“I am.”
“If you think of anything, give me a—”
“I will.”
“If you want me to have our officers drive by to make sure no one is doing anything—”
“That won’t be necessary.”
I felt like I was in the middle of a conversation and completely missing the point. She made micro-shooing motions with her fingers. “I have appointments arriving any moment.”
“Okay. I’ll…call me if you need anything, Bertie. Really.”
Her gaze tracked me as I stood, as I stepped behind the chair and took a moment to rearrange it. I was stalling to give her a chance to say something. But the click of the front door opening, and the tumble of a woman’s laughter and another woman’s hushing whisper clued me in that her appointment had arrived.
“Have a good afternoon, Bertie.”
I stepped back through the door.
“Oh, and Delaney,” she called. “When you do find my Feather, call. You and I will need to speak again.”
Her fingers drummed again, hard, small hammers tacking her words down between us, nailing them into places where they could not get dislodged or ignored.
“Sure,” I said. “Sure, I will, Bertie.”
Then the women—they were starting a new fresh produce shop that was tied into community outreach—gave me a smile as I walked past them.
At least someone was having a good day.
Chapter Fourteen
My phone rang.I pulled away from the coffee drive through before answering.
“Chief Reed.”
“Got a couple calls,” Hatter said. “Shoe’s out. I’m on desk. Myra and Kelby are working the crowd at the penguin flash mob.”
“I’m north. What do you have?”
“A domestic. Kids playing drums too loud in the garage next door. I’ve got Jean headed that way.”
“And?”
“Traffic light out at 17th.”
“How soon until the linemen can get there?”
“About an hour. They’re dealing with the blown transformer from that rock slide in Yachats.”
“I’m on it.”
Traffic was stopped to a crawl near the intersection. I pulled up on the shoulder, half blocking a fire hydrant, flipped on all my lights, and dug around in my glove box for a rubber band.
I tightened the band around my pony tail, then strode into the intersection and positioned myself right in the middle of it, the broken lights above me.
It was a four-way stop, but there were a lot of cars coming up from the beach that wanted to turn against traffic.
To complicate things, the shops lining the street had front parking, and foot traffic was trying to use the crosswalks.
