“I’ve missed you.”
The words were a feather-light whisper, but the impact was that of a two-ton truck ramming into her heart. She hadn’t seen him in person since Gil and Ivy’s wedding in June. They’d spent a lot of time perfecting their friendship before he left for DC. Was this how friends greeted each other after three months apart? Long glances and heartfelt words?
“Zane! You’re here! Good to see you, man!” Luke jogged down the hall and grabbed Zane in a bro hug. They slapped each other on the back several times before breaking apart. “The place isn’t the same without you.”
“Yeah.” Gil joined them, and he and Zane repeated the hug/back-slap procedure that Tessa had long ago concluded must come encoded in the male DNA since they all knew how to do it. “There’s more food in the fridge, and no one paces the halls while they’re on phone calls.”
“I don’t pace.” Zane’s protest was met with three sets of “Yeah, you do.” He turned to Tessa and mimed being stabbed in the heart. “Et tu, Brute?”
“I call it like I see it.” They all laughed and spent the next few minutes catching up.
When Tessa’s phone rang, she answered it with a quick “Reed.”
“Tess, hon,” Leslie, their office manager, said. “Jacob wants everyone in the conference room for a quick brief.”
“We’ll be down in a sec, Leslie. Thanks.” She set the phone back in the holder and turned to see the three men who had stood by her when her mistakes almost destroyed everything she’d worked for. She adored them.
She’d do well to remember that two of them were taken, and the one she wanted didn’t want her back. And if she messed that relationship up, she wouldn’t just lose his friendship. She’d damage almost every meaningful relationship in her current world.
She’d gone it alone for a long time. She couldn’t go back. Friendship was enough. It had to be.
ZANE ALLOWEDHIMSELFone long inhale as he walked beside Tessa to the conference room. The scent he associated with only her—a hint of citrus and flowers with a faint kick of cinnamon—swirled around him.
It was good to be home.
It was torture to be home.
He wouldn’t be a distraction to her. He would be a friend. Her best friend.
He, Gil, and Luke all paused to allow Tessa to enter the conference room ahead of them in a combination of chivalry and respect, both of which she deserved. And based on the smile she tossed over her shoulder at them, both of which she appreciated.
“Tessa! Come meet the guys.” Benjamin North’s exuberant voice carried through the door.
Zane, Luke, and Gil paused outside the conference room. “How’s Benjamin working out?” Zane asked Luke and Gil.
“Great.” Gil spoke, and Luke dipped his head in agreement. “He’s a good fit, and he has solid investigative and protective experience. He stayed late with Tess last night, and she picked his brain about how to be the best liaison the PPD has ever seen.”
No surprise there. Tessa overprepared for everything.
Luke picked up the narrative. “He’s easy to work with—he’s not stuffy, not proprietary, likes to have fun, pitches in when there’s work to be done regardless of whether he thinks a younger agent should be handling it. He’s been a real blessing since we lost you. We’re still several agents short, but we’ve interviewed three in the last month, and they may come on board after they finish their training. If they do, he’ll be invaluable. If you don’t count Jacob, he’s the only Phase 3 agent we have.”
“The Raleigh RAIC is a great office for the first phase.” Zane scanned the men in the conference room who had flown down from DC with him. Rodriguez was his least favorite agent on the PPD, but he knew his business and had never failed to do his job well. Carver was good to work with. Generally easygoing, but intense when the situation demanded it. He knew these men, but they weren’t his friends outside the office.
Walking into the conference room reminded him of how muchhe missed the camaraderie of the Raleigh RAIC. “When I told my mom I’d been assigned to the Raleigh RAIC, she wanted to know why they called it a ‘rack office.’ She thought it might have something to do with racketeering.”
Luke and Gil laughed. “My mom wanted to know why we pronounce it ‘rack’ when there’s aniin there.” Gil’s mom was an English teacher, so this didn’t surprise Zane in the slightest.
“Faith thinks our terminology is ridiculous.” Luke rolled his eyes. His wife of six months never failed to take the opportunity to get in a friendly dig at the Secret Service. The FBI and Secret Service didn’t exactly have a track record of friendly relations, but they got along fine in Raleigh. “I told her it was faster to say ‘RAIC office’ than to say ‘resident office’ and way faster than saying ‘resident agent in charge’ office, but she didn’t buy it.”
“How close are the new agents to being ready to come to work?” Zane asked.
“Two months for one. Six months for the other two,” Gil answered.
When the Secret Service hired special agents, they spent months in training, first at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, known as FLETC, in Georgia and then at the service’s own training facility in Virginia.
After completing their training, agents entered the first phase of their career, usually in either a field office or one of the smaller resident offices throughout the country. In Phase 1, they worked more on the investigative side of the service’s twofold mission to protect the president, vice president, and other high-ranking dignitaries and to investigate a variety of financial crimes, the most well-known being counterfeit currency.
Only after spending three to five years in Phase 1 were agents considered for the second phase of their career. In Phase 2, manyagents were assigned protective details, either the PPD or the detail of the vice president, former presidents, or certain family members who required Secret Service protection. Others were assigned to investigative assignments focused on threats against the president.
