“Ten minutes. While I can run almost as fast as my wife can, I do not teleport. As I’m trying to teach my wife to be sensible when she has four hooves and is making use of public roads, we’ll obey traffic laws.”
“What, you don’t have lights or a siren?”
“I’m guilty of trying to eat them, too. The sound and flashes are just intolerable in this shape,” he complained. Once confident I wouldn’t fall off, he moved into a canter, sticking to the roads, although he wasted no time weaving between vehicles at his whim.
He did, as promised, generally obey traffic laws. Technically, cindercorns couldn’t signal, and I couldn’t blame him for blowing some flame and smoke at an idiot dumb enough to honk at a chief of police. As two could play the game, I flashed the driver my new badge and raised a brow.
The honking stopped.
Unlike my last ride to the precinct’s primary station, Samuel trotted up the ramp alongside the steps, bumped the handicap access button with his knee, and strode on in, angling for the elevator. I took care to dodge banging my head into anything.
If he wanted to handle the walking, I would sit in the saddle without complaint.
Perky met us at the elevator, and I took advantage of the wait to dismount. “Good morning, Perkins.”
“You may as well just call me Perky. Everyone else does unless we’re being official or I’m in trouble nowadays. How was your commute?”
“I had to show an idiot driver my badge because he thought it was a good idea to honk at a cindercorn. I figured I should stop that nonsense before the cindercorn torched his car and made a mess of rush hour traffic.”
The chief whinnied and bobbed his head. “I gave a warning snort. The drivers need a reminder now and then that some of the mounted police have fiery tempers.”
“And he doesn’t mean the cop,” Perky muttered. When the elevator opened, he waited for the chief to step inside before going in. “Your office is a warzone, and I’ll make you your coffee this morning until Bailey can teach you to handle the machine she’s having a relationship with.”
“Relationship?” I asked, joining them in the elevator and pressing the button for the eighth floor.
“Since she hasn’t been able to drink any of its blessed ambrosia, she’s been cuddling and cooing to it,” Samuel admitted. “She does the same with the one at home. I’m expecting tears when she realizes she can have as much coffee as she wants today, assuming she decides to join us.”
“She’s on the move, and she’s whining because she’s misplaced her gorgon-incubus doohickey. Before I came down to wait for you, she was roaming the hallway rubbing her eyes and questioning how she got to work in the first place.”
The chief whinnied again. “Hasn’t figured out she can have coffee yet?”
“Nope.” Perky checked his phone. “She is now sitting on Amanda’s desk trying to figure out which day of the week it is, how she got to work, what happened to her actual uniform, as it appears you dressed her in jeans, a t-shirt, and your favorite of her leather bulletproof jackets.”
“I’m a man with simple needs, and if she wasn’t going to dress herself, I was going to dress her as I like. And I really like her in that jacket. I brought her actual uniform. I was going to call the commissioner and report a downed chief, but it seems I’ve been foiled.”
“That worked the first time you tried it, but he’s onto you now and just asks why she’s that exhausted.”
“While true, it still amuses me.”
The elevator pinged open, and because I needed coffee, I gathered the chief’s reins. “I’ll return him to the chief so they can get to work, Perky.”
“Ask for a coffee and suggest Bailey should make herself one. Then she can take her gas guzzler off somewhere to change into his proper attire while you deal with the disaster in your office. If you need therapy after your interview with him, come to my desk, and I’ll get you in touch with somebody.”
Uh oh. “Do you need therapy from this case?”
“It’s a possibility. I had nightmares about steamrollers chasing me all night. It was not fun.”
“I dreamed about dismemberment, and I’m not sure if I want to trade you or not,” the chief admitted.
Rather than bite my hands off or incinerate me, the cindercorn followed when I led him through the cubicle farm in search of his wife, finding her in the heart of the maze, yawning and listening to a pale-haired woman, who had rolled in to work ready to model while enforcing the law.
Damn. I needed to ask for advice on her makeup game, as she rocked a subtle shadowy look that drew attention to her eyes. I bet the trick worked wonders when she patrolled, and I meant to master the look, assuming I could get home long enough to retrieve my makeup kit.
“Bailey, I apprehended this cindercorn blowing smoke and flame at a honking driver,” I announced, showing off where I held his reins.
Samuel bobbed his head, whinnied, and reached out to nuzzle his wife. “I fully understand your hatred of people honking at you now.”
“It’s so bad,” the woman complained. “But, as we have been unable to come to the bottom of this mystery, why am I wearing this?”
