Love at First Fight - A Gallagher Girls Story

Chapter Six

My father had a reputation at the Blackthorne Military Academy for Boys—a fact that I was reminded of each and every time he walked into his classroom. When he pushed through those doors, the boys became the military men that they were supposed to be. Any trace of bratty heiress vanished from the girls. Everyone—and I do mean everyone—listened to what Agent Zachary Goode had to say. "You may have noticed that your class is smaller than you're used to," he said, not daring to waste a moment. Then he smiled, cunning and smooth. "And if you didn't notice, then I recommend you pack up your stuff and leave."

He looked perfectly comfortable as he leaned against the corner of his desk, but it was clear that his students didn't feel quite so at ease. Mr. Goode was a wild card—he could change the game at any moment. "This past summer, I cut an additional six boys from the Fieldwork track of study. Professor Woods cut four more girls from CoveOps. You are what remains of the graduating class—you are the operatives of tomorrow." Dad's eyes fell over all eight of us. "If you'd like things to stay that way, then you'd better impress me within the next five minutes."

Silence. And then, panic.

You know that feeling you get right before you're about to defuse a bomb and you're not a hundred percent sure you're cutting the right wire? Yeah. Those next five minutes felt exactly like that.

The projector screen zipped as Dad pulled it down, and with a flick of the remote, four silhouetted faces were on display. "You receive a file for the latest case that the NYPD has to offer," he told us all, and every set of ears in the room latched on to the hypothetical as if their life depended on it (which it totally could someday). "The file says that four witnesses were questioned, three males, one female. One male is age 8, but the other three witnesses all fall within the 25-30 age range. Each witness was asked to describe a crime scene."

Dad pressed the remote again, and four descriptions fell below the anonymous mug shots. "Each witness was asked to identify a suspect who fled from the crime scene, but while reading over the file, you notice that something isn't quite right."

When Dad's remote clicked this time, the slide changed, and the witnesses were replaced with reports of the suspect.

Tall, brown hair, white shoes, big.

Red jacket, beard, blond hair, average height.

Yellow jacket, average height, dark skin, male.

Short, red shirt, blond hair, jeans.

He read each report aloud, but everyone in the room was already a step ahead of him, processing the information and trying to determine what could cause such varied descriptions.

Alice was the first one to jump in, providing solutions before my father could even ask. "First step is to analyze the witnesses," she suggested. "You've got two red shirts with blond hair – maybe they're in on the crime and feeding us false information."

"Already checked it out," Dad told her, playing off of her hypothetical as if the two of them had just sat down to a Sunday morning brunch. "All witnesses are clean."

There were whispers going on behind me, and I didn't dare latch on. I needed to focus. I needed to impress my father.

"And that includes their mental states?" Alice asked. "Nothing that could cause a skewed perception of the crime scene?"

"There's always going to be a skewed perception of the crime scene," Erin Cross chimed in, and I knew that her inner gossip was examining the situation just as thoroughly as her inner spy was. "Shock of witnessing a crime will always trump common knowledge. Depending on the severity of the crime, yellow and red can be easily confused."