I hadn’t meant to say that. But it was all I could manage.
He tipped his head in a sort of shrug. “So redirection is your style now? Come on. Even I won’t fall for that.” He moved away from me, across the kitchen toward the door. “Let’s go check on Jean.”
He strode out of the kitchen. The pain of pushing him away swelled hard and hot behind my ribs.
And then it was gone.
Chapter 12
“What are you doing here?” Jean demanded. She was sitting in Myra’s rolling chair and using mine to prop her braced foot leg upon, one crutch at her side like an oar.
Roy, behind the counter, took one look at me, the pissed off boyfriend behind me, and the sardonic demon behind him, and pushed up onto his feet. “I’ll go put on the coffee.” He lumbered off to the back room where he could fill the pot with water, giving the other two officers in the room a nod.
Hatter and Shoe. They were a study in opposites. Hatter was tall, all arms and legs, and dusky skinned with sharp, light brown eyes and short close-cut hair. He was lounging against the edge of Jean’s desk, chewing on sunflower seeds he popped in his mouth out of a thin plastic tube, and looking like he should have on a cowboy hat to accessorize his uniform.
His deceptively lazy gaze took us all in. I didn’t know what conclusion he came to.
Shoe, on the other hand, leaned against the back wall that separated my desk from the rest of the front room. Thick, lighter-skinned, red hair bright enough to give off its own heat, and hard dark eyes, his muscular arms were crossed over his chest and his gaze did not waver from my face. As if Ryder and Bathin weren’t the thing he saw as a threat in the room.
That was weird.
“I wanted to check on you,” I said. “Guess how surprised I was to find out you were here at the station working instead of home resting? Like the doctor ordered.”
“Pshaw,” she slurred. From the happy glitter in her eyes and slight flush on her cheeks, she was still riding the good ship Percocet.
“I told her to stay home,” Roy said from over by the coffee pot.
“Traitor,” she said with a loopy grin. “I brought you donuts to buy your silence. ’Cause donuts get stuff done.”
So that would explain the three overfilled boxes of Puffin Muffin baked goods spread out across the desks.
“Hogan?” I asked.
She sighed dreamily. “He got up early to make sure I had two of every kind they make. Isn’t that damn sweet of him? Damn sweet. Don’t tell anyone, but I like him. And his butt.”
“Did she take a double dose of the happy pills?”
Hatter swallowed the sunflower seeds. “Don’t know. She just showed up. Like all that.” He gestured at her. “Baker brought her in. He says he’s not her boyfriend, and also that it’s ‘complicated’ because she’s ‘pig-headed’ and ‘relationship-stunted’.”
Wow. That was. Wow.
Jean just grinned. “Oh, yeah. I’m the stunted one. Psssssh. I don’t hold the family record of staying out of a relationship that was right in front of my face, do I, Delaney?”
I ignored her.
“It was Hogan,” I said. “He’s her boyfriend.”
“He doesn’t know our Ordinary secrets. Shhhhh.” Jean carefully lifted her crutch and sort of waved it at Shoe and Hatter, almost knocking everything off her desk.
I strode around the front counter so I could grab the crutch away from her before she bulldozed her collection of evil wizards.
“Hey,” she complained. “I’m really gonna need that thing.”
I propped the crutch against the desk and took her hand. “I know. But you should be in bed, honey, not here trying to work.”
“Can’t sleep. Too many monsters.” She frowned like she had just realized what she said. “You know. The killer. Wait.” She reached out with her good hand and grabbed my wrist. “Myra said you did something bad. With a demon.”
Said demon chuckled a low, sexy sound. “She did. Very bad.”
