all the way to funny. “I don’t think so, Walker.”
“Well, then, we’ll have to meet there, because I have my pride.” And my smarts. Petite would never forgive me for tarting around with an Avalon. She knew these things.
Minute laugh lines crinkled around Morrison’s blue eyes. “Fair enough. I’ll see you at a quarter to eight, then. Go home and get some rest.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I scurried back up to Homicide, where, fortunately, all the doughnuts had already been eaten. I’d have gone on a panic-inspired binge if they hadn’t been. Instead I seized Billy’s arm and hauled him off to the broom closet which doubled as a crash pad for cops whose shifts had gone on too long.
He came along willingly enough, though he did say, “Do I need to tell Melinda you’re dragging me off to bed?” as I banged the closet door open and propelled him inside.
“Please don’t. She may be little, but she be fierce, and she’d kick my ass. Billy, something has gone terribly wrong. Somebody gave me concert tickets and now I’ve got a…a… like a date with Morrison!”
My partner was a steady soul. A good man. The sort, in fact, who could walk away from nearly getting a nail through the skull and still remain a bastion of calm. I was sure he, too, had seen Dr. Caldwell this afternoon, but there was nothing in his demeanor which suggested he’d had a bad day. That’s how glued-together he was.
So I hardly expected him to fall into a fit of what could only be called giggles, even if men who stood well over six feet tall were not normally prone to giggling. Offended, I stared at him, which upgraded his giggles to whoops. He staggered back, sat on the army-corners bed and leaned against the far wall while gales of laughter shook his body. It took over a minute for him to catch his breath, and I thought perhaps he was just a leeeettle more on edge about the morning’s events than he’d been letting on. Still, it was with genuine merriment that he said, “Sorry, Joanie, it’s just that when something’s gone wrong around you it usually runs to the apocalyptic. The captain having a date, even with you, probably isn’t a sign of the end times. Besides, isn’t it about time?”
My head heated up. I hated to think what color my cheeks were. “It’s not that kind of date!”
“Of course it is.” Billy wiped his eyes, looking as happy as I’d ever seen him. “For one thing, if you didn’t think it was, you wouldn’t be having a meltdown.”
“Billy, he’s my boss! Our boss!” Which, while true, had hardly stopped me from slowly falling for the man. I really didn’t know when it had happened.
Just because I didn’t know when it had happened, however, didn’t mean every single person I knew hadn’t noticed it happening. In fact, they’d all clued in ages before I did, which was its own kind of humiliating. I sank down on the bed beside Billy and mumbled, “It was his stupid idea,” into my hands.
Billy patted my shoulder and did a credible job of not sounding too interested in the details. “Really? Morrison asked you out?”
“Well, sort of!” I knew he was going to go home and gleefully tell Melinda everything, but I explained the awful scene in Morrison’s office anyway.
Billy manfully didn’t start giggling again. “He likes you, you know.”
“I drive him insane.”
“Which doesn’t negate the point. Look, Walker.” Billy knocked his shoulder against mine. “Just go and have a good time. A date is not the end of the world.”
“It is if I don’t have anything to wear!” Oh, God. I was turning into a stereotypical female before my very own eyes.
Billy choked on another laugh. “Call Phoebe. She likes dressing you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, then slumped. My friend Phoebe was a fencing teacher by vocation, but a fashionista in her heart of hearts. Tall, generally slender me was her idea of a perfect model. She loved dressing me up. Moreover, she had vastly better taste in clothes and style than I did, and I had the entire remainder of the afternoon, thanks to the suspension of duty. There was no chance she couldn’t make me presentable. “Okay, but I’m blaming you if this is a disaster.”
“It won’t be a disaster.”
That was our cue to leave the broom closet, but I only nodded moodily and sat there, slouched, for a minute before nerving myself up to say, “So how’re you doing?” in a much more subdued tone.
Billy pushed out a huge breath of air and said, “Okay,” after a while. “You?”
I bobbed my head around in a noncommittal okay of my own. “I haven’t heard how she is, yet.”
“Stable. She’s going to be fine. You did good, Joanie. The neighbor—not the one with the kids—said he thought she’d been hiding in their doghouse.”
“Big dog.”
“German shepherd.”
That was big enough, all right. “How’d she get into the yard?”
“Hole in the fence. The kids use it to go back and forth to play.”
I said, “Shit,” and put my face in my hands. “I should’ve looked beyond the Raleigh property. I’m sorry, Billy.”
“We weren’t supposed to be checking out anybody else’s property. You did fine. You saved my life.”
This time I managed the tiny joke I’d been reaching for earlier: “Had to. Who else on the force is going to put up with my bizarre life?”
He knocked his shoulder against mine again, a familiar and comforting action. “Nobody, that’s who. Don’t think I don’t know it.”
I wobbled from the impact. “Don’t think I don’t.” I had, for most of the four years we’d known each other, given him endless hell about his belief in the paranormal, right up until the paranormal came and bit me on the ass. Since then he’d put up with my shenanigans, held his tongue time and again and generally been as stalwart a companion as a girl could ask for. Nobody would have treated me as well as he did, past, present or future. I didn’t deserve him, but I was grateful as hell to have him. “You call Mel yet?”
“No. Morrison’s sent me home for the afternoon, soon as I get my report in. I thought it’d be better to talk to her face-to-face. She can’t panic about me being dead if I’m standing right there.”
“As long as the news isn’t reporting a North Precinct cop involved in a shooting incident yet, that’s probably a good idea.”
Billy looked pained and stood up. “I better check on that. You heading out?”
“Yeah. To let Phoebe dress me, I guess.”
My partner grinned. “Get a photo. ’Cause I promise, it won’t be a disaster.”
FRIDAY, MARCH 17, 7:53 P.M.
It wasn’t a disaster.
Phoebe had slicked my short hair back in that wet look
