CHAPTER 17

ARE YOU PROFILING ME?

"Are you warm?" Richard said as he held her close.

"Oh, you bet I am." She said with a devilish smirk. Thank God he was French and, thus, unable to pick up on all the innuendos she had been dropping pretty much since the moment they had met. Which, strangely, wasn't too long ago.

"I can tell you're going through something in your life and I don't mean to embarrass you by saying this." He spoke softly while his right hand fingers drew tiny circles behind Emily's neck. "I just want to spend some time with you and, maybe, just maybe, you would want to give me a chance to show you that not everybody leaves."

Emily pouted. "Oh, I never said I was afraid you'd leave."

She knew it in her heart, any moment could be her last moment with him.

"Either way. I enjoy your company. And I am here." Those words made her lean in for another kiss. Just a tiny little peck on the lips. She hated herself for starting to act cute, too.

"For the record, you didn't have to go all out like this." She looked down, fixing her dress as it had ridden a little too high as they were sat on the couch, looking at the beauty of Paris at night, as the boat moved slowly.

"It's okay. I can afford it." He smiled as he played with her fingers.

"That is exactly what I meant." Emily had to set the record straight. "I don't care about money and the lavish life of the rich. That is, honestly, not why I wanted to go out with you."

He appreciated her honesty. A lot of women would have had a different opinion. Emily was nothing like anyone he had ever been on a date with.

"Oh yeah? Then why did you?" He decided to try his luck.

"Hmm, let's see…" Her hands went from his chest up to his shoulders, following every curve and muscle of his body.

"Oh, so that is it?" He laughed. Women did love his body, he was well aware of that.

"Also, I mean, come on. You have amazing teeth. Not to mention, you did change your clothes and even your socks, between lunch and dinner and that is just…wow!" She added dorkily. There it was, the Emily dorkiness that was just bound to ruin a date.

To her surprise, he just laughed about it.

"Je suis très intrigué par toi, Lauren." His hands searched for her fingers once again. She had explored a bit with her hands, but he missed the way her small fingers felt between his own.

"I am more than intrigued by you, Richard." She relaxed back on the couch, followed by his body, firmly pressed by her side. His hands enwrapped her like a Christmas present and he inhaled the perfume that was not even her own. Thank God for Sephora being available at every corner, so that Emily could look somewhat decent on this improvised date. She had literally left with just her Lauren Reynolds ID card in her pocket exactly 24 hours ago, from the Washington DC airport, and without a clue what to expect from this last-minute trip.


"What now?" Bryan held the door for Angie as she quite literally rolled out of the café, full from all the food she had just consumed.

"I have no clue. This day does not seem to end." Her eyes rolled.

"We can go grab our books from the library." He suggested and she agreed to that.

Bryan asked for all the required readings, while Angie only highlighted a few, as they walked to the counter for assistance.

"Have you seriously read all these books?" He remembered that in class she had said it, but he thought she might have been joking.

"Yes." She nodded. "I like criminology and I've been reading a lot since I was a child. I also have a really good memory, so I don't need to read a book again. At most, if it treats a difficult subject like molecular biology or something, I might go back and read some notes on the book or a summary or some online article. But not the whole book. I'd rather put my time and efforts into reading a completely new and unknown book. You know, my time is precious." She said like a diva, just to make a joke out of it and to point out that she wasn't trying to sound obnoxious with her words.

"Sorry to eavesdrop, but I couldn't help it." Some woman walked over to them.

"It's okay. I don't mind. If anything, sorry I didn't lower my voice when speaking in a library." Angie said politely, as she always has.

"You said you like reading about criminology. What are your favorite books?" The woman smiled and seemed nice.

"Serial Murder by Ronald and Stephen Holmes; Stalling for Time: My Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator by Gary Noesner; the FBI Handbook of Forensic Science; FBI Handbook of Crime Scene Forensics: The Authoritative Guide to Navigating Crime Scenes; Inside the Criminal Mind by Stanton Samenow; Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John Douglas…" Angie trailed off to take a quick breath before continuing.

"But my most favorite of all times are Criminal Profiling: An Introduction to Behavioral Evidence Analysis by Brent Turvey; Profiling Violent Crimes: An Investigative Tool by Ronald Holmes and the seven-part series of Criminal Profiling by the FBI, now those were spectacular!" She was now panting, out of breath, her face was red, as if she had just ran a marathon. It took her half a minute to shoot out all this information and it was more than obvious how interested she was in the topic.

