First Impressions

Prologue The moment he saw the smirk on Bill's face, Jared knew he was going to be given a job he wouldn't like. So what did a man have to do to finally be able to choose his own assignments? he thought for the thousandth time. Get shot? Naw, he'd done that three times. How about getting kidnapped? That had happened twice. Hey! How about being home so seldom that his wife leaves him for some other guy, a used car salesman who is now the father of their three kids? Nope. That had happened too. So how about getting too old for the field? Too late. At forty-nine, Jared felt that he'd reached that age about six years ago."Don't look at me like that," Bill said, holding his office door open for Jared to enter.Groaning, Jared put on a pronounced limp as he hobbled toward the chair opposite Bill's overloaded desk, WILLIAM TEASDALE on a plaque in front. Sticking his leg out stiffly in front of him, he ostentatiously rubbed his knee, as though he were in great pain."You can cut it out," Bill said as he sat down behind his desk."I have no sympathy for you, and even if I did, I couldn't let you out of this one." He picked up a folder, then looked across the top of it at Jared. "Most agents are glad to get out in the field. Why not you?"Jared leaned back in his chair. "Where should I begin? With pain? I was in the hospital for three weeks after the last job. And life. I like living. And then there's -- ""Got a new girlfriend?" Bill asked, his eyes narrowed.Jared gave a bit of a grin. "Yeah. Nice girl. I'd like to see her sometimes.""She's a reformed what?""Stripper," Jared mumbled, giving Bill a sheepish grin. "So sue me. After a wife like Patsy -- ""Spare me," Bill said, and once again he was the boss. "We need somebody to find out something, and you can do it. Remember that agent we found out had been a spy for the last fifteen years?""Yeah," Jared said, bitterness in his voice. He'd worked with the man about ten years ago, and had filed a report saying that something wasn't right about the guy, but he didn't know what. No one paid any attention. A few months ago, they'd found out that the agent was a spy and that he'd been feeding information to his mother country for years. "So what did you find out from him?""Nothing. Suicide before we could get to him.""Please tell me that you don't wantmeto travel to wherever he was from, go undercover, and find out -- ""No," Bill said, waving his hand. "Nothing like that. The truth is that we can't figure out what his last big project was. He knew we were coming about ten minutes before we got there, so he had time to destroy a lot of evidence. But we found disks hidden under the floors, and a list of names inside a lightbulb. He had time to get rid of it all, so why didn't he destroy it?""But he didn't," Jared said, feeling the old wave of curiosity well up inside of him and trying hard to suppress it. Why? was the question that had caused most of the problems in his life. Even after a case was considered cold, Jared's "why" often made him continue."What did he do?""He wadded up several pieces of paper into tiny balls and swallowed them.""I bet somebody had fun retrieving them.""Yeah," Bill said with a half smile. "We lost most of what went down him, but forensics managed to get a name and part of a Social Security number." He pushed a clear plastic folder across the desk, and Jared picked it up. Inside was a small piece of paper that seemed to have some writing on it, but Jared couldn't make it out."Eden Palmer," Bill said. "That name and a few numbers were the only things the crime lab could recover.""Who's he?""Her. As far as we can figure out, she's nobody." He pulled a piece of paper from the folder in front of him. "She's forty-five, had a baby when she was eighteen, no husband then and not one since. She worked at one low-level job after another until her kid started college, then sDeveraux, Jude is the author of 'First Impressions ', published 0017 under ISBN 9780743437141 and ISBN 0743437144.