Whoever was buzzing around those Stillwater accounts was about to become either his greatest ally—or his last mistake.
1
FBI analyst Sarah Wintershad systems for dealing with life's disappointments. Bad coffee from the Bureau's ancient machine? Add extra sugar. Subway delays? Download another true crime podcast. Dead ends in financial investigations? Order Thai food and dig deeper.
But as she stared at her boss's text message, she couldn't think of a single way to make this better.
Call me. NOW.
Sarah pushed her glasses up her nose and glanced at the clock on her laptop. 9:47 p.m. On a Sunday.
Nothing good ever came from late-night summonses. She minimized the seventeen spreadsheets covering her screen—each one a thread in the financial web she'd been untangling for the past month—and reached for her phone.
Her uninspired studio apartment shrank around her as she dialed. The surface of the dining table that doubled as her desk was buried beneath layers of empty coffee cups, takeout containers, and printouts covered in yellow highlighter. Herbert, her optimistically named spider plant,drooped from his perch on the windowsill, looking as exhausted as she felt.
"Winters." Her supervisor's voice cut through before the first ring finished. "About time."
"Sir, I was just?—"
"Pack your bags. You've been selected for the new Inter-Agency Field Readiness Initiative. Transport will pick you up tomorrow at 0600."
Sarah blinked. Surely, she'd misheard. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Field training. Montana. You leave in the morning. Zero-six-hundred pickup."
"But I'm an analyst." The words tumbled out, pitched higher than she'd intended. "I don’t do…outdoors." Or chases. Or scaling fences, or whatever other horrible things “Field training,” probably involved.
"Orders from high up." His tone suggested this wasn't up for debate. "All analysts need field experience now. Some stupidity about building better relationships between desk jockeys and field agents."
Sarah shot a glance at her laptop. A financial transaction from Panama to Cyprus blinked at her like a beacon. After a month of unauthorized digging—carefully hidden behind her official assignments—she was finally close to something.
The biological passport case that the CIA and FBI had declared dead wasn't. Money was still moving. And she was the only one who seemed to care.
"Sir, my caseload?—"
"Will be here when you get back. That CEO’s tax records aren't going anywhere."
If only he knew.
The conglomerate head’s tax records were the perfect cover for her clandestine investigation. Boring enough that no one questioned why she stayed late every night, complex enough to justify the hours of database access.
"How long?" she managed.
"Five days. Consider it a working vacation."
Vacation. Right. "And this is... required?"
"Unless you want to explain to the Deputy Director why you're too special for the same training everyone else has to do."
Sarah closed her eyes. "No, sir."
"Good. Check your email for details. And Winters? Try to have fun. I hear Montana's beautiful this time of year."
The line went dead.
Sarah set down her phone with trembling fingers. Montana. Wilderness. The great outdoors where things had teeth and claws and unreliable Wi-Fi. She touched the small silver cross at her throat, a habit born from years of seeking comfort in moments of uncertainty.
"Okay, Lord," she whispered to the empty apartment. "I'm listening. Though I'm not sure what You're thinking here."
