First Impressions
by: Autumn Fury
Prologue
Special Agent Colby Granger looked at the clock in his car; he was running late for work. After quickly pulling into the parking garage of the FBI building, he began searching for a place to park.
Frustrated, he said aloud, "Great, nowhere to park."
He drove around for a few minutes until he found an empty spot. As he pulled in, someone beeped at him. When Colby turned off his car and got out he noticed a vehicle had stopped behind him and the woman inside was trying to get his attention.
"Hey!" she yelled out her window. "I was going to park there."
"I'm sorry, miss," he said looking down at his watch. "I'm kind of running late for work."
"Yeah, and where am I supposed to park?"
"Ah." Colby began looking around. "Why don't you try over there." He pointed to another section of the garage.
"Why don't you try over there?" the woman suggested.
Colby gave her a funny look and said, "Because I'm late for work." He turned on his heel and ran to the elevator.
The woman let out an exasperated sigh and drove off to try and find a parking place.
Chapter 1
"Look who finally decided to show up for work," Liz Warner teased as Colby came running into the conference room.
"Funny," Colby replied with a smirk, but he didn't sound amused.
Liz grinned. She was always on the look out for a chance to pick on him.
"Sorry I'm late, Don," Colby apologized to his boss, Don Eppes. "I had a hard time finding a place to park."
"Yeah, you know I keep trying to get them to give us reserved parking spaces, but they won't do it," Don replied with a smile.
Colby took a seat and Don began briefing them on their next case.
"Alright, this one's a little unusual," he said. "Richard McCarthy's son was kidnapped over a month ago and the kidnappers have demanded 2.5 million dollars as a ransom."
"Hang on a sec," David Sinclair said interrupting. "Richard McCarthy? As in the big businessman, Richard McCarthy?"
"The one and only," Don answered.
"Then why are we handling the case? Doesn't he live on the East Coast?"
"In Virginia," Don replied. "But the FBI team that has been working this case has solid evidence which makes them believe the kidnappers brought McCarthy's son here to L.A."
"So, do we have any other information on what happened?" Megan Reeves asked.
"The FBI field office in Virginia is sending us their lead agent on the case to help us out. In fact," he said looking down at this watch. "She should've been here by now."
"Yeah, well, she would have been here sooner, but some guy took her parking place," a woman's voice answered from behind them.
Everyone turned around to see a woman in her early thirties standing in the doorway.
"Yeah, parking is an issue sometimes," Don said. "Everyone, I would like you to meet Rebecca Reed."
"Please," Rebecca said with a smile. "Just call me Becca."
Becca stood at five feet five inches, with straight dark brown hair that fell a little beyond her shoulders and bangs that swept to the left. Her vibrant green eyes shone as she smiled.
"This is my team," Don said pointing to everyone as he introduced them. "Megan Reeves, Liz Warner, David Sinclair and Colby Granger."
When Don introduced Colby, Becca realized that he was the same man she had yelled at in the parking garage and she felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment. A smile crept onto Colby's face and everyone, except for Becca, looked at him quizzically.
"I was the 'guy' who stole Miss Reed's parking place," he admitted.
"Seriously, Granger," Liz said. "Where were those good Idaho manners you're always bragging about?"
"Ah, I wasn't thinking about manners at that moment," he said.
Liz raised her eyebrows in amusement and looked from Colby to Becca and then back again.
Colby realized what she was probably thinking and quickly added, "I was thinking about my boss firing me when I showed up late for work."
Liz smiled and shook her head, obviously not believing him.
"Alright," Don said, bringing everyone's attention back to the case at hand. "Becca, why don't you fill us in on what you know."
Becca cleared her throat and moved to the front of the room.
"I'm sure you all know about Richard McCarthy," she began and pulled up a picture of him on the screen. "He's the owner of Tritax Computer Software and Security, which use to belong to his father, but a few years ago it was passed down to him. He has made a lot of money from his company. McCarthy and his wife, Mary, have a five year old son named Sam."
She pulled up a picture of McCarthy's wife and son and continued talking.
"Now, one thing that isn't generally known about McCarthy is that he holds some pretty radical political views, but because of his business he keeps all of that fairly hush, hush. The only reason we know is because we're the FBI," she added with a smile. "Now almost two months ago, while the McCarthy's were at an amusement park, two men dressed in clown costumes approached them. They offered to make a balloon pet for Sam, but obviously that wasn't really their intent. They knocked out Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy and grabbed Sam."
"Clowns," Megan said shaking head. "No wonder almost every kid in America has an unexplainable fear of them."
Everyone nodded in agreement.
"We have footage from three different security cameras at the park," Becca continued. "They drove off in a black 1996 Renault Escape minivan, which they stole. They ditched it two days after the kidnapping and picked up a new car. Through security cameras and tips we have tracked them all the way across the country to here. We think they showed up in town about four days ago. Last we knew, they were driving a brown 1998 Subaru Outback, but they could have changed cars by now. These guys seem to know what they are doing. They have several different aliases and have been able to avoid capture so far. I have a copy of the file for everyone so you can refer to it whenever needed. There are also composite sketches of our two kidnappers included in the file."
"Alright, we'll get a description and picture of Sam McCarthy printed up and circulated throughout L.A.," Don said. "Are there any places in particular we should start looking for the kidnappers?"
Becca shook her head. "No. Like I said, these guys are good, so we need to look everywhere. Hotels, empty houses for sale, abandoned warehouses…" Becca let her sentence trail off, knowing she could go on naming all of the possibilities.
"Hey, maybe our kidnappers left behind some sort of trail that Charlie could find with one of his algorithm things," Colby suggested.
"Yeah, okay," Don said. If Becca thought her day couldn't get any worse, she was wrong, because Don added, "Colby, why don't you and Becca go talk to Charlie."
Colby opened his mouth, about to say something, but then thought better of it.
The two unwilling partners left the room and made their way down to the parking garage.
"Who's Charlie?" Becca asked curiously.
"Don's little brother, he's a mathematical genius and a professor at CalSci," Colby replied as they stepped into the elevator.
"Oh," she said not fully understanding. "And he can help us how?"
"Well, he's got top level security clearance with the NSA and so he lends us a hand on cases. He does math stuff to help us find probable locations, track suspects…things like that," Colby replied.
"I've never heard of anyone doing that before, but hey, if it works."
Colby raised his eyebrows and shook his head. "It does."
The elevator doors opened and they made their way to one of the black Dodge Chargers. Colby unlocked the car and they climbed in.
Neither of them spoke as they drove out of the parking garage and onto the street. After driving for a while in silence Colby looked over at Becca. He could tell that the gears inside of her head were spinning like crazy as she most likely was going over details of the case. It didn't seem as if she was going to talk to him, so he took it upon himself to try and smooth over their rocky beginning.
"I think we kind of got off on the wrong foot," he said.
"I'm not the one who stole the parking place!" she snapped and immediately regretted her callous response.
His eyebrows rose in surprise as he shook his head and looked back at the road. So much for trying to be nice. How did I get stuck working with her?
A/N: I hope you liked it. I'm not sure how often I will be able to update, as I am starting college soon, but I will try to be good about updating.
I want to thank Riter's Fury (my sister) for her creative help.