Bunny, did you cry?

Johanna looked up at his face and whispered, "I'm sorry." She was sorry that his life had been hell on earth, that he had died in pain and in such frightening company, sorry that she had not protected him. Johanna lost all track of time as she knelt in the dust, stuttering her apologies to a bloodied corpse. And now she heard the march of little feet and larger mother shoes and the giggle of soft voices approaching the playground. The children were coming.

Riker never wanted to remember his dreams, intuiting that scary country as best left alone. This morning he had been tricked by a fake awakening, a dream inside the dream, wherein he had opened his eyes to see the scary boy astride his chest, riding him like a belly-up horse, pressing down on him with the heavy weight of crazy. Then came the sensation of lightness from great blood loss and trauma to the body and the brain.

He woke up dying.

And then came the real awakening. The ringing telephone jangled his raw nerve endings, though the sound had to travel down the hall from his front room. The bedside phone had been broken long ago, deliberately and violently. He opened his eyes, wondering if this was his wake-up call from Miss Byrd. He was prepared to roll over and go back to sleep, for the receptionist only rang twice. He waited out the next ring, then five more. Not Miss Byrd.

Riker's most persistent caller was Mallory. She always rang exactly twenty times to punish him for his long silence. He rolled the covers back. His feet hit the floor wearing both of yesterday's socks, but only one shoe. Shoelaces were sometimes difficult for him. Their knots asked too much of him when he was falling-down drunk or hungover. Sometimes a week would go by when he was entirely shoeless for only the time it would take to shower and shave.

The phone was still ringing as he made his way to the kitchen, where he prepared his faster-than-instant coffee, using hot water from the tap. Alternately inhaling black liquid and cigarette smoke, he counted off the twentieth ring – ah, silence – and waited for the rush of caffeine and nicotine to kick in. And now his heart beat faster. The pump was started. The day had begun.

The phone rang again.

One fist sent it flying into the wall, then crashing to the floor, and a familiar voice – but not Mallory's – was yelling with great alarm, as if the caller had also been injured by the fall. "What's going on? Riker! Talk to me!"

As he reached for the phone, the caller asked, "Are you okay?"

No. No, he was not.

The most senior employee of Ned's Crime Scene Cleaners was a retired teacher of the ruler-wielding, knuckle-smashing, authoritarian school. Everyone on the payroll called her Miss Byrd, never Frances. None of them would cross that line of respect (call it fear) drawn in youth, for each of them had been hostage to at least one imperious Miss Byrd during their formative years.

Her gray eyebrows delicately arched as she glared at the front door. It had been left unlocked. Well, this was just one more sign of Riker's dereliction of duty. It never occurred to her that he might have come to work at this early hour, for Ned's brother was not a morning person. She had long suspected the man of drinking on the job, and this was proof; he had grown careless about locking up. Upon entering the reception area, she counted up the office machines, wall hangings and furnishings. All was as it should be, no signs of a thief, no thanks to Riker. The door to the private office was ajar, and, in the habit of thoroughness, she entered the room, then froze midstride.

"Well, this was outrageous.

Seated behind the desk was Riker's rude young friend from the police department, the only visitor who had ever ignored Miss Byrd's attempts to prevent her from entering the boss's office unannounced. She was a lovely child to be sure, but such uncivilized eyes, so cold and showing no deference whatever for her elders.

It was Miss Byrd's habit to put everyone in their place by the use of diminutive first names, as though kindergarten had never ended. Of course, Riker foiled her in this regard; only the first letter of his name appeared on the payroll roster. However, this young woman posed no such problem, for she was much talked about by the crew.

"Kathy! What are you doing!" The tone implied that the girl should cease and desist immediately. "Kathy, do you hear me?"

"It's Mallory," the younger woman corrected her, "Detective Mallory." She regarded Miss Byrd with grave suspicion, then said, "You're overpaid, Frances."

Miss Byrd sucked in her breath as she grappled with the novel experience of hearing her Christian name spoken aloud. And then she roughly guessed what lay in store for her. Yesterday's mountain of papers was now arranged in neat stacks around the edges of the desk, and an open account ledger had pride of place on the blotter.

Mallory ran one long red fingernail along a column of payroll figures. "Riker thinks you only work part-time. That's what you told him, isn't it, Frances? Before his brother left for Europe, you were working eight-hour days every week. But now you get the same paycheck for half a day. Interesting." She gestured to a chair beside the desk. "Sit down, Frances."

And Miss Byrd sat.

The young detective casually leafed through a few stacks of statements and tax forms, bills and letters, dragging out the moment, while the senior woman held her breath.

"Riker has the strange idea that you're a receptionist," said Mallory. "Nobody told him that you were the company office manager. He thinks all this paperwork is his job." She closed the heavy account book with a loud slam to make Miss Byrd jump, though she never raised her voice when she said, "Payroll fraud is a serious crime, Frances."

Miss Byrd's mouth was suddenly dry. She had never worried about the cleaning crew ratting out her fiddle of the hours, for she knew all the secret vices of every employee. However, now she felt queasy. Her voice cracked when she said, "You're going to tell Riker, aren't you?"

"Well, that depends on you, Frances. His brother Ned's due back on Monday. That's not much time to fix all this damage. I suggest you brown bag your lunch. Dinner, too. You won't be getting out much." Mallory moved a stack of papers to reveal the steel box that belonged in a locked drawer of Miss Byrd's own desk. "And here's another odd thing. Riker didn't know about the petty cash fund. He's been drumming up business, buying lunch for homicide cops out of his own pocket. You'll want to correct that error on his final paycheck."

The older woman's head wobbled in a lame version of a nod. The detective pushed the account ledger across the desk. "You'll be putting in an eighty-hour week – for free. I'll stop by to check up on you, and when I do, there shouldn't be any problem with these figures. I want them to match the bank statements and – "

"I never stole money from the accounts. I was dead honest with – " "With his brother? Yes, I know. I looked at all the accounts. But Riker's hopeless with paperwork. So now you've got a huge backlog to deal with. The bank statements don't agree with his deposits and debits. And the payroll deductions are all wrong, months of errors. He botched every one of them. That's more paperwork. Did I say eighty hours? You might have to camp out here every night. During the day, you'll be busy setting up the jobs and working as the dispatcher."

"But that's Riker's – "

"That's right, Frances. You'll be running the whole shop, doing your own job – Riker's. He's taking time off for a little police work. You don't have a problem with that, do you? No? Good. And get this place cleaned up. It's a mess."

After the detective had stalked out the door, Miss Byrd let out a long sigh in a hoarse, dry whistle as her body went limp. In the next moment, her heart lurched and fluttered like a goldfish when she felt a hand curl round her shoulder, cold steely fingers, not human – Mallory's.