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hair over an emerging bald spot.
    "You look like Mister America," he said, gesturing at Harley’s dark blue suit, white shirt and red tie.
    "Gave expert witness testimony in a Sons of Secrecy case this morning.” He put aside the papers and checked out Mike’s cargo shorts and Hawaiian-print shirt. “What’d you do, infiltrate a group of surfers to get evidence?”
    ATF agents often worked with other law enforcement agencies, both locally and nationally, on investigations. For the last month, Mike had worked an arson case with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department in the southern California seaside town of San Clemente.
    He dragged a hand through his longish hair as he sat in a hard guest chair. “Nah, just hung out on the beach and waited for them to come to me. The fire at the beachfront property started at the crack of dawn, a prime time for surfers to hit the waves. Figured one of them might have seen suspicious activity the morning of the fire. As you know from my report, one had.”
    As a surfer headed out to the beach, he had noticed a thirtyish, dark-haired woman sitting alone in a silver Honda SUV, staring at the building across the street. Mike searched motor vehicle records and learned the SUV was registered to Victoria LeHane, who matched the surfer’s description. Further research revealed LeHane was one of the owners of the burned building and stood to receive a sizable share of the insurance money.
    “Read it. Good job. You’re one of the top ten arson investigators we have.” Harley took a sip of his tea.
    “Uh, I believe that article said top three ,” Mike responded, referring to a recent article about ATF arson investigators in the LA Times that named the top three agents with Mike as number one.
    The article was flattering, sure, but he figured the reporter based that ranking on some kind of algorithm—number of fires investigated, years experienced, commendations, blah blah.
    “Oh, that’s right. Three.” Harley picked up a ballpoint pen and carefully set it in the pen holder. “Interested in working a gun case?”
    “Is that why you wanted to see me?” Mike snorted a laugh. “C’mon, Harley, I haven’t worked a firearms case in over a decade.’
    “I lied.” Harley cracked a half-grin. “Big boys upstairs want me to invite that know-nothing numbnut Reed to work a gun case. Can’t stand the guy, but have to play nice. Wanted to see if my fake sincerity could pass a Truth Wizard’s test.”
    Starting as recruits, all federal agents—FBI, CIA, ATF, others—studied the meaning of people’s expressions, with an emphasis on identifying deceit. In a battery of lie detection tests, Mike was the only agent to consistently rank in the ninety-plus percentile, leading to more tests where he deciphered lies about crimes, beliefs and emotions, the latter being the most difficult to recognize. Again, his hit rate was in the ninety-plus percentile. A panel of two psychologists and a social intelligence scientist labeled him a “truth wizard,” a person with an innate ability to decode others’ emotions and lies.
    As far back as Mike could remember, he had a knack for reading people, even in photographs, which upset Nonna, his Sicilian grandmother. She called it the “evil eye,” an old Italian superstition that a person, through a look, was casting a bad spell on another. Grabbing his hands, she would repeat a prayer in Italian three times to ward off the evil eye.
    Her daughter, his mom Catarina Day, didn’t believe in the evil eye, but occasionally asked if he could read people’s minds, a nervous look on her face as if her son knew her every thought. He assured her he didn’t “hear” what people were thinking...more like he got hunches. Years later, an ATF psychologist said studies showed sixty percent of truth wizards were raised in adverse homes where they constantly observed others, especially their expressions.
    He was in that sixty percent. Hell of a way to become a