I made it to the precinct building in the nick of time, bewildered to find plenty of parking. The building itself needed expanding, and the parking lot was always full. I climbed out, looking around in confusion, and patted Petite’s roof. “Stay brave, girl. Don’t feel lonely. I’ll be back for you.” There were cars in the lot, including a news van a dozen spaces down from me, but it wasn’t overflowing. That was even weirder than me having a date.

I turned away from Petite to find Morrison striding across the lot toward me, and hoped he hadn’t heard me talking to my car. “Whatever you do,” he said as soon as he was close enough to be heard without shouting, “do not talk to the press.”

“What?”

Down the row, the van’s sliding door rumbled open, and a pleasant, neutral expression slipped over Morrison’s face. Only his eyes told me to get the hell out of there, and for once I was in complete agreement with my boss. I gave him a quick nod and managed about six steps toward the precinct building when a woman’s curious, professional voice said, “Joanne Walker, right? We met in January at Blanchet High School in the aftermath of the murders.”

I set the edges of my front teeth together in a grimace, then made it into a smile as I glanced over my shoulder. A lovely woman, her ethnic background clearly involving at least Asian and Caucasian, had climbed out of the van and was smiling at me. “Laura Corvallis, Channel Two News.” She offered a hand and I found myself casting what I hoped was a well-disguised helpless look at Morrison as I turned to shake her hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again,” she said. “I see you haven’t been stricken by the Blue Flu. Do you have any comments on the illness that’s bringing Seattle’s police force to its knees?”

CHAPTER 13

A muscle cramped in my neck as I tried not to look at Morrison. I had no idea what she was talking about, and worse, no idea if I should. My tongue felt like it’d swollen to choke my throat, which, all things considered, was probably good. It made it very difficult for me to say the wrong thing. I could practically feel Morrison telegraphing keep quiet! at me, and after a few seconds I got my tongue loose enough to croak, “I don’t, Ms. Corvallis. No comment. Nice to see you again. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get to work.” I tilted my head at the building, nodded at Morrison, said, “Captain,” just like a good little police officer and made a break for it.

“Don’t you think it’s rather odd that a quarter of the North Precinct police force can’t get out of bed this morning?” Corvallis called after me. “How do you suppose you’ve escaped the illness, Officer Walker?”

I nearly tripped over my own feet. A quarter? That explained the empty parking lot. I was afraid to look over my shoulder and see Morrison’s expression, and I still had no idea how to respond to Corvallis. I repeated, “No comment,” in a strangled voice and tried not to actually run for the building. Corvallis let me go, turning her shark’s smile on Morrison instead. I ducked into the building hyperventilating and feeling sorry for my boss.

A quarter of the force? It didn’t seem possible. The lot was empty, but that empty? It’d only been Billy, yesterday, and Mel this morning. Hollow laughter built inside me and faded away again. Funny how I assumed it was the same thing striking everyone, but Corvallis had said people couldn’t get out of bed. I didn’t know how else to construe that.

Morrison was going to want to talk to me. Morrison was probably going to want to kill me, but if I got into uniform before he came back into the building, maybe it’d remind him he shouldn’t go around killing police officers. I barged off to the locker rooms, which were noticeably emptier than was normal a few minutes before shift change. I changed clothes and escaped the echoing chamber feeling like I was getting out of solitary. For a moment I just leaned on the wall outside the locker room, eyes closed and my cheeks puffed out. This was not going to be a good day.

What a firm grasp of the obvious I had. I huffed a breath and wrinkled my face, eyes still closed. Someone chuckled. “That’s not such a good look for you.”

My eyes popped open. Thor had just exited the men’s locker room, the door swinging shut behind him. He looked, as usual, like a thunder god, all blond and broad-shouldered and chisel-jawed as he grinned at me. “Thor.” I’d been going to try to call him by his real name. That was one of my new Joanne resolutions. “I mean, uh, Ed. Hi.”

“Edward.”

“What?” I needed a better comeback than that, for when I missed a beat. I felt like I was saying, “What?” a lot lately.

“Edward’s better than Ed. Leftover childhood trauma.” It took me a couple of seconds, but I got it: “Mr. Ed, huh?”

He smiled, brief twist of one corner of his mouth. “Yeah. As far as nicknames go, ’Thor’ doesn’t seem that bad when you’re used to being called after a horse.”

“I guess it wouldn’t.” As if missing a night of sleep wasn’t enough, I was now having a nearly normal conversation with the guy I’d been considering my arch nemesis ever since Morrison gave him my job. This was, once again, a whole different kind of weird than the weird I’d gotten used to. “Did you…want something?”

He cleared his throat. Actually cleared his throat. Put his hands in his pockets and pushed his mouth out in duck lips before asking, “You ever go out clubbing?”

“What,” I asked in astonishment, “like cavemen?” No way the one night in the last however-many years I’d gone out a coworker had seen me. It just wasn’t possible. Especially when it was a good-looking coworker. Especially when it was a good-looking coworker who didn’t like me.

Edward laughed, an out-loud belly laugh that nearly knocked me off my feet from sheer surprise. He had a nice deep laugh, infectious enough to make me give him a confused smile in response. “No,” he said a moment later, still chortling. “Dancing. I coulda sworn I saw you last night.”

I was going to kill Phoebe. Or Mark. Or both of them. “Uh. I, um. Yeah. Was out last night. At Contour. Sort of a freak occurrence. Like, never happens. Probably never will again. Like, you know, a perfect storm or something. Not that I’m perfect. I dance like an accident victim.” I bit my tongue to keep from babbling any more.

“Well, I thought you looked pretty good.”

“So why didn’t you ask me to dance?” I asked, suddenly full of inexplicable piss and vinegar. Oh, the snide little voice in my head said, maybe because you’ve been nasty to him pretty much straight for the last seven months?

“I figured you’d say no.”

I stared. “Why would I do that?” Oh, the snide little voice repeated. I told it to shut up and go away.

Edward shrugged one shoulder and did the half smile again. It was a kind of nice smile. “Told you. It’s like trying to follow Roth. We haven’t exactly gotten along. Besides, you looked like you had a date.” He hesitated, then crooked another half smile and said, “Promise you won’t sue me for sexual harassment if I say this.”

My eyebrows went up. “You’re probably safe.” To the best of my recollection, no one in my entire life had ever said anything to me that might set them up for a sexual harassment suit. I was almost hopeful.

“Well, you’re usually…” He gestured at me: bulky blue uniform, clodhopper boots, broad-shouldered and without a discernible waist beneath the Kevlar. “I’d never seen you dressed up before. You were kind of intimidating.”

“Intimidating?” I was beginning to think someone had replaced me with Folger’s Crystals and I hadn’t noticed. “You must be very confident to confess that to me.”

He flashed me a genuine grin. “Yeah. Just not confident enough to ask a coworker to dance.” He waited out my jaw-dropped, stunned silence for a few seconds, still grinning. “Maybe I’ll catch you at a club sometime. Right now I better get to work.”