me of this. For making the present all the more bleak and empty by comparison.
'Is there a point here?'
He raises a hand. 'Just a little bit more. The office in LA hadn't been doing well. You were given carte blanche in restaffing it, and you picked three agents from offices around the United States. They were thought, at the time, to be unusual choices. But they proved out in the end, didn't they?'
That, I think to myself, is an understatement. I just nod, still angry.
'In fact, your team is one of the best in Bureau history, isn't it?'
'The best.' I can't help it. I'm proud of my team, and I'm incapable of being modest when it comes to them. Besides, it's the truth. NCAVC
Los Angeles, known as 'NCAVC Coord' or internally as 'Death Central,' did its job. Period and always.
'Right.' He flips through a few more pages. 'Lots of solved cases. More glowing reviews. Some notes that you were being considered to become the first female acting Director ever. Historic.'
All of this is true. All of it also continues to anger me, for reasons I can't quite understand. I just know that I am getting pissed off, coming to a boil, and if this continues, I am going to have an explosive meltdown.
'Something else in your file caught my eye. Notations about your marksmanship.'
He looks up at me, and I feel blindsided, though I don't know why. Something stirs in me, and I recognize it as fear. I grip the arms of the chair as he continues.
'Your file states that you possibly rank within the top twentieth percentile, worldwide, with a handgun. Is that true, Smoky?'
I stare at my therapist, and I feel myself going numb. The anger is disappearing.
Me and guns. Everything he's saying is true. I can pick up a gun and shoot it like other people grab a glass of water, or ride a bike. It's instinctive, and always has been. There's no genius to it that you can put a finger on. I didn't have a father who wanted a son and so taught me how to use a gun. In fact, my dad disliked them. It was just something I could do. I was eight years old, and my dad had a friend who had been in Vietnam as a Green Beret. Now
His name was Dave, and he managed to drag my father out to a shooting range in a somewhat disreputable area of San Bernardino County, and my dad had brought me along, maybe in hopes of keeping the trip short. Dave got my dad to shoot a few clips, as I stood, watching, wearing protective earmuffs that were too big for my little- girl head. I watched them both as they held the weapons, and I was fascinated by it. Drawn to it.
'Can I try?' I piped up.
'I don't think that's a good idea, honey,' Dad said.
'Aww, come on, Rick. I'll get her a little twenty-two pistol. Let her squeeze off a couple of shots.'
'Please, Daddy?' I looked up at my father with my best pleading look, the one I knew, even at eight, could bend his will to mine. He looked down at me, the struggle apparent in his face, and then sighed.
'Okay. But just a few shots.'
Dave went and got the twenty-two, a tiny little thing that fit my hand, and they dug up a stool for me to stand on. Dave loaded the weapon and placed it in my hands, standing behind me as my dad watched, apprehensive.
'See the target down there?' he asked. I nodded. 'Decide where you want your shot to land. Take your time. When you pull the trigger, you want to do it slow. Don't jerk it, or that will throw off your aim. You ready?'
I believe I replied, but the truth was, I barely heard him. I had the gun in my hand, and something was clicking inside me. Something right. Something that fit. I looked down the range at the human-shaped target, and it didn't seem far away at all. It seemed close, reachable. I pointed the gun toward it, took a breath, and pulled. I was startled and thrilled by the jerk of the little pistol in my small hands.
'Damn!' I heard Dave crow.
I squinted down toward the target again and saw that a little hole had appeared in the center of the head, right where I had wanted it to go.
'You just might be a natural, young lady,' he said to me. 'Try a few more.'
The 'couple of shots' turned into an hour and a half of shooting. I hit what I aimed for over ninety percent of the time, and by the end of it, I knew I'd be shooting guns for the rest of my life. And that I'd be good at it.
My dad supported this habit in the years to come, in spite of his distaste for guns. I guess he recognized that this was a part of me, something he wouldn't be able to keep me away from. The truth? I'm scary-good. I keep this to myself, and I don't show off in public. But alone? I'm an Annie Oakley. I can shoot out candle flames and put holes in quarters that you toss in the air. One time, at an outdoor shooting range, I put a Ping-Pong ball on the back of my gun hand, the same one I use to draw my weapon. It sat on the back of my hand, and then that hand flew down to grab my gun. I came back up and blew the Ping-Pong ball away before it could fall to the ground. A silly trick, but I found it very satisfying.
All of this goes through my head while Dr. Hillstead watches me.
'It's true,' I say.
He closes the file. Clasps his hands and looks at me. 'You are an exceptional agent. Certainly one of the best female agents in the Bureau's history. You hunt the worst of the worst. Six months ago a man you were hunting, Joseph Sands, came after you and your family, killed your husband in front of you, raped and tortured you, and killed your daughter. Through an effort that could only be called superhuman, you turned the tables on him, taking his life.'
I am fully clothed in the numbness now. I don't know what all of this is leading to, and I don't care.
'So here I am, in a profession where two plus two doesn't always equal four, and things don't always fall when you drop them, trying to help you go back to all of that.'
The look he gives me is so filled with honest compassion that I have to look away from it; it burns me with its feeling.
'I've been doing this for a long time, Smoky. And you've been seeing me for quite a while. I develop feelings about things--you'd probably call them hunches in your line of work. Here's what my hunches have to say about where we're at. I think you're trying to choose between whether or not to go back to work or kill yourself.'
My gaze snaps back up to his, an involuntary admission that's been shocked out of me. As the numbness rushes away from me in a scream, I realize that I've been played, played with great finesse. He's talked around, rambled, prodded, keeping me unaware and off balance, and then moved in for the kill. Right for the jugular, without hesitation. And it's worked.
'I can't help you unless you really lay it all on the table, Smoky.'
That compassionate look again, too truthful and honest and good for me right now; his eyes are like two hands reaching out to grab my spiritual shoulders, shaking me hard. I feel tears prickling. But my look back is filled with anger. He wants to break me, the way I've broken plenty of criminals in plenty of interrogation offices. Well, fuck that. Dr. Hillstead seems to sense this, and smiles a soft smile.
'Okay, Smoky, that's fine. Just one last thing.'
He pulls open a desk drawer and lifts a plastic evidence bag out. At first I can't tell what it holds, but then I can, and it causes me to shiver and sweat at the same time.
It's my gun. The one I carried for years, and the one I shot Joseph Sands with.
I can't tear my eyes away from it. I know it like I know my own face. Glock, deadly, black. I know how much it weighs, what it feels like--I can even remember how it smells. It sits there in that bag, and the sight of it fills me with an overwhelming terror.
Dr. Hillstead opens the bag, removing the gun. He lays it down on the desk in front of us. Now he looks at me again, except this time, it's a hard look, not a compassionate one. He's done fucking around. I realize that what I thought was his best shot wasn't even close. For reasons I don't understand, and apparently he does, it is this that is going to break me wide open. My own weapon.
'How many times have you picked up that gun, Smoky? A thousand? Ten thousand?'
I lick my lips, which are as dry as dust. I don't reply. I can't stop looking at the Glock.
'Pick it up, right now, and I'll recommend you fit for active duty, if that's what you want.'
I can't respond, and I can't tear my eyes away from it. Part of me knows I'm in Dr. Hillstead's office, and that he is sitting across from me, but things seem to have narrowed to one world: me and the gun. Sounds have filtered
