No Dominion The Walker Papers - By CE Murphy Page 0,5
Allison said pleasantly.
“Ms,” Morrison said equally pleasantly, and I reminded myself that this was not a good time to suggest they could get a room. God forbid they should actually do it, for one. Morrison came around his desk to lean on it and look down at Ashley thoughtfully. “Seems to me I said something about a case for you to work on, didn’t I.”
Ashley did the puppy wriggle again, nodding until her hair shimmied like a scarecrow in the wind. “One all for me!”
“As it happens, I’ve got something for you.” Morrison very solemnly offered her a page in a file folder. “We’re missing a very important box, Ashley. Did you know that police officers come around to the Seattle schools and talk about safety?”
“Of course I do!” Ashley caroled. Allison’s eyebrows went up in disbelieving amusement and she caught my eye to mouth ‘no she didn’t’. I forgot I was busy hating her and her polished look and her flirty voice, and grinned back.
“Well,” Morrison said, still solemnly, “we’ve lost our box of materials that we bring to the schools. I was hoping you could help us find it. Why don’t you sit down and read over the notes we have, and then you and Detective Walker can work on solving the case?”
My grin went a bit foolish. The ‘case’ had been Morrison’s idea to make up for me disappointing Ashley a few weeks earlier. I’d spent half the previous afternoon running around the station setting up clues and the eventual reward of the box for Ashley to discover, and had done it all with a warm fuzzy feeling. I’d spent years with Morrison as my own personal bugbear. I kind of liked discovering he had a squooshy side.
Ashley’s smile lit up the room. “Okay!” She flung herself belly-first on the floor and squirmed halfway under Morrison’s desk to make herself comfortable. Morrison blinked, first at her, then at Allison Hampton, who’d crouched as soon as Ashley hit the floor.
“She never met a floor she didn’t like. Ashley, come out—”
Morrison shook his head. “It’s fine. She won’t be long.”
“Still, I’m so sorry—” Allison stood back up, the better to apologize.
“Hey,” Ashley said from under the desk, “there’s a rabbit hole under here.
“Really.” I bent over, amused, to take a look.
Thing was, there was a rabbit hole under Morrison’s desk.
“Uhm.” I cleared my throat, hoping for a somewhat wittier bit of repartee to burst forth. None did. “Um, Morrison, can you see that?”
I could hear the exasperated look he gave me. Apparently humoring small children with invented police cases was one thing, but humoring me playing along with rabbit holes was something else.
I couldn’t really blame him, truth be told. A little over six months ago I’d gone from an aggravating but extremely skilled mechanic to an extremely aggravating and utterly unskilled shaman. Morrison did not like inexplicable things like the Wild Hunt or banshees turning up in his precinct. Neither did I, for that matter, but I’d come to terms with the fact that it was my job to deal with them.
“No, Walker, I don’t see…” Once more, I could all but hear Morrison’s change of expression, this time accompanied by the grinding of gears in his skull. After a moment he said, “I take it you do,” in an extraordinarily measured voice.
Ashley squirmed further under the desk, calling, “I’m going dooooown!” as she half disappeared into the rabbit hole.
I straightened up, hoping my smile didn’t look as forced as it felt. “Boss, if you don’t mind us taking over your office for a few minutes, Ashley and I can work out the clues in the map during our adventure in the rabbit hole. Maybe you could take Allison for a cup of coffee over at The Missing O.”
“Oh, I couldn’t leave you—”
I felt a little sorry for Allison, who sounded as though she really meant it, and who looked suddenly as if coffee with an adult would be manna from heaven. Coffee with Morrison, who was not only an adult, but attractive and nice to her kid, would presumably be…whatever was better than manna. Ambrosia.
I broadened my smile, trying hard to make it look genuine. “Don’t worry about it. Morrison’s too much of a stickler for time to let a coffee break run more than fifteen minutes. Ashley and I will be fine.”
“We’ll be fiiiiine, Mooooom!”
Ten seconds later they were out the door, and I dove down the rabbit hole after Ashley Hampton.