“Bertie, you little minx! You’re running a penguin kidnappingring.”
“I refuse to implicate myself in thoseaccusations.”
Basically: yes. “If you know who is involved in, what did you call it? ‘creatively relocating’ the penguin, why don’t you just contact them and tell them to bring itback?”
“Because this kidnapping was not done through approvedchannels.”
“So you have some competition? One of your little minions gonerogue?”
She sighed and I heard the tapping of her sharp nails on the edge of her desk. “This wasn’t any of the usual suspects. The penguin has been truly kidnapped. It may have been taken out of town, or it may be that the gnomes are behindit.”
“Do you have any proof of any ofthat?”
“The note that was included with Abner’s head was written by agnome.”
“Do you know that forsure?”
“No. But I believe it istrue.”
Well,hell.
“I’ll look intoit.”
I ended the call and groaned, both my hands over my face to muffle thenoise.
“What’s wrong, pumpkin pie? Badnews?”
“Don’t.”
He pulled my hands away from my face. Frowned at my expression. “Okay,” he agreed. “Something’s really wrong. What’shappening?”
There were things in this town I hadn’t told him about. I mean, yes, he knew there were creatures who lived here, mortals with powers, and gods who vacationed, but other than shrugging and saying, yeah, that made sense to him, we didn’t really talk aboutit.
He was happy to just be a baker, I was happy to just be a cop, and we were happy to just betogether.
So this…this impending doom of gnomes, along with everything else, wasn’t anything I wanted to burden himwith.
It was a part of my life that he couldn’t really be involved in. A part of me he would neverknow.
He sat up, and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was still facing me, but the line of his shoulders, the set of his jaw, the narrowing of his eyes all told me he wasangry.
“It’s work stuff,” Isaid.
“You’re offduty.”
“I’m never off duty.” I pushed up and pressed my back against the headboard. “You know there are things I can’t talk to youabout.”
“Crimes?”
“Yes.”
“Was this acrime?”
“Technically?Yes.”
“Someone kidnapped the penguin that gets kidnapped almost daily, the penguin that has its own blog fueled only by pictures of it being kidnapped, the penguin that tourists come to this town to see if they can take a picture with and then post those pictures all over the world–that’s a crime you have to keep a secret fromme?”
Okay, he was frustrated. But so was I. He couldn’t expect me to tell him everything about my job. Everything about this town. Everything about me. We hadn’t been together that long. This, whatever this was between us, might be a temporary thing.Fleeting.
