Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,70
as she recognized its practicality- creatures of the night, welcome to the twentieth century. "Henry, it's Vicki. Look, there's no point in me coming over tonight. We don't know anything new and I certainly can't help with your stakeout. If something happens, call me. If not, I'll call you tomorrow." She frowned as she hung up. Something about talking to machines made her voice sound like Jack Webb doing narration for old Dragnet episodes. "I had a cheese danish," she muttered, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Friday had a cruller."
Grabbing up her jacket and her bag, she headed for the door. When Celluci left the station, he'd be expected at his grandmother's to spend Easter Sunday with assorted aunts, uncles, cousins, and offspring. It happened every holiday and there wasn't an excuse good enough to get him out of it if he wasn't actually working. If he couldn't get what he needed from them, and, given what had happened to Anicka Hendle, she doubted he could-however supportive and loving his family was, they didn't, couldn't understand the anger and the frustration-he'd be over no earlier than eight. She had time to go through at least a division's worth of occurrence reports this afternoon.
As she locked the door, the phone began to ring. She paused, staring into the apartment through the six inch gap. It couldn't be Henry. It wouldn't be Celluci. Coreen was still out of town. It was probably her mother. She closed the door. She wasn't up to the guilt.
"... as well as all cables, a power bar, and a surge suppressor. In short, a complete system." Vicki tapped the occurrence report with the end of her pencil. What she knew about computers could be easily copied onto the head of a pin and still leave room for a couple of angels to tango but, if she read these numbers correctly, the system that had been lifted out of the locked and guarded computer store made her little clone back at the apartment look like an abacus.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the Winged Victory."
Vicki's lips drew back in a snarl. She shifted the snarl a millimeter at both ends, almost creating a smile. "Staff-Sergeant Gowan, what an unexpected pleasure."
Not bothering to hide his own snarl, Gowan snatched the reports up off the desk and swung his bulk around to face the duty sergeant. "What the fuck is this civilian doing here?" He shook the fistful of papers.^" And where did she get the authorization to read these?"
"Well, I ... "the duty sergeant began.
Gowan cut him off. "Who the fuck are you? This is my station and I say who comes in and who doesn't." He shoved his gut in Vicki's direction and she hurriedly stood, before he moved the desk so far she was trapped behind it. "This civilian has no fucking business being anywhere near this building, no matter what kind of a hot-shit investigator she used to be."
"Don't give yourself a coronary, Staff-Sergeant." Vicki shrugged into her jacket and slung her bag over her shoulder. "I'm just leaving."
"Fucking right, you're leaving, and you won't be back either, Nelson, remember that." The veins in his throat bulged and his pale eyes blazed with hatred. "I don't care who you had to blow to get your rank, but you don't have it now. Remember that, too!"
Vicki felt a muscle jump in her jaw with the effort of maintaining control. In her right hand, the pencil snapped, the crack of the splintering wood ringing through the quiet station like a gunshot. The radio operator jumped, but neither she nor the duty sergeant made a sound. They didn't even seem to be breathing. Moving with brittle precision, Vicki dropped both pieces of pencil in the waste basket and took a step forward. Her world centered on the two watery blue circles under silver-gray brows that glared down at her. She took another step, teeth clenched so tightly the force hummed in her ears.
"Go ahead," he sneered. "Take a shot at me. I'll have you cuffed so fast your ass'll be in holding before your head knows what happened."
With tooth and claw, Vicki managed to hold onto her temper. Losing it would accomplish nothing and, as much as she hated to admit it, Gowan was right. Her rank no longer protected her from him nor from the system. Maneuvering somehow through the red haze of her fury, she managed to get out of the station.
On the steps, she began