In special agent Jack Crawford's experience, when something seemed too good to be true, it was always best to interrogate it. Holding firm upon his little insight into the chaos of the world, Jack paced slowly back and forth across the span of his desk, transfixed into a lion circling his prey by the gravity of the situation. What filled his line of vision was a meager attempt at a reporter as she sat vaguely trembling in his wake. With an unrelenting scrutiny, Jack observed the reasonably attractive young woman who appeared to be nothing more than a pair of verdant eyes that were widening with each of his decisive steps.
The man frightened her in the most remarkable way that Karen was sure she would let slip from her tongue anything that she was hiding. That is, if she truly was withholding anything of consequence, which she had to keep reassuring herself that she wasn't. Despite the legitimacy behind her intent, her trembling knees would have suggested otherwise.
His gaze was what she would remember and later depict him by. It was the way it personified his intense concentration, never faltering in the similar fashion of a disapproving parent's, that first caught her attention to the domineering man. It was as if he were attempting to see though Karen, and she quite disliked such a notion of transparency. Even when she turned away, she could still fell it upon her, reducing her into whatever he saw fit.
She refused to match his gaze, for every time she attempted to glance into them she was only met with a derisive wrath that added another shade of insipid porcelain to her visage. Instead, she permitted her eyes to linger about his desk – the only safe place in the lion's den – as she scanned the many marvels and mysteries that were the trinkets to Jack's personal life.
To his right stood a silent and slightly perturbed Will, who seemed to hold even less interest within his awkward frame than what he started with. On his visage held an expression that suggested he was miles away from here, tangled within the vile contempt he held for the people that surrounded him. Karen too found herself wishing to be far away.
Jack finally ceased his pacing with one fluid motion of resting the entirety of his stout frame into his chair. The cry it made in objection only seemed to add to his growing frustrations, making Karen wary of how it might impact his conduct towards her. Yet, judging by the fluidity of the movement, Karen presumed it to be just as natural to him as breathing.
"Help me to understand, Miss. Bishop," his words sliced the silence within the room with a tone of a calculated control that intimidated any and all defiance in its presence. "Who is Ms. Lounds to you?"
"She is my boss." Karen replied meekly, peculiarly grateful for commencing with such a simple question. However, judging by the arch in special agent Crawford's brow, Karen presumed the worst to be vastly approaching and she feared she was scarcely prepared for it.
"And why would you be willing to help us 'take her down' as you so put it?" His voice was velvet with a subtle sharpens to as it was crafted by his overbearing nature.
He appeared composed and collected despite the riled interrogation; a demeanor that appeared to frighten Karen for it seemed peculiarly aberrant of his nature. If anything, she had expected the special agent to shout vile remarks and obscenities at her like in the movies she had wasted her adolescence upon. With slight sorrow, Karen begrudgingly found validity in her parent's arguments of being unable to trust everything seen on television.
"She's obviously not that good of a boss."
Karen knew she had overstepped with her wit when she heard a low grumble coming from special agent Jack Crawford, an audible sign of his censure that suggested such fine humor would be wasted upon him. She decided it would be in both of their best interests to rephrase her response, and thus she started again in the most professional, compose manner that her twenty-seven years would permit. "Freddie Lounds has misconstrued testimonies, tampered with crime scenes, obtained information under false pretenses, and not to mention she has gotten several people fired for her sloppy journalism. She has destroyed people's lives all to promote her name and increase readers. In the tabloid industry we are told that fear, even misguided, will sell, and Ms. Lounds does not shy away from this method."
By the way she appeared dethatched from her words, Will presumed her to have rehearsed this dialogue several times before hand. He granted himself the guilty pleasure in wondering if it sounded better in her head than out loud.
"And you would have me believe that you don't practice such a method." Will interjected with a tone that was slowly accumulating its fair share of contempt. Karen could have traced the cynicism within his eyes and the way it dripped from its corners to flow across his face in the ripples of skepticism if he would have permitted her to.
"I don't." She could only offer in the humblest of tones, regretfully knowing it to not be enough to appease the behavioral analysts before her.
