Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [4]
I excused myself from Rick and walked down the narrow fluorescent-lit hallway to the squad room, pretending the roiling in my stomach was from those two bacon cheeseburgers I’d consumed for dinner.
Not that I could really blame Sunny for moving out. In the course of the Duncan investigation, our cottage had been broken into by a witch sent to kill me, I’d gotten myself shot, and Sunny had been arrested by the Nocturne City SWAT team. A stable life, it was not. And it still twisted my heart every time I unlocked what used to be our front door and found myself alone in the cottage.
My desk still sat in the back corner of the squad room, dusty with disuse. Someone had scrawled the words BITE ME into the layer of grime on my computer monitor.
I spun quickly and scanned the half-empty room. No one was bent over snickering, or looking embarrassed. A couple of rookies from Traffic stared at me with their mouths slightly open.
“Take a picture or cut it out,” I snapped. My heart was pounding and I reached out and smeared the slur away, leaving fingerprints in its place. At least one person in the Twenty-fourth wasn’t happy I was back. If it was just the one I’d be lucky, truth be told.
“Jesus, you look like someone just pissed on your grave.” Lieutenant McAllister came to the edge of my desk and looked at me with the little crease between his eyebrows that telegraphed immense concern.
I brushed the dust off my jeans and collected myself. “It’s been a busy night, Mac.”
“I heard,” he said. “Some tweaker tried to give you a brow lift?”
“Yeah, too bad he missed,” I said. “I would have gotten one of those sexy little eye patches.”
Mac clasped my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “I’m glad you’re back, Wilder, don’t get me wrong … lot of shuffling around after the Duncan thing, and we’re short-staffed.”
“Yeah, I miss Bryson’s stinky cologne,” I said, jerking my chin at the desk across the aisle from me, where Dave Bryson used to sit. His obnoxious souvenir footballs had been replaced with pictures of some guy’s kids.
“Wilder,” said Mac, “if you’d let me finish, I’m saying you don’t look okay. At all.”
And I didn’t feel okay. At all. But if I had to spend one more minute in my silent, haunted cottage I was going to go insane. So I moved Mac’s hand off my shoulder and lied.
“I’m good, Mac. Just a little shaky because of that guy jumping me.” And because everyone knew I was a were, and Dmitri was gone, and I was so, so not ready to be back here with all of the memories of him and me…
“I hope you’re not bullshitting me,” he said. “Because the captain wanted to speak with you as soon as you came in.”
It took me a minute to realize he couldn’t be talking about Wilbur Roenberg, the former captain of the Twenty-fourth. That captain was doing twenty-five-to-life in Los Altos for conspiracy to conceal multiple murders. Although, with the shift I’d had so far, it would be conceivable he might show up.
“What does he want to talk to me about?”
“She,” said Mac. “And I have no idea. She’s not very chatty.”
Well, that was a new wrinkle. There were only fifteen or twenty female detectives out of two hundred in the city, and a handful of lieutenants. No captains I knew of.
“Who is she? Where’d she come from?”
“Hex me, Wilder, I don’t know the woman’s life story. She was a shift commander in the Forty-third and she transferred to the detectives’ bureau. Her name’s Matilda Morgan and from what I’ve seen she gets pissy when people are late. Move your behind.” He spun on his heel and went back into his office. I winced as his door slammed. Mac was unflappable as a rock in a stormy sea. Captain Morgan must be a grade-A tightass if she had him that riled. Great, can’t wait to be grilled by her.
I went down the hall to the captain’s office and knocked.
The first thing I noticed was that Roenberg’s name had been scraped off the wavy glass door and fresh letters that still smelled like paint spelled out MATILDA MORGAN—CAPTAIN.
“Enter!