"Oh, now my absolute favorite books to read are by this one guy, my favorite criminal author, I've been to his guest lectures in different universities and he is absolutely amazing. A genius. A miracle. Spectacular. He wrote numerous bestsellers on-…" Angie was ready for another emotional downpour when the woman just raised her hand and interrupted her mid-sentence.

"What is your name, young lady?" She asked curiously.

"I'm Trainee Angela Hunter, Madam." She said politely and the woman just walked away.

"Oh, I guess she was in a hurry." Angie excused that sudden departure.

"Girl, if you took any longer to reply to a simple question, she'd be missing out on her retirement days!" Bryan pointed out and Angie laughed. She could, sometimes, be quite bubbly, without realizing it.

"Hey." The girl behind the counter interrupted them. "I added a little something I think you might enjoy. It goes with what you just said you like to read about. Let me know your thoughts."

"Okay, that's very nice of you. Thank you." Angie grabbed her pile of books and felt relieved that this mystery item turned out to be a book she had never read before.

"You know what?" Bryan said, on their way back to the dorms, to unload the books. "There's something really cute about you. I mean, you are a tough chick, but you are also very relatable. You have been here for a week and everybody knows your name, starting with Agents and ending with the cafeteria staff and the people at the library now, too."

"Yeah, I'm very sociable. I know, it's weird, coming from someone who claims they don't like to get close to people." She giggled.

"I don't think that you dislike getting close to people. Quite the contrary, actually." Bryan pointed out. "I think what bothers you is when people leave."

"Are you profiling me? Because, as far as I know, we haven't even started our behavior profiling lectures yet. So, you might be way off." She said teasingly.

"Oh, I'm spot on and you know it." He smirked and it got on her nerves. "Come on, pouty pants. We still have a few hours to kill before we go to bed. I'm sure you can think of something useful to do."

"As a matter of fact, I can." She stated, placing her books on his nightstand loudly. First of all, she wouldn't be bothered to go all the way to her room to leave the books. And secondly, Jack was sleeping at that moment, so every excuse to wake his arrogant ass up was an excuse Angie would gladly take up on.


Somewhere between cuddles with a hot French guy and being completely logged out of reality, Emily had managed to doze off. When she opened her eyes, she realized Richard must have asked Gustave to switch one of those heating lamps for external use, near Emily. Either that or she was sweating for a completely different reason.

Her eyes looked around lazily.

Yes, it was the lamp.

"Oh, wow. I'm sorry." She licked her lips, feeling guilty to have dozed off when in reality she was enjoying herself so much. "I've just had a lot of pressure at work lately and there is also jet lag and I uh-…"

"It's okay." His hand pushed a strand of hair away from her face.

Emily then realized something. Richard had this weird habit of staring at her face. At first she found it cute, but now it was kind of creeping her out.

As if he picked up on her thoughts, he explained himself. "You remind me of a woman from my past. That is why I keep staring at you. I find you so beautiful."

"Don't get me wrong, but I don't want to be a substitute for anyone." Emily was now running on low energy. Her twenty-minute nap had not been enough to give her a boost. It had, rather, served to make her feel even more tired.

"Oh, no, it's not like that. I never met this woman. I have only seen her around and I found her beautiful, too. She was the first woman I was interested in since the times when I was married. So, it was nothing but appreciation for a woman's beauty. Your face just reminds me of her. That's all." He explained and now Emily was curious.

"Was married?" She asked curiously.

"A long time ago." That was all he volunteered to say on that topic.

"Okay, well…" This was awkward. She needed to start a new topic or she'd be risking making a fool out of herself, as usual.

"I don't want to be too direct, but since you keep hinting that you would be gone in a week, I would like to make the most of my time with you, while I hope that there is no truth to those threats of yours." He pulled out his phone and showed her a few pictures.

"A friend of mine owns this villa, it's at the French Riviera - St. Tropez. The weather is still nice, so there are still people out at the beach and around town. It would be my immense pleasure if you agreed to spend a couple of days there with me." He was a bit shy to ask, but her reply startled him.

"Yeah, sure." She said calmly.

"Really? You're not afraid I might turn out to be a serial killer or something?" He said, jokingly.

"Oh, trust me, that is the least of my worries." Emily smirked. Oh, if he only knew.


"Are you joking?" Bryan hissed silently.

