The glass walls of the superintendent’s office were polished to a mirror-shine, allowing Sam an unfettered view of Daniel, who stood, sentry-like, on the wall behind her. He followed the conversation like a particularly fast-paced tennis match, quiet awe crossing his face.
“A member of my family’s personal orchestra, Angela O’Reilly, had her trumpet stolen no less than two weeks ago, and I was just informed this afternoon that shortly after doing absolutelynothing, you closed the case. Is that correct?”
“I wouldn’t say we’ve done nothing.”
“Oh.” Feigning surprise, she lifted a hand to her chest. “Then youdidfind the trumpet?”
“No. It’s just that there are other crimes. Other things that require attention.”
“This requires your attention. Without that trumpet, she has no way of making a living, do you want that on your conscience?”
“No, but—”
“I hope you appreciate that I’ve come here to sort this out instead of Lord Dubarry. If we had a party and he realized his favorite trumpet player was out of work because of your ineptitude…” She tilted her head even farther in the air, a feat she wasn’t entirely sure was possible before now. “Well, I just hope you don’t enjoy this desk half as much as you seem to.”
Behind her, Daniel choked on a laugh. At the sound, a smile of her own fought to surface, but she held firm. They weren’t going to get Angie’s trumpet back if she let her mask slip for even a second.
“Yes. I mean. No. I mean—”
“You mean you’ll reopen and solve this case.”
“As soon as possible.”
As soon as possible.Those words brought back a flood of memories from her childhood. When she was little and poor and powerless, everyone tossed expressions like that around before sending her off and promptly forgetting about her. All at once, she felt a kinship with Angie, the nobody from nowhere who had been trampled on by the people she trusted to fix everything. Until now, she’d been trying to convince herself that she was only doing this to win Daniel’s favor, a lie too flimsy to stand up to any serious scrutiny. Really, she just wanted a little justice. She couldn’t get any for the person she had been when the world ignored her, but she could get some for Daniel’s best friend and the woman who’d been so nice to her at their open mic night. “No. You’ll get it done today.”
“Today,” the man repeated, blinking blindly at the air in front of him.
With a flick of her wrist, Sam opened up her lecture reading and began skimming, plucking a pencil from the superintendent’s desk to take notes. “I don’t have anything to do. I’m sure you can find it while I’m waiting here.”
Already bulging eyes widened as he struggled to conjure up a reason for her to leave. “I’m sure you would be more comfortable waiting at home.”
“But then we’d be back where we started. Me out of sight and mind and you with no incentive to finish the job.”
“…I’ll get started right away.”
He was halfway to the door when Sam lazily turned a page and tossed another thinly veiled command his way. “And Mr. Best would also like a cup of tea. One sugar. Just enough milk to change the color.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Over the lip of her book, she only just caught Daniel’s reflection as he blushed. Apparently, he was as surprised as she was that she remembered how he took his tea.
…
Two hours later, he drove her back to her house, the bounty of the unscathed trumpet sitting in her lap like a sacred object. The night around the car was impenetrably dark and thick, too close for comfort, and it kept them in a lulled silence until he finally set the vehicle into park in front of the imposing walls of Ashbrooke Manor. Wordlessly, Sam collected her things and set the trumpet case on her seat, meeting Daniel at her front door, the same one where he’d stupidly missed his first chance to kiss her. He wouldn’t make that same mistake again.
“You know,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “What you did today…that was beyond anything—”
“It was nothing. Really,” Sam dismissed. No longer did she wear the veil of nobility she’d worn with the officer, but there was still something blocking him from seeing the real her that he’d sometimes glimpsed before. A distance. “But I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell her.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re so…” He searched for the proper word and when he came up short, settled for something totally beneath her. “Cool. You don’t want me to know that anything affects you. You hide yourself. And then you do something like this.”
“It was the least I could do,” she mumbled.
“You put your neck and your family name on the line for someone you’ve only met once. And then you stand here and tell me you don’t want her to know you did it?”
