“Then let’s find out. Before the party,eh?”
“I’ll talk to Ryder.” I yawned, loudly. I glanced at the pile of candy wrappers on my desk, patted them, hoping I’d left something behind, but no. I swept the wrappers into the wastebasket by my desk and stood tostretch.
“Your shift was up three hours ago, Jean. Gohome.”
“Fine. Hand me thehead.”
He picked Abner up, then set him back in the box, which was looking a little worse forwear.
“Get some sleep.” Hatter swiveled in his chair and held the box out for me as I passed his desk. “Cat?” Heasked.
He’d been trying to guess what costume I was going to wear for the last threeweeks.
“Nope. Cowboy?” I was trying to guess his costumetoo.
“Yep.” Hatter had said ‘yes’ to everything I’dguessed.
“If you’re really going to be a sexy maid alien banana dinosaur cheese sandwich pirate traffic cone cowboy, you’re going to give off some pretty mixedsignals.”
“What can I say? I’m a complicatedman.”
I chuckled and gave him a wave. “Later.”
“Take it easy,hear?”
“Noproblem.”
I shrugged into my coat and got all the way to the door before I heard: “Gnock-gnock.”
“If there’s a zombie gnome head knocking at this door, he better stay quiet, or we’ll find out how long a zombie gnome head can hold his breath when held underwater.”
There was a startledmeep, and thennothing.
Silence. Blessed silence. I got in my truck, turned on the engine and eased out into the dark morning. Home wasn’t far away. I could hear my bed calling fromhere.