He was kneeling behind a bush next to a building that looked way above their clearance level, which, by far, was at level zero.

She smirked.

"You have got to be joking!" He added.

"Come on. We were told to explore. We're only just following orders." She stood up, extending her hand for him and then dragging him over to the entrance.

"I don't think we can even enter…" He shook his head. Oh, that girl was trouble.

Angie walked up the stairs with her head held high and her hand tugging on Bryan's shirt, urging him to keep up.

"Good evening, Sir." She said politely and a random man held the door for her, on his way out.

"See? Sure we can enter!" She smirked and walked down the hallway.

A few Agents were on their way out, since it was late afternoon by then.

Angela pulled out her Trainee badge, which was nothing more than a piece of plastic. She held it against the card reader of every door she found on her way, but it did not get accepted anywhere.

She used the same tactics as before, this time a female agent held the elevator for her, and she got off at the fourth floor. Looking around, she realized she was at Counter Intelligence. This was not something she was interested in, so she opted for the elevator one more time, only to find out that, without an actual badge, the only way to go was down to the lobby.

"Well, that was a bummer." She pouted, exiting the building and immediately scanning for someplace else to go.

"That's part of the teaching center. Dan said that the other day." Bryan commented when he saw her pointing at a three-floor building.

"Teaching center? Oh, okay. We're students. Let's go learn." She smirked and, once again, dragged him along.

This time the entrance door accepted her badge. As she walked down the halls she saw instructions for all sorts of cool nerdy places – laboratories, DNA analysis lab; firearms hub; fingerprint analysis lab and many more. Her curiosity made her want to open each door and she spent about five minutes in each laboratory, just walking around and checking what was in there, without touching a thing. Not so much because she didn't want to break anything, but because she didn't want her prints to be left at a place where she might not be allowed to be at.

"Woah, that is so cool!" She squealed happily, her eyes set on a piece of machinery that, to Bryan, looked like a prototype of a phone, form the 60's.

"Yeah, okay…" He murmured.

"Are you kidding me? Do you not know what that is?" There was a tiny bit of judgment in her voice. "This is what they use for DNA amplification. A real PCR!" Her fingers lingered in the air above the machine, but without touching it. It was almost as if she wanted to caress it.

"Angie, what the Hell is PCR?" Bryan rolled his eyes. He liked gadgets, but he had no clue what any of those things in the lab were.

"PCR stands for Polymerase chain reaction. It is a method, widely used in molecular biology, to make several copies of a specific DNA segment. Using PCR, copies of DNA sequences are exponentially amplified to generate thousands to millions of more copies of that particular DNA segment. This is important for forensic DNA samples since the DNA often found at crime scenes is limited in both quantity and quality. This molecular "xeroxing" process is completed by precise heating and cooling of the samples in a thermal cycling pattern for approximately 28 cycles. Also, the process takes approximately 15-30 minutes to set-up and then approximately three hours to run on the thermalcycler instrument. So no, it's not anything like what they show in the movies." Those words of hers made Bryan realize one more thing – she wasn't joking when she took pride each time someone called her a nerd.

"Hey Google, never mind I asked." He sighed and walked over to another machine, in hopes of shutting her up.

"Oh, this one is used for the last step of DNA analysis, the capillary electrophoresis. That comes right after PCR. It's basically a-…" She saw rage on Bryan's face and she took that as a hint to shut up, which she did, immediately.

"I see someone has done her Summer readings here." A man in his 60's, wearing a white apron, scared the crap out of both of them as he stepped out from behind one of the bigger machines.

"We're sorry. We didn't mean to break in or anything. We just got lost. We're leaving." Bryan said frantically and Angie laughed.

"Grow a pair, would you?" Her words made the lab guy laugh as well.

"Biology major?" The man assumed.

"Oh, no. I just have a very wide range of interests and molecular biology, no matter how hard I find it to be, is one of them. Although, no offence, I prefer chemistry. And I hate math." Her honesty was refreshing.

"None taken. I'm actually a chemist myself. I will be teaching the Academy trainees all about DNA testing and other beautiful things." He laughed, knowing fully well that most of those trainees would hate his classes and find them hard, boring, uninteresting and useless.

"Cool!" Clearly, Angie was not one of those trainees.

"Why are you wandering around the teaching building on your day off?" He was a curious old man.

"Oh, we had nothing to do and wasting time or sleeping didn't seem fitting for two highly motivated future FBI agents, Sir." She said honestly, once again.

