“Good morning, sunshine.”

James jerked awake and looked up from where he was slouched in the living room recliner at Headquarters. His second-in-command, Amelia, was standing over him, clearly trying not to laugh.

“Didn’t you have me and Graham help you lug an entire hideous couch into your office just last week?” she asked as James wiped his eyes and tried to get the taste of stale hell out of his mouth. “What are you doing out here? Busy night last night?”

James groaned. “Ridiculously busy,” he said, sitting up straight. “We were silent until about midnight. Then there was full-on poltergeist bullshit at City Hall. The security guard had our number, don’t ask me why. But then we ended up down there playing Ghostbusters for two hours until Graham could put up some wards and I chased the energy out. The Foundation then had the audacity to ask me to send in the report ASAP so that they would have it on their desks when the right people arrived this morning.”

“Did you?”

“No, because as soon as we got here, the phone rang again. South Worcester County had a report of some kind of ritual going on and when they went to investigate, the guy was open to talking. He said they were trying to bring on a new age of I don’t even fucking know what. But they were based in Lunenburg. So I got to go to Lunenburg at four in the morning to check out an empty field. I got back-” He rubbed his eyes and glanced at his watch. “About thirty minutes ago, and sat down to think for a second before I got started on the report for that one. And the one I have to do for City Hall.”

Without a word, Amelia went into the kitchen. She walked back a moment later with a massive mug of coffee, which she handed to him. “Do I want to know how long you’re on for today?” she asked.

He took the coffee gratefully and took a long sip. After seven years of working together, they knew each other’s cream and sugar preferences, so it was perfect. Almost enough to make it worth being here. “All day,” he said. “And I’ve already heard three notifications about fresh cases.”

“Great.”

James rubbed his face with a hand, trying to will away the sleep that was trying to claim him again. “We’re fully staffed today, so there’s that at least,” he said.

“Small favors.”

“I actually wanted to talk to you about a couple things that are staff-related,” James said, suddenly remembering the plans he’d been making when everything went to hell last night.

“Oh? What about?”

“What would you think about specializing the team a little more?”

“How do you mean?” Amelia asked, sitting down on the couch.

“Okay, we can’t afford to lose any field agents, but we’re already heading toward being more specialized outside of that. We’ve got Bradley on finance and logistics. Gabriella’s basically becoming our team researcher, just minus the title. I was thinking we might be able to make things a little easier for everybody if we had them all officially take on those kinds of roles. Maybe I could even get the Foundation to put some money into it, give them raises like you and I got.”

“Not as much as us, though,” Amelia said, taking a sip of her own coffee. “Wouldn’t want them getting any ideas.”

James laughed. “No, but really,” he said. “If we kind of consider where everybody’s strengths lie, we can fill in gaps around them. But between the scheduling system and some more specialization, we could get in good shape.”

“I don’t hate it,” Amelia said. “In fact, I know Madelyn’s been studying for the Foundation’s tech seminars. I tried to get her to sign up for the one next month, but she said she doesn’t think she’s ready yet.”

“Oh man, having one person doing all the new tech training would be amazing,” James said. “I’m awful at it and constantly calling it logistics and tossing it on Bradley’s workload seems unfair.”

“I’m in,” Amelia said. “As long as everybody’s good with it, I think it’d be a great idea.”

“Great,” James said. “We’ll get that sorted out.”

“What was the other thing you wanted to talk about?” Amelia asked.

“Hmm?” James was halfway through a sip of coffee before he remembered what he wanted to say. “Oh, yeah. You and I need to talk later. You don’t need to decide now, but there is a captain vacancy coming up.”

Amelia looked up at him. “Oh?” she said, eyebrows raised.

“Yeah. It’s actually right over the border in Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. It’s not the most active branch, but their captain of twenty years is retiring in a couple months and nobody on the team has shown the interest or skill needed to take over.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. First of all, what the hell do you mean there’s a choice? But also, they’re searching for candidates. Would you possibly be interested?”

