Page 3 of Mastermind

“That’s horrible,” says one of the other cadets, Denise Elliott.

“No, it was fun. I mean, in my house, this is what we did.”

My grandfather was a famous stage magician. I followed in his footsteps until I realized that you have to follow your own dreams—especially when the dream that someone else wants you to follow almost leads to you drowning while performing an escape attempt on live television. It took me a long time to realize that my grandfather didn’t have a death wish for me, he just saw me as invulnerable because I was usually several steps ahead.

“Lock children in closets?” she replies.

“Think of it as a tiny escape room? Okay. I was a weird kid.”

She shakes her head. “That sounds like child abuse.”

“It’s why I’m alive today. Anyway, this pen’s your key,” I tell Cortland. “You and your friend Riley can figure it out. Looking on YouTube isn’t cheating.”

At the rear of the room, Tom Simmons is trying to get my attention, holding up his phone and pointing to it urgently.

“What’s up?” I ask.

“Operations is trying to get hold of you,” he replies.

“Me? What?”

“Something weird just happened in New York. They want to talk to you.”

CHAPTER THREE

EXPERT OPINION

Before I can pull my phone out, two agents wearing FBI windbreakers brush past Simmons and make their way through the class. My right hand goes to my back under my jacket, ready to grab my gun, while my left clenches the underside of the table, ready to flip it over as protection if this is some kind of attack.

I don’t think about doing these things—it’s all muscle memory, as indelible as the scars on my body. To everyone around me, I hope I look relaxed, but I can see Rhonda’s eyes widen as she reads my face. She spins around and puts her body between me and the two men rushing down the aisle. Her arms go out wide, and she suddenly seems larger.

“What’s going on?” she asks in a loud voice.

One of the agents stops to address her, not even questioning why a cadet is challenging him. “We need to escort Agent Blackwood to the airfield. There’s a plane taking off in ten minutes. We were given instructions to make sure she’s on it.”

“It’s okay, Rhonda. Let the man pass,” I say.

The students part, making room for me to follow the agents. For my class, it must look like something they saw in a movie or a TV show, maybe the one that made them want to join the FBI.

A few years ago, this wasn’t all that uncommon an occurrence. I was on a task force that handled unusual cases. Then they became a little too usual. Serial killers using deepfakes, assassination attempts with drones . . . things that used to be weird. Now they’re the new normal.

I follow the agents down the aisle. “What do you know?” I ask the man to my right.

“New York City vanished an hour ago.”

“Vanished?”

“You’ll see the news on the plane. We can’t get hold of the NYC field office. Jersey is handling this on their side. They asked us to send anyone we thought should be there. Sheppard asked for you.”

“Sheppard? Who’s that?”

“Supervisor Sheppard? Crisis Response?” asks the agent, expecting me to know what he’s talking about.

“I’ve never heard of them.”

We exit the building and get into an SUV with flashing lights. I hop in the back while the agent I’ve been talking to takes shotgun and the other gets behind the wheel.

My paranoia has increased. I don’t know these agents. I’ve never heard of this Sheppard. If this is a kidnapping, I made it all too easy for them. I take my pistol from my back holster and rest it in my lap, ready to shoot both of them in the back of the head if my fears somehow are real.