Will scoffed; a deep seeded laugh that caught within his throat from his scorn. "How ideal of you to believe that Miss. Bishop, but in the real world there is no such thing as an ethical tabloid journalist. You vultures are all the same."
His words stung her just as before with the rancor only the mocked could possess, but slowly Karen had built her tolerance to it and continued to press forth with the same zealous tenacity of hers that never seemed to falter. "I'm not asking you to trust me without proof," she concluded hastily, her words jumbling slightly as they appeared to race forth from her mouth before her listless mind had an opportunity to grasp their indication.
"And how, pray tell, can you provide such a truth?" Jack leaned into his query by placing his hands firmly upon the sides of his desk, pushing forth as if to lunge forward at Karen with his rueful presumptions.
It all made the young reporter fell slightly overwhelmed as she slowly began to sink in her seat, a poor attempt to make herself appear unthreatening as if to not disturb the universe before her. And yet, she heard herself uttering the most defiant of questions. "Have you ever known a tabloid journalist to ask please?"
It was met by a pensive silence only momentarily before Will's interjection left Karen faintly numb. "Only when they want something." It was void of all humor as it jaggedly rested upon a callous truth. The scorn that captivated his eyes appeared to darken them with wisps of a clouded gray.
Playing off of Will's point, Jack felt the need to elaborate with a question of his own, one that has been pestering him since this little interrogation commenced. "How can we be certain that you are not under the thumb of Ms. Lounds?"
That appeared to rile the once timid reporter. With such a fractious glower, Karen was no longer the rabbit hearted woman they have grown accustomed to, for the mockery of her autonomy vexed her like none other.
"With all due respect, Mr. Crawford, don't insult my intelligence," her words fell from her lips in the liquid fabrication of authority, sending a chill even down her own spine. "I write about people who happen to commit crimes and not the crimes themselves. If you don't believe me, then check my ratings, they seem to reflect my decisions quite accurately."
Despite the astonishment that lightened the subtle mahogany undertones in his eyes, Jack held his ground in a manner that was expected of his years of experience. He merely entwined his fingers together before him to offer the perfect depiction of contemplation as he spoke in the distinguished tone of the domineering. "Please enlighten us, Miss. Bishop. What do they seem to reflect?"
As special agent Jack Crawford glared down at her from upon his throne of a discounted office chair, Karen could tell that he was a man who had grown accustomed to getting what he wanted. This presented a problem to Karen, for so was she.
"I have a grand total of twelve readers, Mr. Crawford. Not twelve thousand or even twelve hundred. Just twelve," she swallowed the words one by one as they seemed to scorch her tongue with their harsh validly. No longer having a need for the denial she was holding on to, she silently admitted her temporary defeat towards the animalistic nature of mankind that always seemed to flock towards the anguish of others. And yet, it did little to wane her resolved fighting spirit. "I know every journalist claims that they care about their readers, but the difference between me and them is that I actually do. The only way that I can express that to them – to everyone – is by reporting the truth as it is and not by the way we all wish it to be. . . Can't you see?" she inquired in a breathless whisper, wondering why none chose to believe her. "I want to be able to tell them that they are safe and actually mean it for once."
"And I suppose the title of lead reporter would look quite nice under your name once you got the police to handle Ms. Lounds for you." Jack mused, her previous clarification appearing to fall upon deaf ears as he continued to push all of Karen's buttons, even the ones she wasn't aware of possessing.
With a bitter resentment, Karen realized that she quite disliked law enforcement.
"You misunderstand. I'm not after a title," She replied at a great risk for her health as she noted the way her words seemed to engulf Jack in a tart abhorrence for being corrected, surfacing a remorseless terror deep within her.
"I-I want justice. I want to transform the title of t-tabloid journalist into something that we could look at with pride once more and not with today's derision. W-with your help, Mr. Graham, I would like to disprove Ms. Lounds's m-methods and probably the entirety of the vocation that believe sex and fear are the only tools needed to sell a story. I-I want to bring back real journalism: truthful and ethical journalism." Karen concluded with her gaze fixed upon her hands, searching for any remnants of valor that might have been left behind, for the mere presence of these analysts and their shrewd glances seemed to strip her completely of it. Despite her trembling frame muddling her words into stammers instead of the poised offer of confidence she had hoped them to be, her message appeared to briefly resonate within them with the tone of dreams long forsaken.
