Instead, they were scrambling around their Tribeca brownstone, trying to get the place into some semblance of order before their next job applicant arrived.
Having just wrapped up a high-profile corporate espionage case, they’d normally be debriefing. Instead, all their notes, reports, follow-ups and computer files were in uncharacteristic disarray. The phone was ringing off the hook. Their voice mailboxes were exploding. And this was not the way Casey Woods intended to run her company.
She’d made her position clear several weeks ago. The minute their current case was closed, they were hiring a receptionist-slash-assistant. From a small start-up investigative firm, they’d catapulted into a highly sought-after company, thanks to the combined efforts and stellar results achieved by their brilliant team.
Until now, there’d been the six of them, each of whom was a critical and integral part of FI. Starting with Casey herself—who was the company president and behavioral expert, and who had the extensive academic credentials and professional experience to be the firm’s anchor—every member of the FI team had a stand-alone résumé.
They were no longer New York’s best kept secret, and their client list was growing daily. Thus, the need for someone to man the front desk and to assist the team as needed.
So far, they hadn’t had much luck.
At the moment, Casey was upstairs on the fourth floor—the floor that served as her apartment during the few hours that she actually lived there—running a brush through her shoulder-length red hair and adjusting the collar on her green cowl-neck sweater. Hero, Casey’s bloodhound and the team’s human scent evidence dog, was already poised in the bedroom doorway, waiting expectantly for his mistress to leave her apartment and go downstairs to her real home: Forensic Instincts.
“I’m coming, boy,” she told him, looking in the mirror and giving herself a quick once-over, before heading for their morning interview. “God knows what we have in store this time.”
* * *
Ryan McKay was still downstairs in his man cave, affectionately known as his lair, which filled the entire basement level of the brownstone. It was the technology center of Forensic Instincts, complete with their servers—Lumen, Equitas and Intueri, from the Latin words for light, justice and intuition. Part data center, part electronics lab, Ryan had more high-tech equipment than a small university.
Despite its serious purpose, Ryan left enough room to maintain two areas of personal space—his free weights and fitness section, and a small competition ring for his self-built robots.
Right now, he was enjoying neither. He was printing out pages from FI’s just-closed case.
While the pages were printing, he was on his iPad, reading the latest issue of Sound on Sound magazine. The software review of Audio Detracktor was compelling. The reviewer described how it was developed by three of genius college students—a math whiz, a computer geek and a musical prodigy. Audio Detracktor would analyze an audio file, separating the component tracks and instruments into layers. Each isolated layer could be played independently, giving the listener the ability to hear insignificant sounds in a rich recording. Sound on Sound had written about experimenting with Eric Clapton’s “Layla,” Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-A-Lula” and Paul McCartney’s “Yesterday.” They were even able to isolate the sound of a flying guitar pick bouncing off the floor. Guitarists would often lose their picks in midperformance, which is why they always carried extras with them. But to actually hear the sound of a tiny plastic piece hitting the ground? Awesome.
Just as Ryan was about to swipe to the next page, his iPhone began vibrating in his pocket, reminding him of a scheduled meeting. Glancing at his calendar entry, he scowled at its purpose. Interview. Emma Stirling. Another teenybopper receptionist he had to talk to.
He understood Casey’s decision to establish a more professional office environment, as well as to get some help answering the phones and doing odds and ends. But he’d lobbied strongly for a virtual assistant, aka software, installed on one of their servers. A virtual assistant was smart, predictable, not female and never took a coffee or bathroom break.
The perfect receptionist.
Casey and Claire had overruled him. They felt a personal touch was needed. A flesh-and-blood human being, not a machine. Marc was indifferent, although he saw the value of both. And Patrick had been married long enough to know when to avoid a losing situation.
Ryan’s pocket buzzed again. Time to stop procrastinating and get this over with. Full of attitude, he marched upstairs ready to meet and nix Emma Stirling.
* * *
The rest of the team was already congregated in the second floor’s main conference room, pouring coffee and settling down around the sweeping oval conference table.
Marc took a gulp of black coffee and eyed Ryan. “Nice of you to join us.” A corner of his mouth lifted. “You look thrilled to be here.”
Ryan scowled. “You know how I feel about this. I was about to do something useful—like order a cool state-of-the-art app while I was preparing the case wrap-up. Instead, I’m here, ready to meet another substandard candidate.”
“Great attitude.” Claire walked over just in time to hear Ryan’s statement. “Did it ever occur to you that we might find a white elephant? There are still a few of those out there, you know.”
“Is that a prediction, Clairevoyant?” He loved to get at her with that nickname he’d coined.
“No.” She shot him a don’t-get-me-started look. “It’s an optimistic fact.”
Patrick was already seated, scratching Hero’s ears. He glanced over at them. “Play nice, kids. We have a reputation for professionalism to uphold.”
“Yes, we do.” Casey seated herself at the head of the table. “And, like it or not, we’re going to eventually have to hire someone. My standards are as high as yours, Ryan. Maybe higher. But I’m not giving up. This place is not going to continue as chaos central.”
“I hear you.” Ryan got himself some coffee and turned to peruse the group. “So should we do rock, paper, scissors to decide who’s going downstairs to let this one in?”
“I can handle that electronically, Ryan.” An invisible computerized voice echoed from everywhere in the room, and a wall of floor-to-ceiling video screens began to glow. A long green line formed across each panel, pulsing from left to right, bending into the contours of the voice panel.
“Good idea, Yoda,” Ryan replied. “Disarm the Hirsch pad when the doorbell rings and advise our job candidate to come upstairs. That alone should scare the shit out of her.”