffee mugs all blending together in dull government-standard tones.

“Take a seat, Clemmons,” he ordered, walking around his desk then sitting in his own chair that creaked as he leaned backward. “You remember Sawyer.” McCarney nodded to the man in the pinstriped suit.

Like McCarney, Sawyer’s clothes looked a day old. Which was odd. Jimmy Sawyer was a creature of refined taste and expensive fashion, who never skipped out on grooming. What could’ve possibly had him driving from Boston all the way to DC in the middle of the night?

“I do. Good to see you again, sir.” I reached for Sawyer’s hand.

His lip curled, but he extended his gloved hand and shook mine. “I really can’t say the same, Clemmons.”

Not surprising considering most agents hated me. Yes, I was technically too young to be working for the BOI, but here I was, every other week, getting a new assignment, collecting my checks, all thanks to…extenuating circumstances.

In my opinion, there was nothing for Sawyer to be jealous or bitter about. He had the better deal. He was free to roam the country.

But they kept me on a tight leash.

For good reason.

McCarney rested his elbows on his desk, rubbing his temples. “Just brief him, Sawyer.”

“I really think you’re making a mistake, sir. This is too important to let Clemmons take care of it. I mean, this is the biggest threat to national security we’ve had since the war, and you’re going to just entrust her capture to—”

“Clemmons is the strongest hunter we’ve got,” McCarney interrupted, “and we need our strongest to resist her voice.”

I straightened. “Her voice, sir?” Every muscle in my body was wound tight like a coiled spring. Like a bullet the split second before it escaped the chamber. Pressure built up insurmountably inside me.

I glanced at Sawyer. The agent’s jaw was clenched, hating my involvement. Hating that the Bureau relied on me so heavily. They would never give him my responsibilities.

For good reason.

McCarney’s blue eyes narrowed. “Tell him what you saw, Sawyer.”

The senior agent let out a frustrated sigh, then he started his story, slow at first, then gaining speed.

“I was in Boston, at some drum called The Blind Dragon.”

Neither McCarney nor I blinked at a BOI agent visiting a speakeasy. Whether Sawyer was there to do his job—locating any hints of organized crime within the illegal establishment—or partake in some hooch didn’t matter. Prohibition meant little to the BOI. In all honesty, we hated it. All the bootlegging and secrets had paved the way for organized crime to take over. For mob bosses to infest cities and fill the streets with blood.

“And there was this canary. A real looker. Her voice…I ain’t never heard nothing like it before. She sang and no one moved. I forgot where I was. I forgot who I was. Everything. When she stopped singing, the next thing I knew she was over at the bar, pouring a drink. Then these three uni boys start tryin’ to get her to leave with them. The bartender hops over the bar and the leader of the fellas hooks him right in the jaw. The bartender doesn’t even blink until the lad pulls out a revolver.”

“Were you packing heat?” I asked.

Sawyer shot me an annoyed look. “Course I was. Had a Remington in my coat. Didn’t even have time to get to it, though, before the little shit pulled the trigger. Only the bullet didn’t hit. It stopped. Midair. And then just…fell to the ground.”

McCarney and I stared at Sawyer, hanging on every word. My pulse was pounding. My palms were now seriously sweating.

This is it.

“My heart stopped, too,” Sawyer continued, moving a trembling hand to wipe his mouth and rub the day-old scruff on his jaw. “Everything just…stopped. Because of her.”

“The singer?” My voice was barely above a whisper.

Sawyer nodded. “She yelled ‘stop!’ and everything did. The bullet, the patrons in the bar, my own damn breathing.”

Sounds magnified. Barb clacked away on her typewriter through the thin office door. The clock hanging on the gray wall ticked and the ceiling fan whirred above our heads.

McCarney slid his gaze back to me. “We found her, Clemmons. We found the lost siren.”