that what all the cool kids are calling their lady friends these days?” he asked.
“Right,” I laughed. “Of course. I knew that. What’s up?”
“You look all pale and twitchy,” Steve said. “Something twisting your tail?”
“Not something,” I said. “All the things. Between Morrison and his crotch jockey sleazing around the gallery and the vampires over there looking for a body that was in the trunk of my car earlier, I pretty much want to slam my head in a door until the lights go out.”
“Why don’t you go take a break?” Steve suggested. “Just tell me where to find the receipts and I’ll take care of the register.”
“Shit,” I said, remembering that I had meant to stop by the office supply store before I’d been derailed by the dead (re-dead?) vampire in my trunk. “Are we out?”
“A little,” he admitted. “There’s just a couple customers waiting. It’s not a huge deal. Seriously. I can just write something up.”
“No, I think I have another roll hiding somewhere. Just give me a sec.” On the way to the supply closet near the artists’ studios, I cursed Mark for insisting on keeping the brassy antique monster that squatted stubbornly on the oddities shop desk. Its abominable presence meant Shayla and I still had to write up receipts for every purchase by hand.
Like that was even a thing that people did anymore.
Opening the door to the crowded closet, I hopped back as an avalanche from the top shelf heaved toward me. The floor rattled as what sounded like bowling ball dropped at my feet.
“What the hell?” I reached up and yanked the string for the single, naked bulb that illuminated the closet, and glanced down at a severed head, grinning up from my feet.
Chapter 8
“Why so jumpy?”
Morrison’s voice sent a jolt of adrenaline singing through my veins. I barely had time to register the slim, headless body folded up like a lawn chair at the base of the shelves before I quickly toe-punted the head back into the closet and slammed the door.
“Why so wasted?” I asked.
“What was that?” Unfortunately, his habit of answering my questions with questions of his own hadn’t been washed away by alcohol.
“What was what?”
“What you kicked into the closet.”
“Kickball,” I said. “Steve likes to play sometimes. Just to loosen up.” This was the chief advantage of having a brother of whom even the strangest things were believable. It came in remarkably handy when explaining away the even stranger truth.
Morrison seemed to weigh this for a moment, then sagged against the wall, looking more like a wilting vegetable than a man at ease.
“It wouldn’t kill you to lay off the sauce,” I said. “Just a thought.”
The slackened muscles of his face struggled to arrange themselves into something like indifference. “Would you begrudge an officer a few drinks while he’s on leave?”
“I’ve heard of people doing that while they’re on vacation,” I said. “Not necessarily when they’re on leave.”
“Never took vacation.” He swiped a hand over his jaw, the sound of stubble against his callused palm was oddly loud in the abandoned hallway. “In twelve years with the department. Never once. And now? Now I figure, what the fuck. I can’t work. I might as well drink.”
As if to punctuate this statement, he reached into the pocket of his leather jacket and withdrew a battered silver flask.
“Cheers,” he said, tipping it back for a swallow.
“A flask?” I said. “Really?”
“That sounds like judgment,” he said, having considerable trouble with the ‘s’.
“Not judgment,” I said, leaning back against the closet door for extra insurance. “Concern.”
“Now that’s touching.” Morrison slid the flask back into his jacket and took a couple faltering steps toward me. “Hanna Harvey, assistant to a murdering fucktard is concerned about me.”
“She’s also concerned about your dating life.”
A savagely smug expression twisted his features. “Don’t like her?”
“That would be putting it mildly.” I moved to escape down the hall, but Morrison was fast, even when dulled by alcohol. He had my shoulders pinned against the supply closet door before I could exhale. Knowledge of the closet’s secret occupant pushed against my back through the wood like the fuzzy sensation of a sleeping limb.
“Stay,” he said. The stubble of his chin pushed against my throat as he dragged his mouth to my ear.
Until he was ripped away and thrown against the opposite wall like a sock monkey.
“You will not touch her.” Mark’s voice filled the hallway with a potent, vibrating rage.
Morrison chuckled weakly from where he’d slid to the floor. “She’s never