no answer, only anger.
Kyle realized that his so-called new partner was looking at him as if she was waiting for an answer to something.
“What?” he snapped out impatiently.
They were out in the squad room and without thinking, he’d walked over to his own desk. Castle’s had faced his. The surface was wiped clean. Hadn’t been that clean since the first day he’d walked into this room.
“Is this my desk?” Jaren asked. There was no sign of impatience in her voice.
What was she, a robot? Just what he needed, someone who was always sunny. “That was Castle’s desk,” he answered.
“Your old partner.”
It wasn’t a guess. Jaren had done her homework. She always did. As bright and chipper as a cartoon character, she knew that people tended to underestimate her, and initially assumed that she probably had the IQ of a freshly laundered pink sock. Not wanting to surrender her natural personality and force herself to appear more somber than she was, she worked hard to negate that impression in other ways.
One of those ways was to be a walking encyclopedia on a great many subjects. The other was to be the best damn detective she could. This included being up on almost everything, including weapon proficiency. She mentioned none of this, preferring to surprise her detractors with displays when they were called for. It usually put them in their place after the first couple of times or so.
O’Brien, she decided, was going to take a bit of work.
“Yeah,” Kyle answered grudgingly. “My old partner.”
It wasn’t that he felt lost without the older man, who’d been a decent mentor. It was just that Castle understood that he liked to keep his own counsel unless he had something important to say. Silence was a great part of their working relationship.
This one struck him as someone who only stopped talking if her head was held under water. And maybe not even then.
She nodded her head, curly, dark blond hair bobbing. “Then I guess that makes it mine.”
“For now,” he qualified. Despite what he’d said to the lieutenant, he was still very far from committed to this so-called partnership.
Her smile made him think of a mother indulging her child’s fantasy. But only so far.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she informed him pleasantly. “Unless, of course, they decide to move us. En masse”
He grunted in response as he took his seat. Hitting a few keys, he appeared absorbed by what he saw on his monitor. His question took her by surprise, especially since she didn’t think he asked questions, not of the people he worked with. She’d heard he was a pretty terrific detective, though, and she was hoping to learn something from him.
“Why’d you leave Oakland?”
“Personal reasons.” When he merely nodded at her answer, Jaren asked, “Don’t you want to know what they were?”
His eyes answered her before his words did. “Not particularly. Someone says something’s personal, I figure they want to keep it that way.”
She shook her head, allowing a small laugh to escape. It almost sounded lyrical. She would have a melodic laugh, he thought darkly. They’d hooked him up with a wood nymph.
“No, I was just labeling them. Personal as opposed to professional.” Then, before he could cut her off, she filled him in—whether or not he wanted her to, she thought. “I left because my father died, and there was suddenly nothing left for me in Oakland. I have no family,” she confided. “So, I sold my house and applied for a job down here.”
I’ve got too much family, he thought. Want some of mine? Out loud he asked, “You’re kind of young to be a detective, aren’t you?”
She all but radiated pride as she answered. “Youngest to make the grade in Oakland,” she confirmed. “The Chief of Ds said I was an eager beaver.”
“Terrific.”
Jaren waited for a moment. When her unwilling new partner said nothing further, she took the initiative. “So, what would you like me to do?”
“Stop talking, for one,” Kyle answered without skipping a beat, or looking up from the folder he’d opened on his desk.
Rather than back away, she asked another question. “I take it you’re the strong, silent type?”
He made a mental note to stop at the hardware store and buy a roll of duct tape. The clear kind so people wouldn’t immediately notice that Rosetti’s mouth was taped over.
“Something like that.”
He heard her laugh softly to herself. “I’ve run into that before.”
“I bet you have.”
Jaren leaned over her empty new desk in order to get closer to him. “Don’t worry, O’Brien, you’ll find that working with me won’t be such a bad thing.”
Abandoning what he was trying to read, Kyle finally raised his head. He gave her a long, penetrating look. Had he met her off the job and a year ago, when he thought he knew who and what he was, and when the world was still recognizable to him, he might have even been attracted to her—once she learned not to talk so much. But now, well, now he had a feeling he would count himself lucky if he didn’t strangle her by the end of the day.
“We’ll see,” he said, his voice showing no glimmer of hope in that direction.
Suddenly, his new partner was on her feet again like a Pop-Tart escaping a toaster. “I’m going for coffee,” she told him. “Can I get you any?”
“No, thanks.” She took five steps before she stopped and turned around again. He had a feeling that she would. “What?”
“Where is the coffee machine?” she asked, her demeanor so sunny it just blackened his mood.
Kyle sighed and began to point in the general direction where the machines were located, then remembered that they had been moved last week. If he were still a churchgoer, he would have thought of this woman as penance.
Reluctantly, he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. “C’mon, I’ll show you.”
He didn’t think it was humanly possible for her to brighten, but she did. “Thank you, that’s very nice of you.”
“No, it’s not,” he denied, walking out of the squad room and into the hallway. “For the record, it’s called selfpreservation. If you’re drinking, you won’t be talking.”
His sarcastic remark earned him yet another grin. “I’ll try to keep it down,” she promised.
“If only,” Kyle murmured to himself under his breath. He had a feeling she heard him because she slanted an amused look in his direction.
The vending machines’ new location wasn’t that far away from the elevators. They were almost there when he
