Vacant by Alex Hughes

play that particular card, at least not that quickly. Still, clearly a test. “How long will Jarrod take to get here?” I asked.
    After a moment, she nodded. I’d earned a “possibly trustworthy” label in her head.
    Just then the door opened, and the man I presumed to be Special Agent Jarrod walked through. He was a man of average height, swarthy, with craggy features, in a very well-fitting suit with a thin tie in a perfect knot, an American flag tiepin holding the tie to his starched white shirt. His thinning hair was cut in a perfect copy of the G-men haircut of the FBI under Hoover, like a blast from the buttoned-up scary past. While he was at least fifty, he hadthe feel of a man just beginning the prime of his career, confident and decisive, ready to take over the world.
    â€œWard,” he said, greeting me.
    â€œSir,” I said automatically. For some reason he reminded me of my father, who was a distant man in my childhood, a buttoned-up lawyer, and a man who hadn’t spoken with me in over a decade. I could see that this would be a problem if I let it be; I’d have to aggressively fight against this first impression if I wanted to do a good job. So I took the initiative. “I’m here by deadline. What do you need?”
    Jarrod took a few steps forward, blinking. Probably surprised to see me in a suit. Heck,
I
was surprised to see me in a suit. “Good. I need you to go interview the guard who fought off the attack—make sure you get any details you can possibly get from her—and then meet up with the boy. You’ll be Minding him—the judge too, if you can manage her, but she has court security and the boy is your focus. He’s Tommy, age ten, and he likes boats. I’d recommend you start with that. After you interview the bodyguard. I need a second opinion there.”
    â€œUm, normally people give me more information than that.” I glanced at Mendez, next to me, who was eavesdropping on the conversation without shame. Another mind was coming up around the side of the porch, but the mood didn’t seem threatening, so I let it go with some monitoring. “What happened exactly?” I asked. “Who are the major players? What’s the bodyguard’s background? What exactly am I trying to learn here?”
    Jarrod frowned. “I realize you’re coming from a background in interrogation, Ward, but our priority is the boy’s safety. I want anything and everything we can get about the situation as it relates to that.” His mind told me that he expected me to realize this already.
    â€œThat’s fine,” I said. “Specifically what kind of Abilitythreat do I need to focus on? Teleportation, for example, is a hell of a lot different from telepathy.”
    Jarrod’s mind spiked with irritation, and he said, “Let’s take this aside for a moment.” He looked at Mendez, who shrugged and went back through the door into the house. The guy coming around the house paused, turning around with a clear “oh, look, I have an errand” attitude.
    It said a lot about Jarrod that his people would move so quickly over something so trivial. Either he was a badass, or his people really respected him.
    â€œWard, I realize you’re new here, so let me explain how things are going to go. As a rule we’re going to do things my way. I like questions. I like input. I like somebody who thinks. At a certain point, though, I’ve hired you because you solve problems for me. In a crisis situation, you take orders, just like the police officers you’ve worked with before. You bring up problems, fine, but I want solutions too, or at the very minimum the beginnings of them. And if I tell you to do something, you do it. Your job is to handle the mental gymnastics. I don’t want to be bothered with those details unless something unusual has happened.”
    â€œUnderstood,” I said.
    â€œBodyguard