Page 59 of So Smitten

“Yeah, well, sometimes I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to toss my gloves in the ring.”

“You’re using a lot of metaphors,” Faith said.

He chuckled. "Bottom line is I'm going to be forty soon, and I'm starting to feel my age. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. I don't think I can be in this line of work as long as the Boss has. Don't tell him I said this, but there are days when I think he shouldn’t have been here as long as he has.”

“I don’t know if it matters how long someone should be in our line of work. The work has to be done, and people have to do it. That’s just the way it is.”

“True,” he said, “but maybe it’s time for me to let someone else do it.”

They fell silent a moment. Faith knew that Michael’s potential retirement wouldn’t come for a long time. He would stay long enough to get his pension for sure.

But he might not stay in the field.

She risked asking that question. “Are you going to leave the field?”

He didn’t answer right away, which was as much answer as Faith needed. When he did answer, his voice sounded every bit as tired as he claimed to be. “Probably,” he said, “not soon, but not forever from now, either. I don’t know, man, I look at the Boss and I wonder when the last time he smiled—really smiled—was. Unless his personality is truly just an act that he’s maintained religiously for the past thirty or so years, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him happy. Desrouleaux’s starting to get there too. I know the West case is helping that process along, but he’s getting noticeably crabbier and slower and more tired. Chavez used to be able to cheer him up, but they’re looking more and more like a cranky old man and his bubbly daughter.” He chuckled. “I should tell him that. He’d get a kick out of that.”

His smile faded again. “Garvey too. She’s well on her way to being too cynical to see the positive in anything. And Jones from Idaho, the sheriff from Morgan County—I forget his name—they’re all just bitter and cynical. I don’t want to end up like them,” he said. “Especially the Boss. I don’t know what keeps him going. I sometimes think he just keeps going to give himself something to do besides drink.”

“Does he drink?” Faith asked.

“Probably,” Michael replied. “I don’t know for sure, but I don’t know how he’d make it through the nights without something to take the edge off. You know, you and I stress out about our cases, a few dead bodies here and there. I’m not belittling that at all, but have you ever thought about what it’s like to be a SAC? They have to think about everything. Not just the murders even. Did you know that the Philadelphia Field Office has busted eight human trafficking rings and six counterfeit rings since the Boss took over?”

Faith’s eyes widened. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yeah. I was looking through some of the old records one day out of curiosity. We never think about what the other divisions do, but there’s some dark stuff going on in the world, and we only see a tiny corner of it. I don’t know if I can handle seeing any more of it. And when I think of all the field offices in the country, all dealing more or less with the same stuff we’re dealing with… well, I can see why some people end up succumbing to depression.”

Faith didn’t like where this conversation was going. “Michael, you can’t tell me you think it’s all for nothing.”

“It’s not,” he said, “and I’m not saying it is. You know about the starfish analogy, right?”

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“I’ll give you the abridged version. A guy finds a bunch of starfish washed up on a beach. The starfish are alive, but they have no chance of making it back to the water before they suffocate. So the guy walks along, and he comes to a little kid who’s picking up the starfish one by one and tossing them back into the sea. The guy says, ‘Kid, you’re wasting your time. You’ll never save all of them.’ The kid picks up a starfish, throws it into the water, looks at the guy and says, ‘I saved that one.’ So I know it’s not for nothing. There are little girls whose dogs won’t be stolen and murdered in a ring now. There are people who will live because the killers we’ve captured won’t be there to murder them anymore. That’s a good thing. I just don’t know if it’s enough for me anymore.”

“Exactly,” Faith agreed with a smile. “That’s why I keep going. I’m not stupid enough to think that stopping West is going to end all murder, but it will end some of them. Some people will get to live. That’s what I mean by choosing what side you’re on. I’d rather fight for the light than fight for the darkness, if you’ll permit me to be cheesy.”

She expected Michael to make some crack about her being cheesy, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “That’s one thing I’ve come to admire about you, Faith. Even at your worst, you always have hope. I don’t know if I do anymore.”

The gate agent announced their boarding group before Faith could reply. Michael stood and smiled down at her. “You ready, kid?” he said.

“After you, old man,” she replied, managing a smile despite the turmoil in her heart.

They boarded the plane, and Michael quickly closed his eyes and fell asleep. Or at least pretended to be asleep. He might not be in the mood for another Faith Bold pep talk, and for once, Faith didn't blame him.

She had planned to talk to him about helping her find West, but it clearly wasn’t the right time to bring up the conversation. She would wait until tomorrow, until after he’d had a chance to see Ellie. Then he might be more receptive.

Try as she might, though, she couldn’t shake the feeling that each day she delayed hunting West increased the chances that she’d wake up the next day to find someone she loved dead.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

At nine-twenty-two pm, a man who was identified as Landon Guthrie watched Faith Bold and Michael Prince disembark from the airplane six rows ahead of him. Their dog, a handsome German Shepherd who was just beginning to show signs of aging, turned and fixed him with a pleasant smile.

Guthrie found it fascinating that dogs could smile. It amazed him the power that humans held over the rest of the world, power they didn’t even realize. There were killer whales that would flee humans on sight, even though they had never seen humans before. They fled because their parents taught them to flee, how, scientists were still unsure. Killer whales, by far the most powerful marine predator the world had ever seen, would flee on sight from weak, hairless terrestrial apes.

And they had good reason to. Those apes had learned thousands of years ago how to refine metal out of ore and how to forge that metal into large pointy sticks that could with one well-guided throw—or, a few thousand years later, be shot from another tool humans had forged—could overcome their eight thousand pounds of muscle and a bite force many times greater than any creature alive, even when there were dozens of such animals and only a few of the weak little apes.

And wolves, among the most successful of terrestrial predators, smaller than orcas but just as cunning, had been bred by those same medium-sized apes into fiercely loyal slaves that actually mimicked their masters.

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