Sign of the Maker (Boston Crime Thriller Book 4), Brian Shea [free reads .txt] 📗

tossed it into a nearby waste bin. The FBI had a mandatory retirement for agents over the age of fifty-seven. There were administrative positions that transcended the age barrier, but those members of the agency were no longer allowed to carry department-issued firearms. In the terms of a working agent, it was the death of their career. Langston knew himself well enough to know that was never in the cards for him. He'd been with the Federal Bureau of Investigation since he was twenty-seven years old. A career spanning nearly thirty years was now coming to a close. With only a little bit of time left on his investigative clock, Langston wanted nothing more than to finish with a win. And cases like this didn't come along every day. This might be his last real chance at hitting the high note on his way out the door.

He'd been lead investigator on several high-profile cases over his career, but after punching one of his supervisors in the face, he'd been taken out of the spotlight for a while. It was his fault for losing his cool. He knew it, but the supervisor had crossed the line, calling into question his work ethic. Not unlike Kelly had done when he disparaged his failed attempt at the Collins interview.

This bombing case was his first time back in the limelight after a brief hiatus wherein he was assigned to investigate large-scale embezzlement and misappropriation of campaign funds by a Florida congressman. The work had been tedious with little in the way of personal satisfaction. Langston played nice and was eventually brought back to the show, the big cases that drew national attention. It wasn't like riding a bike. He'd been out of the hunt for the better part of the last five years, but now, back in the hot seat, he was feeling the pressure. He liked it and hated it all in the same breath. Just like he liked and hated his local counterpart, Michael Kelly.

"I thought you were going to sock Kelly in the face back there."

"I did too. Not really looking to upend what will likely be one of my last shots at closing the big case."

"Smart move. I think he means well." Salinger slurped from the can. "In fact, I think Kelly's more like you than you realize. He wants to get this guy as bad as we do. Probably more so."

"I get it. I wasn't much different from him when I was his age. I thought I knew everything. I thought I could do everything. Life has a way of teaching us the reality of such things."

Salinger laughed. "Are you saying Dan Langston was once a bright-eyed go-getter? I can't picture it."

"We all start there. Experience is a hell of a teacher if you're willing to listen and learn from her."

"I'm learning a ton on this. I've never worked anything like it. I had a pretty complicated fraud case once, one of those chain scams that goes all the way back to some fake prince in Nigeria. Worked it down and caught the guy in his mom's basement in New Jersey. He'd amassed a small fortune swindling the elderly, yet at forty-two still lived at home."

"Yeah, I know. I heard. It's why they moved you up here, to try to run with the big boys." Langston had heard Salinger's retelling of this story on more than one occasion and had come to believe it was the only substantive investigation he had been involved with during his three years of service. That was, of course, until now.

"Yeah, I know I told you. I'm just saying this is totally different. This is why I got into the Bureau. I mean, hell, the rush of this is insane."

"You might want to put that in check there, guy. This job gets old fast, and if you are seeking that rush, you're going to find yourself chasing that dragon down some dark, dark alleys." Langston caught his reflection in the glass bookcase across from him. The deep circles surrounding his puffy eyes spoke of the wear and tear that cases like this, and the cumulative thirty years of experience, had done to him. "You won't be the same person when you come back out."

Langston wanted to warn the young agent, to give him the specific example of the point in time when he had crossed over. There is a time in law enforcement where every cop or investigator comes across the case that changes them. Tinsley Caldwell had done that for him.

Langston was in his mid-thirties and working with a Violent Crimes Task Force in the Seattle area. He still remembered the fun of it. The cases weren't real. Sure, there were victims, but up until that case, it was all fun and games. The chase, the hunt, catching the bad guy, a homicide here, a big high-profile bank robbery there. It was all just a game. That ended with Caldwell. She was an eight-year-old girl who had gone missing months before the Bureau was called in. Local authorities initially chocked up the disappearance as a potential runaway. It quickly shifted to a potential abduction by a distant family member. As the case went stale, the information was forwarded over to the FBI until it finally landed on Langston's desk.

The girl looked like his Sophie, or at least what he'd envisioned she would have looked like had she not died at age three due to a rare birth defect requiring a heart transplant. It hadn't worked and Langston had lost his little girl. As was common under such tragedy, his marriage wasn't strong enough to shoulder the burden. He'd never remarried. Never moved forward. The job became an escape of sorts, where he could throw himself into the cases instead of dealing with his personal life. The two worlds collided when Langston saw Tinsley Caldwell’s picture.

Seeing that, along with the failed efforts made by both local and federal investigators in the past, spurred something