He gathered his coat and soon she was unlocking the shop's front door for him.
“Good day,” he said as he passed by.
Who said “good day” in this century? “Beware of citronella,” she called.
He nodded in appreciation of her parting remark while thrusting his arms into his pea coat.
The brunette who walked by him on the sidewalk gave him a double take.
FBI, FBI.
God, help me.
What was she going to do?
ChapterTwo
FBI agents appreciated many things. Law-abiding citizens. Humor. Courage. Coffee. Promptness. Teasing. Hard work. Team players. Witty operation names.
Jude was handed two of those things—teasing and coffee—when he returned from his meeting with Gemma to his field office inside Bangor's Federal Building. The 1968 structure had been built in a style considered modern in its day. It was boxy and large enough to house the court, the Social Security Administration, the IRS, and more.
After updating his case agent on his interaction with Gemma, he settled at his desk in the bullpen and opened a folder on his computer named Operation Scent-sible—the title his superiors had given the investigation into Cedric. His keyboard clicked as he added to his notes about Gemma. Thinking of her reminded him how mortified she'd looked when the bath gel had hit him in the face. His lips twitched up.
He'd been breathing in the scent of that gel ever since. Flowers and fruit, clean and slightly powdery. It smelled great but also very feminine. His best hope was that none of the other agents smelled it on him.
Focus, Jude.Type.
The FBI of the twenty-first century required a great deal of documentation. He was thorough and organized, the type of agent who met and exceeded the documentation requirements with every case. No subject of his was going to go free because he hadn’t crossed his t's and dotted his i's.
During his high school and college years, he'd planned on a career as an attorney. That choice had been correct in some respects. He'd known himself well enough to understand that pursuing justice was his calling.
But once he'd graduated from Columbia Law School and gone to work as a prosecuting attorney, he realized his choice of profession was also incorrect in some respects. He was firmly ethical, born with a guiding sense of right and wrong. Which was strange, given the personalities and behaviors of his parents. So strange that he had to wonder if he'd developed that sense of right and wrongbecauseof the personalities and behaviors of his parents.
As a prosecutor, he'd struggled when guilty people had gone free despite his efforts and when people he suspected to be innocent had been put away because of his efforts. For two long years, the unfairness of it had scratched at him.
He'd reached two conclusions. One, trial work was not for him. Two, when law enforcement did their job well—when they gathered excellent evidence according to the rules—that multiplied the likelihood that justice would be served.
He came to see that what he really wanted was to be the one gathering evidence. He'd applied to the FBI and been accepted, an accomplishment in its own right seeing as how only five percent of the twelve thousand or so people who applied to the FBI annually made it to the Academy in Quantico.
Upon graduating from that five years ago, he'd ranked his preferred field locations. His first two picks had been New York and Philadelphia, both in the FBI's “Top Twelve” largest field offices. He'd been assigned to his third choice, Maine.
He'd listed Maine because this was where he'd been born and raised. This was the state he knew the best, loved the most. He hadn't lived here year-round since leaving home for college and had valued the chance to work less than an hour and a half from his hometown of Groomsport—where his mother, father, and brothers still lived.
Maine had a lot going for it. However, it wasn't exactly a hotbed of Federal crime, so when an interesting case like Scent-sible landed on his desk, he was even more motivated than usual to handle his workload well. He'd passed Undercover School two years back. Since then, he'd only been assigned to a couple of short-term UC ops run out of the Boston office. Scent-sible was his first UC op run out of his home office and his first international UC op.
Only he and one other agent in this office were cleared for undercover work. The other guy was in his fifties and much more senior. Jude had been chosen for this op because it would have been a stretch to sell Cedric on the idea that Gemma had a boyfriend the age of her father. Also, Jude spoke decent French, which might prove beneficial. Also, Cedric was rich and well educated. Jude's bosses had remarked that Cedric would be more likely to relate to someone as rich and well educated as he.
Across his college and career years, Jude had done everything in his power to be recognized simply for the quality of his work. Even so, with his employers and friends, he’d never been able to escape his famous last name or his upbringing. His bosses knew his history and had given him this assignment, in part, because of it. He intended to succeed with this case not because of birth, but merit—
An administrative assistant named Riley approached his desk. “Here are the files you requested on the Carter case and the Westheimer case.” She handed them over, blushing.
“Thanks.” Carter and Westheimer were open-and-shut cases. But even Jude's open-and-shut cases required him to comb through large amounts of data from surveillance logs, phone transcripts, and more, so that relevant facts could be presented to a judge and jury.
“You’re welcome.” Riley remained, clenching her hands together like an anxious old woman even though she was in her late twenties. She had a long blond bob and the sort of pretty face that would probably make it easy for her to snag a boyfriend. He wished she would. Then she and her boyfriend could be infatuated with each other. Instead, Riley had nursed a crush on him for years.
“How are you?” she asked with the seriousness of a person inquiring about the state of his eternal soul.
“Fine.”
