“She’s kind of a hard ass, isn’t she?” Vivian said.
“Never insult the stage manager,” I said, as I started toward the stairs again.
I wasn’t at all surprised to see Myra walking our way. Her gaze flicked to Vivian, then Ryder, then the shoulder I was favoring.
“Chief,” she said, “you’re late for your own departmental meeting.”
“Crap,” I said, going with Myra’s lie. “That was this afternoon, wasn’t it? I’ve got to get Ryder home to let Spud out.”
“I can take the Jeep,” he said. “You ride with Myra.”
“I’d love to sit in on the meeting,” Vivian said.
And before I could tell her that wasn’t happening, her phone pinged. “Hold on.”
I gave Ryder the keys, and mouthedthank you, while Vivian frowned down at her phone.
“Problem?” I asked.
“No.” She palmed her phone back into her pocket. “Just a spam message.” She put on a smile to cover her lie.
“We can take Spud for a walk on the beach,” Ryder said. “Nice weather for counting barnacles.”
“Sounds great,” I said, following Myra as quickly as my aching shoulder would allow. “You two have fun.”
“Dislocated?” Myra asked.
“Yep. Also, Goap stopped by to say hi. With an ax.”
“I saw. Let’s get out of here before Vivian finds an excuse to dump Ryder. Think you can go any faster?”
To get away from Vivian? I discovered I could.
Chapter Twenty-Four
A short game of rock,paper, scissors won me my sister shining a flashlight in my eyes (which dilated correctly) instead of going into the Emergency Room. Myra also reset my shoulder and followed that up with a painkiller and a brown bag with a peanut butter, strawberry jam sandwich, and some humus and celery.
Even better, was the huge travel mug of coffee she had made just the way I liked.
So by the time we got to the station, and I had filled her in on our on-going demon problem and her boyfriend’s place in it, I had plowed through the sandwich, half the coffee, and was feeling a lot steadier.
Jean was manning the front desk, her hair up in one high pony. “Hey. You okay?”
“Word gets around fast. I’m fine.”
She nodded. “Bathin too?”
“He’s built like a tank,” Myra said. “He’s fine.” Her voice was strong, but I could hear the small doubt behind the words.
“Not a scratch on him,” I said. “I promise.”
She nodded and dropped the empty, extra-large duffle she was carrying onto the floor by her desk. “How do we want to do this?”
“We need to find out how Tish is mixed up in everything. Goap admitted he was behind the lock picking. But he wouldn’t say a ghoul helped him get the weapons out of the realms and into Ordinary.”
“You think he’s telling the truth?” Jean asked, bringing her strawberry milkshake with her as she sat on the edge of my desk.
“I don’t know why he’d need to lie about it. He wants Bathin to fight the King of the Underworld for him. He thought arming the gods would give us an advantage when the king decides to go after Ordinary.”