The naivety of her response left those before her momentarily dazed, and oddly nostalgic for the verdant youth they once possessed. She truly was an idealistic girl, the likes of which Jack and Will were highly unfamiliar with. If Karen thought she was in uncharted waters, then it could only pale in comparison to the expedition Jack and Will appeared to be on, the puerile likes of which enticed a string of misplaced mirth from their lips.
With such abhorrent shock, they laughed at her.
And not with the soft chuckles of the amused, but with the deep throated bellows of the thoroughly entertained. With bemused fantasies filling their heads, they half expected her to fall into a song complete with lyrics dedicated to her romanticized optimism. Even the courteous woman in the farthest corner of the room, who had made her presence unknown the entirety of the time as she psychoanalyzed the idealistic journalist, failed in her attempts to stifle her laughter.
Karen felt the burn of humiliation upon her cheeks and she was sure a glance in a mirror was unneeded to assure the crimson hue that was to certainly accompany the sensation. Feeling as if she were in every sense of the words "a foolish girl," she silently cursed herself for ever believing in something more than the unattainable dream. Her gaze fell upon the floor where it would remain for the night, staring longingly at the fabricated illusion of self-assurance she once wore to fool herself.
"With all due respect, Miss. Bishop," Jack mused as he whipped a jovial tear from his eye, his tone quickly loosing the humor it once held as he repeated her words back to her, "don't insult my intelligence. You think the bureau will roll over for you because of a fantasy you forgot to leave behind once you entered the real world? You must take us for some kind of fools to accept such a ludicrous offer from the same tabloid agency that has consistently tarnished my agents' reputations."
"I wasn't trying to –."
"I will not be made a mockery of in my own office!" Jack's words came rolling forth in the menacing air of thunder that seemed to ring with a certain finality to them.
"Jack," the woman in the back of the room gingerly interrupted. "You're scaring her."
Sparing a glance at her hands, Karen realized the psychiatrist's words to be true as she watched with disdain the way they trembled. But from fright or revulsion, Karen was no longer certain.
"No, it's okay. I understand. Ms. Lounds has a peculiar talent for bringing out the worst in people," her words trialed meekly and void of expression, appearing mechanical as they commented on the overbearing Jack and the trepid Will. "I realize that it's a lot to go on, but I assure you that I am not like her. I can be the solution if you want me to be." Karen winced slightly from her rather clichéd concluding argument. Indignantly she realized it bared a striking resemblance to another one of Ms. Lounds's lies. With a fretful alarm, Karen wondered if she truly was under her boss's thumb.
"I think she's telling the truth," Alana Bloom concluded after a moment's worth of contemplation, utterly shocking the girl into a state of silence. "What do you think Will?"
Will studied the young journalist before him in a way that made Karen feel bashfully exposed as he committed every line and angle of her to memory, inspecting for that one that didn't quite belong. When they weren't upon him, he examined her vast emerald eyes that seemed to pull forth the tides with crashing waves of desperation. He ignored their expressive pleads until at last he found it. Past the famished desire for recognition and a fresh beginning, past the throbbing ache of the misunderstood and the fuming ire that followed, it laid their beckoning to him as it caught the florescent lighting of the office, bending and reflecting it to craft a light that would guide him home. Against his better judgment, he saw trust within the tabloid journalist's eyes.
In a moment of such overwhelming sensation, for he never thought one person capable of containing such raw emotion, all he could do was merely nod his head in the slightest indication towards his approval.
"Congratulations, Miss Bishop. It seems you have your story." Jack confirmed with a final grunt that caused Karen's gaze to soar from their own revelation. Yet, the faintest trace of wary clouded them with notions of the threatened treachery that might follow.
Had she truly just won over her first clients? And the head of the behaviorist division no less?
Karen would have spared a moment to feel giddy if she weren't positively exhausted from the first interrogation of what Karen dreadfully thought in the air of the foreboding would be many. With a slight smile to mark the occasion, her mind rested upon a vague memory of a dogma her parents once said. Regretfully, she realized it to be correct that things never occur according to plan.