Page 31 of So Hollow

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“How do you handle it?” Faith asked. “How do you accept that you can try your hardest, do everything right, push yourself past your limits and still fail to stop killers?”

Supervisory Special Agent Gordon Clark shrugged. “Depends on the day.” He sipped his coffee and explained. “Some days, it’s enough for me to know that fewer people die because I did my job than would have died if I hadn’t. Some days, I have to satisfy myself with seeing the looks on the killers’ faces when they know they’re caught. Some days—and keep this between you and me—I go home, put on an old John Wayne movie, and get gloriously drunk.”

Faith chuckled. “I could never get into John Wayne. He’s got a couple good movies, I guess, but usually, he’s just unbelievably good at what he does. Where’s the struggle? Where’s the pain? I can’t watch a movie about a guy who waltzes into town and effortlessly beats everyone, then rides off into the sunset. No offense.”

"None taken, but you are watching the wrong movies. I'm going to send you a list of movies you should watch. But before we get sidetracked, the most important answer to your question is that some days, I don't handle it. I don't accept it. Some days, I'm just angry and moody and sad, and I want to tear the world apart or give up and curl up into a ball."

“But you still do your job,” she pressed. “How do you do that without letting it affect you?”

Less than a week ago, Faith had been dragged over the coals and placed on probation by the Boss for her aggressive takedown of a person of interest in the Vampire of Twin Cities Terminal case. She was angry, but as angry as she was, sheknew the decision was fair, even lenient. Most other agents would have been fired had they pulled that kind of stunt.

“That’s the thing. Itdoesaffect me. But I do my job anyway.”

She pursed her lips, not satisfied with his answer. He set his coffee cup down and folded his hands in front of him. “Can I be frank with you?”

She smiled wryly. “If I say no, will you listen?”

“No.”

She chuckled and said, “Well, you can be frank with me, but fair warning, if I don’t like it, I’ll pout about it.”

He laughed. “That’s okay. You can pout. It’s not the worst thing you’ve done.”

Her smile faded. “Gee, thanks for that reminder.”

He shrugged. “I never promised that I’d always be nice. But what I was going to say is that you are a great agent, but you have a really hard time dealing with setbacks.”

She sighed and leaned back in her chair. Gordon wasn’t the first person to tell her this. “The problem is that when setbacks occur in our line of work, innocent people die.”

“Yes.”

She waited for him to expand on that point. When he didn’t, she said, “But that’s not acceptable.”

“True. It’s also unavoidable.”

“But… we have to bebetterthan that!”

“Yes. But we can’t be.”

His tone was calm, almost flippant. “I can’t accept that answer,” she said, her growing irritation reflected in her voice.

“I know. That’s my point. You need to figure that out, or you’re going to collapse. Either you’ll finally push the Boss too far, and he’ll stop covering for you—”

“Covering for me?”

"Yes. The brass wants you fired. He's the reason you aren't. We can talk about that later if you want, but let me finish thispoint. Either you'll push too far and get fired, or you'll go too far and get killed before Prince can save you"—she flinched at that, but Gordon kept going—“or you’ll burn out and fall into despair. I’ve seen those three things happen to lots of officers when I was with LAPD. I’m sure you’ve seen it happen to agents here.”

“But how? How do I become okay with this?”

“You don’t. You accept that sometimes you won’t be okay. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll miss opportunities. You’ll fail to solve cases in time. Sometimes, people will die because of that.”

She looked away, her lower lip trembling and threatening to push out. Apparently, her body had taken the threat to pout literally.

“It sucks, Faith. But believe me, not accepting sucks worse and gets more people killed.” He lifted his coffee and sipped. His eyes got a faraway look, and Faith wondered what memories were flitting through his mind right now. “It’s not easy. It never will be. But you have to do it. It’s the only way to keep your head above water.”

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