Page 9 of So Insane

"I look ready because I am ready," she said adamantly. She could sense rather than see Turk tense up at the adamance of her voice and, sure enough, felt him brush against her leg a moment later. She reached a hand down and scratched between his ears without taking her eyes from her face in the mirror. "We're ready, Boy," she said, "aren't we? Wanna go catch a bad guy?"

***

The Boss stared at Faith with all the warmth of Antarctic bedrock. Faith had known him long enough to know that he truly did feel sorry for her, and the fact that she wasn’t in a federal prison for her repeated and flagrant disregard for his instructions was as good a sign as any that he bore some affection for her.

But he was about as far from happy with her as she was from the dark side of Neptune.

“Would it be worth my time to remind you that you’re suspended?” he asked, “or should I consider the lack of news regarding you to mean that you’ve just gotten better at hiding your illegal behavior?”

Though expected, his words stung her deeply. She pressed her lips tightly together to keep the hurt from her gaze and said, “I have been resting and recuperating from my injuries, as ordered.”

“And now you’re here, even though I told you that you were suspended indefinitely.”

“Well, it’s been nine weeks,” she said, “I wanted to ask you if you would consider lifting the suspension.”

“And I would do that because…?”

Faith tried to think of a reason that would make sense, but after all that had happened, she couldn’t think of one. So she decided to go with the truth.

“Because I need this,” she said, “because I’ve been stuck doing nothing for nine weeks, and all I’ve been able to think about is getting back to work.”

“That’s not true,” the Boss said. “Try again.”

Faith bristled, but then, he had no reason to trust her anymore, did he? Realizing that cut her even more deeply.

And while what she had said was the truth, it wasn’t the whole truth.

“No,” she admitted, “not all of it.”

“No is also my answer,” the Boss replied. “Go home, Bold.”

“Boss, I have twice found Dr. West when no one else was able to. Not the New York Office, not the Marshals, not Desrouleaux and Chavez, no one. Only me. I am the right choice for this case. You know it.”

“What I know, Bold, is that you twice chose to pursue West without backup.”

Faith pursed her lips. The second time, she had called for backup. She didn’t say anything, though. She didn’t want Michael to get in trouble for not alerting the Boss to her intentions.

“All you had to do was pick up the damned phone,” he continued, “and West would be in custody. We would have given you the credit for the case, and you’d go back to being the Bureau’s favorite little star. Now, you’re the Bureau’s biggest headache.”

“Sir, I can—”

“I beg you not to finish that sentence,” he said, though his tone suggested more of a command than a plea. “At this point, I no longer care if you understand that no means no. I’m just going to take steps to prevent you from being capable of ignoring me.”

A chill ran down Faith’s spine. “What do you mean?”

“I’m transferring you, Bold. I don’t know where yet, or when, but it will be somewhere you can’t jump the fence and go chasing squirrels anymore, and it will be as soon as possible. You are on suspension until that happens, and we are watching your apartment and tapping your phone, so we'll know if you try to do anything else like this. We’re going to let you keep Turk. He’s being officially retired from field duty—meritoriously, since we can’t hold him accountable for the flagrant misbehavior of his handler. That’s my parting gift to you, Bold, in gratitude for eight years of flawless service and two years of continuing to capture killers in spite of spending your free time making it almost impossible to catch the most prolific killer of them all.”

Faith took the news better than she expected to. Probably because she did expect the news. The Boss had warned her enough.

But she couldn’t allow it. It wasn’t right. Even considering her mistakes, it wasn’t right to essentially fire her like this.

“Sir, I would like to formally protest both this suspension and the pending reassignment,” she said, “I would also like to protest Turk’s forced retirement. As you can see, he is perfectly fine.”

Turk barked firmly in agreement.

“If you’re serious about Turk, I’ll have a review board examine him. If they find him fit for duty, he’ll be assigned another handler and get to work through his last year of eligible field work.”

Faith frowned. “That’s not what I meant.”

---