Pure Blood_ A Nocturne City Novel - Caitlin Kittredge [7]
Down the hall, Captain Morgan came out of her office and locked the door. She wore a gray pantsuit that flattered her stubby frame and a pair of truly exceptional Marc Jacobs boots that I hadn’t noticed when she was reaming me.
“Hex the gods,” I muttered, making a beeline for the squad room. Morgan stopped and looked at me for a few long seconds as we drew even. “Don’t you have a desk, Detective?”
“I do, Captain,” I said tightly. She sniffed.
“Then I’ll assume this lounging around the booking area is the result of some thyroid issue unique to weres that renders you unable to sit still. Return to your work.” She clopped across the lobby in her boots that cost more than my monthly salary and let the outside door swing shut behind her without so much as a glance at Rick. I wanted to follow her and hit her over the head with her own boot.
Instead, I grabbed another handful of toffees, clocked out, and went home early.
CHAPTER 3
At 2 A.M. I could hear the ocean but not see it when I parked the Fairlane in front of my cottage. The ghostly shape of driftwood steps disappeared down the dunes to the water, and the waxing moon sat high in a sky of crisp autumn stars.
The cottage, a one-and-a-half-story clapboard wreck that was covered in climbing roses and rented cheap, was dark. Leaving lights on never deterred a burglar that I’d seen, and it wasn’t like I could shell out to Greater Pacific Power & Light every month like when Sunny was around.
I stopped at the threshold, making my body absolutely still, listening. Nothing came to me except the measured hush-hush of the waves, and no smells except dead roses and fresh salt made themselves known. I shut the door behind me and reached for the light switch immediately, my spine giving a frisson of memory just before the bulb flickered on.
Not too long ago, I’d been attacked by a witch on the same spot where I stood to take off my jacket and shoulder rig. I still had nightmares, and bad moments when I was sure someone was behind me, waiting as I stood in the dark.
But the sitting room was the same, a new carpet over the spot where I’d shot Regan Lockhart. I hung my motocross jacket on the coat tree and slid my Glock into the drawer of the desk that served as my entryway table. I used to lock the drawer. Now, I left it unlocked and slightly open, where I could reach the Glock in under a second.
A lot had changed since I’d stopped Asmodeus. I no longer slept through the night. I kept a hunting knife taped to the underside of my bed frame and a gun readily available. Tiny parts of my brain whispered that I was paranoid, one of those cops who sat alone watching old movies and holding their guns while they thought about how they’d die.
Okay, maybe not that bad, but I was more paranoid now than I’d ever thought I’d be. Dr. Merriman had vetted me for post-traumatic stress, but what she didn’t know was how Asmodeus had talked to me, just before I killed Duncan and released him. I released him, let something horrible and ancient roam free. And I had killed, as a were, and it wasn’t clean like when I had been forced to shoot a murder suspect my first year in Homicide. I had given in to the were and I’d killed.
And it wasn’t the first time.
“Why do you think you keep coming back to that moment?” Dr. Merriman had asked me, crossing her legs at the ankle and twisting a fountain pen cap slowly between her fingers.
I focused on the spot over her left shoulder, reading the titles of the books she kept on her shelves for show. Merriman dealt with bad shootings, suicidal thoughts, cop divorces. She didn’t do weres. I smelled the sweat stippling her blouse every time we were in her office together.
“Do you feel guilty about what happened to Mr. Duncan?”
“Hex me, no,” I snorted, giving her a grim corpsey smile to show what a badass I was. Merriman was a lousy shrink, but even she could see through that.
“Then why do you keep dwelling on his death, Luna? Why do you