Josh entered his office and sat down at his desk with a card-board mug filled to the brim with coffee in hand, producing a grunt of unprecedented frustration as he did so. He hadn’t felt this disappointed in ages. Disappointed in himself, in his team, in how the investigation was going. The better part of a week had passed since the last crucial turn of events in the case – the encounter with the murderer and the deal Josh struck with her – and it felt like progress on the investigation had only been stall-ing since.

Which, Josh had to admit, was partially his own fault. He’d made the call to cancel team meetings indefinitely a few days ago, taken it upon himself to tell his team about it this time, without Jenn as the messenger. But to what end had he really made that decision? He told himself it was in the interest of protecting the integrity of the investigation, but was that now starting to cost him his team’s trust? His trust in himself had been starting to waver, that much he could say with confidence.

He opened up a copy of the case file on his holocomp and eyed it absent-mindedly, mumbling recitals of key names and events without attempting to draw any new mental lines, taking the occasional sip of his coffee.

After some time, maybe fifteen minutes, his office door whined, sliding open. He kept his eyes glued to the screen of the holocomp. He could guess the offender.

“There’s a doorbell to the right, y’know,” he mumbled, using a tone of voice that was exclusively reserved for Jenn whenever she barged in unannounced. The one person in the en-tire building with a nasty habit of forgetting to ring it.

The voice that echoed back from the open door confirm-ed his suspicion. “Sorry,” Jenn replied with a chuckle. “I just… wanna talk. Subordinate to team leader.”

Josh turned his gaze to Jenn. Her eyes twinkled with worry. He almost turned her away with the excuse of being busy but eventually welcomed her in with a wag of his fingers.

Jenn walked over to his desk while the door slid shut behind her, took a seat and sighed lightly before airing her con-cern. “I’ll be blunt.” Somehow, Josh immediately knew this was going to be bad. So did Jenn, judging by how she visibly steeled herself before continuing. “We’ve been talking within the team about getting a new leader assigned to the case. The guys think your performance this past week has been substandard. That you’re not fulfilling your duties to us as a team leader.”

Yep. Was afraid of that. Another sigh escaped Josh. He stayed quiet for a moment, pondering how he should formulate the response he wanted to give. Struggling to find the words he wanted to use. To put up a strong enough defense. When he did eventually speak, he simply said: “No. This is my case. I can’t just hand it over to someone else.”

“You’re gonna have to come up with a stronger defense if you wanna keep it in your hands,” Jenn threatened. She was only half-joking, Josh could tell.

“Jenn, please,” Josh muttered, hunching over and cross-ing his arms over the desk. “The case has to stay under my lead. There’s something very important related to it that’s best kept off-record.”

“Couldn’t you just brief the new team lead about it?”

“No.”

“Why? What do you know that’s so sensitive?”

See, that’s the part I can’t tell you about, else I’ll be fired. Josh wanted to be honest and say that, but he knew better than to throw his 30-year career away in an instant. “I wish I could tell you. Just trust me when I say the case is better off staying with me.”

“Bold of you to ask me to trust you when you don’t seem to trust yourself. That’s why you put the team meetings on ice, ain’t it?”

Josh’s breathing hitched briefly. Yeah, there you go un-derestimating my perceptiveness again, Jenn’s eyes seemed to say. He maintained his composure, though.

“Talk to me, Josh,” Jenn muttered. “What are you so afraid of? Is it compromising the investigation? Your career?”

“Don’t try to play psychologist with me,” Josh snapped.

Jenn leaned back with widened eyes. Josh didn’t fully realize what he’d said until she responded. “Sheesh, what’s with you?!”

Josh hung his head down and placed a fist of shame upon the bridge of his nose. “Sorry. Didn’t mean that.” Then he lifted his gaze again. “I just… I’ve just been frustrated with the lack of progress on the case. Feels like we’ve gotten nowhere.” Partly because his inside informant hadn’t made contact since their initial run-in. That, of course, was the part he couldn’t let Jenn in on.

“Know what would help?”

He did. But he didn’t trust himself to not crack under pressure. If team meetings were to be continued, he knew the others would needle him about what he knew that they didn’t. And he’d spill the secret he was guarding. “Team meetings will have to stay in ice, I’m afraid. To protect the investigation.”

“So you are afraid of compromising it.”

Josh nodded heavily. “But I’m also willing to fight to keep it under my own supervision.”

“Fear and determination is a hell of a mix,” Jenn com-mented, turning her gaze to the ceiling. “I just hope you’ll come up with a better defense before the guys take it to legal.”

The mention of the internal legal team caught Josh off guard. “Why does legal need to be involved?” he asked. “Not enough to just go straight to Takeshi?” The CEO.

“Fellas think you’re breaching code of conduct, so no. I tried to talk ‘em out of it, trust me, but they’re sticking to it.”

“Well, I appreciate the effort.” As much as Jenn was needling Josh at the moment, he was at least grateful that she was on his side in some respect.

“Anytime,” Jenn sighed in response. “Just, you know… Treat this as a warning about what to expect. I don’t think the guys are—”

“Screw the guys for a moment. What do you think?”

“I don’t fucking know, Josh,” Jenn almost yelled. Then she just stared at Josh for what felt like an eternity, a painful silence filling the office. The longer it lasted, the more compro-mised Josh felt.

Jenn eventually broke the silence with a sigh and a plan. “I’ll talk to the guys about calling off the whole thing. Not ex-pecting it to work, though.”

“Thanks in advance either way,” Josh replied. Jenn pro-duced a subtle nod, got up and walked out of his office.

In that same moment, Josh realized he hadn’t asked Jenn about when they were intending to commence the proceedings. He started drafting a defense speech in his head immediately, in case he’d need to be giving it by tomorrow.