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three hours.”
    “If I don’t like what I see,” Lucy countered, “then I get to build my own team. Of qualified professionals. And your amateurs can go back to working the phones and surfing online archives. Deal?”
    “I wish it was that simple. I’m afraid that with our limited funding, we’re only able to hire three fulltime staff for your team. If they don’t work out—”
    “They lose their jobs?” Shit. At least at the FBI, if you were dismissed from one assignment, they would quickly find you another. Here at the Beacon Group, she was responsible for not just her team’s lives but also their livelihood.
    Valencia gave her a nod. “I sincerely doubt it will come to that. I think you’ll see that civilians can have unique insights you might not get from indoctrinated law enforcement officers. After all, with most of these cases, the police have had trained investigators working them for years and have gotten nowhere. Our closure rate is seventy-four percent, much higher than most police department’s cold case squads.”
    “But that’s not with field investigations,” Lucy countered. “Out there, it’s a whole different ball game.”
    “That’s why we hired you. To build a team that can handle what local authorities don’t have the resources to deal with. I look forward to seeing what you can accomplish.”
    “Okay then,” Lucy said, accepting Valencia’s challenge and not-so-subtle reminder that it wasn’t only Lucy’s team on probationary status, but also Lucy. Who said retirement would be easy? Especially when she still had to face Nick and Megan with the news that her first day on the job was taking her to Texas for God knew how long.
    She opened the door to the conference room. Wash was rattling away on his keyboard while Tommy leafed through a stack of case reports. Only TK sat doing nothing, leaning back in her chair, balancing it on two legs, a smug smirk aimed at the door.
    “TK, go home, get packed. I’ll pick you up for the airport in an hour. The rest of you, build me a coherent summary of the forensic findings and any evidence we have. I want facts, not interpretations. Oh, and transcripts of all the interviews. Line item them, compare them to each other and their previous statements. Highlight anything contradictory or inconsistent. I need to know where the holes in the case are so we can focus our investigation.”
    TK popped her chair forward, landing with a soft thud.
    “Ma’am, yes, ma’am,” Wash said with a mock salute and a grin, while TK stood, looking none too happy.
    “I can go alone,” TK said. “I’m sure you’re needed here. To supervise.” Her tone was cordial, but there was no mistaking her meaning, especially when she punctuated it with a glance at Lucy’s cane.
    “I’ll pick you up in an hour.” Sometimes there was a lot to be said about having the last word. Lucy spun on her heel, glad the others couldn’t see the wince of pain the movement brought, and stalked out the door.
    Hell of a first day, that was for sure. And if TK’s attitude didn’t improve, it was going to only get worse.

 
     
 
     
 
Chapter 5

     
     
    WHILE SHE PACKED, TK plugged her ear buds into her latest language tape. Conversational Portuguese.
    She’d begun using the language tapes back in Iraq when she’d first been drafted to go out into the field and serve as unofficial liaison for all things associated with their host nation’s women, from searches of their persons and living quarters to questioning them and their children, often learning valuable intel no man would have gleaned. One of the unexpected benefits, aside from being able to function without an interpreter, was that the tapes soothed her anxieties and helped her block out the noise of the base while trying to grab some sleep before each night’s raid.
    So far she’d learned Arabic, Pashto, and some Dari, and now that she was back stateside, she was delving into the languages of the exotic lands