The chuckleheads in question were Hatter and Shoe. Hatter was tall, lanky, and liked to act like a laid-back cowboy. Shoe was built like a fireplug, terminally grumpy, and stole my secret stash of good chocolate on the regular.
I adored them both.
Roy wagged a pen at me then handed over his going-away card: a Rubik’s Cube printed with all of our faces.
I turned it to the side with me in uniform, smiling. I was on the beach, it was a sunny day. I had Mrs. Yates’s penguin in my hands. The little concrete statue was dressed up in swim trunks, sunglasses, and a flowing wig. It was a good memory, a beach picnic that had turned into a bonfire where friends and families gathered and mingled. I’d found the kidnapped penguin out on a rock before Mrs. Yates even called it in. I’d nabbed it up and out of danger of the big wave that would have washed it out to sea.
Right place. Right time.
Roy had taken the picture.
My stomach twisted. Things were changing. I didn’t like change. I didn’t like the mess it left behind, didn’t like what it did to people, what it did to me.
Not that I would tell Roy he had to stay. He’d been waiting to retire until we Reed sisters got our feet back under us after Dad’s death.
It had been two years now. We’d healed, maybe not smoothly or quickly or fully, but slowly and surely. And we had handled every challenge on the way.
Now was the best time, the right time for him to go.
“So much spice in your buns, Myra.” Bathin strolled over, a stolen cinnamon roll in his hand.
Bathin was a challenge I still hadn’t gotten a handle on.
Bad? Certainly. But he’d done good things too. He’d even helped us save people: Ryder from an accident in a snow storm, and Ben—a vampire—who’d been kidnapped and nearly killed.
He’d exchanged my father’s soul for my sister’s. And…well, the jury was still out on if that was good or bad. On the one hand, he’d let my dad go peacefully into death. But he’d taken Delaney in exchange.
“I didn’t make them for you.”
“And yet.” He took another big bite and chewed. Nothing else, just that smirk, those eyes that told me he knew how much it bothered me to see him enjoying something I had made for others.
“Why are you even here?” I asked. “Roy’s going-away party isn’t until tonight. And last I checked, you’re not part of the force.”
“Technically.”
“Yes, technically. And in every other way.”
He nodded toward Delaney. “Her soul. My hands are tied…”
His head jerked up toward the door, as if he expected someone to blast through it with a gun.
“Uh…Delaney,” he said, gaze still riveted on the door.
Delaney was laughing with Hatter, something about the last retirement-party-gone-wrong on the Tillamook police force. It involved live octopus, whipped cream, and a vat of Gummy Bears.
“What?” I asked.
“Hold on,” Bathin said. “Hold on…it’s—”
Delaney staggered and almost fell to her knees, but Hatter’s quick reflexes eased her fall.
“Delaney?” Ryder rushed to her side.
“I’m fine, I’m fine.” She pushed away Hatter’s hands and got back on her feet, though she was pale as a sheet and had to lean against the desk.
Shoe, closest to the door, faced it, looking for an exterior threat that was not materializing.
Jean pushed Hogan behind her desk where the concrete wall would give him shelter. Roy put away his precious Rubik’s Cube and pulled a nightstick out of his drawer.
