do it."
I grinned and went on down to Murphy's office, nodding to a couple other guys with SI along the way. I knocked on the door.
"God dammit!" Murphy swore from the other side. "I said not now!"
"It's Harry," I said. "Just stopping by to get the dog."
"Oh, God," she snarled. "Back away from the door."
I did.
A second later the door opened and Murphy glared up at me, blue eyes bright and cold. "Get more away. I've been fighting this computer all day long. I swear, if you blow out my hard drive again, I'm taking it out of your ass."
"Why would your hard drive be in my ass?" I said.
Murphy's eyes narrowed.
"Ah, hah, hah, heh. Yeah, okay. I'll be going, then."
"Whatever," she said, and shut her office door hard.
I frowned. Murphy wasn't really a "whatever" sort of person. I tried to remember the last time I had seen Murphy that short and abrupt. When she'd been in the midst of post-traumatic stress, she'd been remote but not angry. When she was keyed up for a fight or feeling threatened, she'd be furious but she didn't draw away from her friends.
The only thing that had come close to this was when she thought I was involved in a string of supernatural killings. From where she'd been standing, it looked like I had betrayed her trust, and she had expressed her anger with a right cross that had chipped one of my teeth.
Something was upsetting her. A lot.
"Murph?" I asked through the door. "Where did the aliens hide your pod?"
She opened the door enough to scowl at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"No pod, huh. Maybe you're an evil twin from another dimension or something."
The muscles along her jaw clenched, and her expression promised murder.
I sighed. "You don't seem to be your usual self. I'm not an analyst or anything, but you kinda look like something is bothering you. Just maybe."
She waved a hand. "It's this paperwork—"
"No, it isn't," I said. "Come on, Murphy. It's me."
"I don't want to talk about it."
I shrugged. "Maybe you need to. You're about two steps shy of psychotic right now."
She reached for her door again, but didn't close it. "Just a bad day."
I didn't believe her, but I said, "Sure, okay. I'm sorry if the dog added to it."
Her expression became tired. She leaned against the doorway. "No. No, he was great. Barely made a sound. Quiet as a mouse all day long. Even used the papers I put down."
I nodded. "You sure you don't want to talk?"
She grimaced and glanced around the office. "Maybe not here. Walk with me."
We left and headed down the hall to the vending machines. Murphy didn't say anything until she bought a Snickers bar. "My mom called," she said.
"Bad news?" I asked.
"Yeah." She closed her eyes and bit off a third of the candy bar. "Sort of. Not really."
"Oh," I said, as if her answer made some kind of sense. "What happened?"
She ate more chocolate and said, "My sister, Lisa, is engaged."
"Oh," I said. When in doubt, be noncommittal. "I didn't know you had a sister."
"She's my baby sister."
"Um. My condolences?" I guessed.
She glowered at me. "She did this on purpose. With the reunion this weekend. She knew exactly what she was doing."
"Well, it's a good thing someone knew, 'cause so far I have no freaking clue."
Murphy finished the candy bar. "My baby sister is engaged. She's going to be showing up this weekend with her fiancé, and I am going to be there without a fiancé or a husband. Or even a boyfriend. My mother will never let me hear the end of it."
"Well, uh, you had a husband, right? Two of them, even."
She glared. "The Murphys are Irish Catholic," she said. "My not one but two, count them, two divorces won't exactly wash clean the stigma."
"Oh. Well, I'm sure whoever you're dating would show up with you, right?"
She glanced back toward the SI offices. If looks could kill, hers would have blown that section of the building into Lake Michigan. "Are you kidding? I don't have time. I haven't been on a date in two years."
Maybe I should have gone for the ultimate inept remark, and started singing about how short people got nobody to love. I decided to sting her pride a little instead. She'd reacted well to it before. "The mighty Murphy. Slayer of various and sundry nasty monsters, vampires, and so on—"
"And trolls," Murphy said. "Two more when you were out of town last summer."
"Uh-huh.