"What are your names?" The man smiled and extended his hand to greet them properly.

"I'm Bryan, Sir." He shook the man's hand first.

"Trainee Angela Hunter, Sir. It is nice to meet you." She then shook the man's hand.

"I'm Dr. Steinberg and you will be seeing lots of me from now on, starting with Tuesday morning after physical training." He motioned towards the door then, as he was in a hurry to close up and go home.

"I can't wait, Sir. Thank you for your time and have a good evening." She said with a smile and they walked out, in search of the next lab they could get access to.

"Photography lab, oh that sounds fancy." She sounded enthusiastic about it, but decided not to enter.

"Ballistics. Oh yes!" She was smart enough to know that there was no good excuse to break into a room, full of guns, when she was not even supposed to know how to handle a gun yet.

"Rooftop." Bryan smirked, pointing at a small sign at the end of the hallway. It led to a flight of stairs and a small door on top.

"Oh, living our best lives, aren't we?" She smirked, loving how Bryan took the initiative this time.

"Wow, this place is freaking awesome!" Walking out on the rooftop she realized it was nothing like any rooftop she had ever seen. There were a few rooms built in, each room with a different scenario of a murder.

"This must be where we learn how to gather evidence and then we go downstairs to analyze it. Damn, this is so cool!" Angie literally jumped from all the joy that her little heart was filled with.

"You are the weirdest girl I've ever met, Angela Hunter." Bryan walked over to her side and put his arm across Angie's shoulder. "And I am so incredibly lucky to know you!" He added, warming her heart a little bit.

"And I'm lucky to know a hot guy who doesn't want to get in my pants." To those words of hers, he winced. "What? I thought we were being honest and all?"

"You are a piece of work, damn it." This time it was Bryan who pulled Angie to a corner of the rooftop.

She felt the breeze hit her face. It was starting to get a bit chilly, that night it was supposed to rain again, so the weather was quite weird.

"Hey, what do you think will happen to us after the Academy?" She asked, eyeing the dorm rooms building from above.

"Well, best case scenario, we would end up working at the division of our choice. Worst case scenario, we'd fall out of the Academy." He shrugged, sitting by the edge of the rooftop and letting himself enjoy the breeze as well.

"I guess that worst case scenario is always an option, but I don't think it is applicable for us. We work our butts off and we just might be the two most highly driven trainees this year." Her hands went up in the air and it felt so good to have the breeze tickle her now naked stomach, as her shirt rode up a little bit. It was her very own Titanic moment, on the edge of the rooftop.

"What makes you say that?" He changed his sitting position as it was starting to hurt him to sit sideways.

"Look at us. Everyone else is sleeping. We spent the whole day doing things, even the smallest and most insignificant things, but with our restricted access, we couldn't have done more. And yet, we tried. And don't tell me that you only came along because I dragged you. I know you well enough by now to know that you only pretend to be annoyed when you comply with my weird requests, but deep down inside you actually want to do more, see more, know more. That's why you are my partner in crime here, quite literally. I couldn't see myself doing this crazy roller coaster with anyone else, but you." She said honestly.

Angela had never been afraid to speak her mind. If someone asked her a question, she would reply honestly, even if the answer could possibly embarrass her in front of the person, or even if the person wouldn't like the answer. She was a straight shooter. Also, she liked bringing people up, not tearing them apart. Never in her whole entire life had she ever dared to belittle anyone, judge anyone or bully anyone. She believed that every person had the right to live the way they want to and, if she didn't like it, she had the right to extract herself from that person's life, but without causing them any harm in the process. It was just the way she rolled.

That, however, did not mean that she wouldn't kick someone's ass, if it was needed, or justified.

"You seem confused." Bryan commented when he saw her dart off to her imaginary world of thoughts once again.

"I can't seem to choose. On one hand, being here feels so surreal. Everything feels like a dream and I'm constantly trying to rush things, so I can see and experience more of it before I wake up." She inhaled sharply. "On the other hand, it feels like I belong here. It's like I've always been here, just not physically at this place. I guess mentally, I was present, with other people, at a different location. I just…this place…it feels so…like, home." She smiled genuinely and felt her heart pounding.

"What if you don't get in the division you want?" He didn't mean to put an end to her happy moment, but he had to keep it real.

"Oh…" She turned around to face him before she smirked. "That ain't happening."