He didn’t expect a screaming, crying “YES!” exactly, but he also didn’t expect the long silence that greeted his question. Amelia looked thoughtful, but also a little nervous?

“Again, you don’t need to decide right now,” he said quickly. “But just consider it, okay? You’d be awesome at it and I know you want to be captain of your own team.”

“I mean, yeah, at some point I do,” Amelia started slowly. “Hillsborough County, you said?”

“Yeah, so it’s not like you’d have to relocate,” James said. “I double-checked. Ideally, you’d live in the county, but it isn’t required. And we’re right over the border, so they wouldn’t be too concerned if you stay here.”

“I’ll think about it,” Amelia said.

“No pressure,” James said. “I just want to offer it up, you know?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Why did she look so distressed by this? “It’s okay,” James insisted. “Seriously, take your time. I don’t think their captain is going anywhere until at least April.”

“Yeah, I will,” Amelia said distractedly. “Um, I’ll be right back.”

She hurried out of the room, leaving James with the impression he’d done something wrong. But what could it have been? He knew he wasn’t the most sensitive guy in the world, but Amelia had been working toward having her own branch for years. She was young, but she’d taken a ridiculous amount of training in every possible subject she could and he knew she’d signed up for four more in the next six months. They’d talked about it before and now she’d had some experience as second-in-command, so it wasn’t like she was being thrown directly into it.

It was fine. Maybe she was just overwhelmed by the possibility.

James stood up and stretched, picking up his coffee. Speaking of captaincy, he had to get ready for a phone meeting with the Foundation. Bradley would be there to sit in on the second half of it with him for all the financial discussion, but the first part was all James. So he was going to need to slug back this coffee and get his brain working soon.

He opened the door to what was finally starting to feel like his office and walked inside. The couch Amelia had been teasing him about was sitting in the previously empty space along the wall just inside the door. James walked past the aggressively floral sofa, heading straight over to crack open a window and let out some of the dry heat of the room. It smelled like old books and older coffee in here, neither of which was nearly as appealing as they sounded.

He opened the window and let the cold air rush in, hitting him in the face. It was mid-December and the first snowflakes of the season were actually falling as he stood there and looked out over the suburban neighborhood where their headquarters was located.

Someone was in the driveway of the house next to them, starting their car before running back inside for something. As James watched across the yard, smoke curled out of the tailpipe and rose lazily toward the gray sky. The grass of their yard was dead by now, yellowed and crunchy, so the snowflakes drifting down disappeared as soon as they landed.

James wanted to stay here all day, letting the sharp wind come in and wake him up before whatever bullshit the Foundation wanted to discuss arrived. He could see exactly how this meeting would go. He didn’t need to be psychic to know all this; he was just coming up on six months in this position.

The Foundation reps would have their things to talk about, generally ways in which they wanted him to do his job better. He’d smile and nod, telling them he’d take that into consideration. Then he’d ask for something in return and they’d very politely refuse his request. The next half of the meeting would involve figuring out the next month’s spending. Bradley would say something dickish, James would try to figure out the best way to apologize while completely agreeing with what Bradley had said, and then they’d end the call. He and Bradley would shout at each other for a little while before joining the rest of the team on the three cases that had arrived for the day.

Oh, and there’d be questions about why the reports from last night hadn’t arrived in time. Didn’t James know they were very busy and couldn’t wait on him?

God, it was like he’d lived the whole meeting already and it wasn’t starting for five minutes.

The man was back out at his car and before James realized what was happening, they’d made awkward eye contact across the fifteen feet of yard between them. The man held up a gloved hand and waved. James waved back.

Did that guy have any idea what happened over here? Maybe he thought James was the owner of this home, just waking up for the day. Maybe in his mind, James was gazing out the window, thinking about the office job he was headed to shortly.

Honestly, that sounded pretty nice right about now.

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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 2