Last Light by C. J. Lyons Read Free Book Online Page A

Lucy’s cane. Lucy braced herself; she hated telling the story of the night she almost died, the night her family almost died, the night her mother had been killed. Somehow, almost losing a leg was the least important thing she’d lost that night.
    “Hope you didn’t bring me along just to carry your bags.” TK clipped the last word short, obviously realizing she’d crossed a line. “I mean—”
    “You mean it’s difficult to know what someone new whom you haven’t worked with before expects from you. Or what you can expect from them.” Lucy glanced at the younger woman, making it clear that the sentiment cut both ways.
    She expected TK to meet her head-on, but to her surprise, TK fumbled with her seatbelt and looked away. “Just saying, that isn’t my job.”
    “No, it isn’t.” Okay. Pretty clear that TK’s trust would need to be earned. Lucy had a feeling if she won over TK, the rest of the team would follow. “So, what is? How do you guys work at Beacon Group? Are there any established protocols?”
    TK sat up and shifted in her seat, leaning toward Lucy as if finally interested in the conversation. “No protocols, and we sure do need them. I mean, you’d think it was a simple division of labor, right? I handle the interviews, Wash does all the computer shit, and Tommy takes care of the medical stuff. Simple, clean. But no, those two, they’ll do whatever they damn well please. Say Tommy finds something hinky in a pathologist report—that happened the first case we worked. He figured out some dental records had gotten switched, honest mistake, the patients were both named Jones. But instead of telling me so I could follow up with the dentist or the family, he goes and does it himself. Meanwhile, I figure out the same thing, that these two Jones maybe had their identities crisscrossed, I look the fool following behind him, asking the same questions.”
    “You felt foolish.” Lucy borrowed one of Nick’s favorite counseling ploys and reflected TK’s words back to her.
    “Yeah, of course. But that wasn’t what bothered me. Not really. It was that we got the family’s hopes up and we should have held back, not gotten them involved until we had the real story. Tommy felt awful about it. But that kind of thing happens all the time. I tried to establish some rules, but they never listen to me because I’m so new. Wash and Tommy, they’ve been working with Valencia for years.”
    “Yet, they obviously respect you. Look to you for leadership.”
    “More like they look to me to kiss their booboos when they screw up. I’m not there to be anyone’s mother. I don’t want to lead. I just want to get the job done and close cases.”
    “Are Wash and Tommy the only other investigators you’ve partnered with?”
    “No. I kind of float around, whoever needs boots on the ground. A lot of the people at the Beacon Group are part-time, like Tommy, or don’t like face-to-face interviews, like Wash. But I’ve worked with them a few times.”
    “Do the other teams have the same problem with lack of discipline?”
    “That’s the thing. There really are no teams. Valencia assigns cases as they come in—only if they look like they’ll need specific expertise like this one, does she have more than one person working it. But I wouldn’t call it a team.”
    That had been Lucy’s impression as well. That Valencia, although she’d built the Beacon Group into an organization that was highly successful in many ways, she now needed more structure and organization to continue growing the Group’s effectiveness. Exactly why she’d hired Lucy for this new endeavor.
    “If I form a field investigation team—a real team, with SOPs and a hierarchy—is that something you’d be interested in? Or would you rather pursue solo office-based investigations like the rest of the Group?” Lucy couldn’t bring herself to tell the younger woman that if TK didn’t work out, she’d probably lose her job.
    TK was silent