The Flame Game (Magical Romantic Comedies #12) - R.J. Blain Page 0,32

your phone,” I rebuked.

“I was only thinking about it a little.”

“Temper, temper. What has you worked up now?”

“That was Paul Rudani, one of the more senior cops in our precinct. A detective. He usually works on the tenth floor, but he’s working on our floor until we’re back. He wants to question you.”

“Well, yes. That makes sense. It’s a questioning session, Quinn, not torture. I didn’t do anything wrong, so it’s no issue. And if there’s something I know that’s important for the investigation, it’s worth the time. What’s the problem?”

“He can be a little ruthless.”

“Isn’t that a good thing during a questioning session? He wouldn’t do a very good job if he bit his nails and fretted over hurting my fragile little feelings.”

“He has zero idea of personal boundaries during an interrogation. It’s something we’ve been working on.”

“I’m not seeing the problem.”

“He will ask you about my visits to your workplace. Extensively.”

I loved my husband, but sometimes, he confused me. “And then I will extensively tell him you have a rap sheet of incinerated panties. Mine, for the record. I will even think I shouldn’t say that, but then it’ll fly right on out. And then I’ll start complaining how it’s your fault for daring to walk away from me. The view is pretty divine. You were put on this sweet Earth just for me. Maybe Audrey was like a set of training wheels? To be honest, I can’t ride a bike, so I’m not really sure.”

“You can’t ride a bike?”

I stared at him. “Do you think my asshole parents would spend that sort of money on me?”

“Damn it.” Slumping against the couch, my husband sighed. “He’s good at his job, he just doesn’t really understand how to be sensitive on certain matters. I don’t want you to get your feelings hurt because he can be harsh.”

“Well, he’ll find out you are hot and bothered me, so I’m not particularly worried about that. I mean, it’s a good thing you’re hot and bother me, as the infection spread to you, so now we’re married.”

“You’re not a disease, Bailey.”

“No, I’m not an infection. I’m the best parasite!”

“Symbiont.”

“Parasite.”

“You’re going to tell him you’re a parasite, aren’t you?”

“If I’m going to be embarrassed during an interrogation, I’m taking him out with me when I go.”

“You’re something else. Did you find out anything while I was being scolded about personal involvements in an ongoing investigation?”

“Yeah. New England is definitely the epicenter of this rabies problem; while the Long Lake outbreak is the highest in number, Vermont trended upwards in cases starting eight years ago. There was one smaller outbreak in Maine, and two in Massachusetts prior. There’s no way of knowing if they’re related to the Vermont outbreaks, but we definitely need to make a trip to Vermont and Maine to have a look. Do you think we can get around the personal involvement issues?”

“I think I might be able to, although we’ll have to link everything we’re doing with the gorgon dust and rabies outbreaks. Because of my heritage and your immunities, it makes sense for us to work the investigation; it would be potentially lethal to others, where we’re only mildly inconvenienced at most. We will be strictly warned off about the Morrison issue, but if we can happen to connect the dots to him from the gorgons he worked with, accidents happen.”

I’d observed Quinn often enough to recognize the accident wouldn’t be an accident at all, and that my husband would use every weapon in his arsenal to make certain ex-Chief Morrison would never bother me again.

I doubted Sariel would even have to undergo extensive questioning, especially as the bastard would skip out of town to dodge conviction.

Morrison lacked ethics like that.

“So, we look into the rabies and the gorgon dust issue, figure out how they’re related, and figure out if the 120 Wall Street incident was also connected to that mess. I mean, it probably was. It was the same grade of gorgon dust, wasn’t it?”

“It probably was from the same batch. Gorgon dust is not commonly manufactured, although we have no idea if they were making multiple batches. That’s possible, especially since we saw evidence of dust production in that gypsum mine.”

“But that was a new batch, wasn’t it?”

“Probably the replacement batch, and the hive was infected with rabies to get rid of them. That’s my suspicion.”

“Do you think that male gorgon was that hive’s male?”

Quinn shook his head. “No. A gorgon male would never treat his fallen