like to Tweet. Hell, she’s probably got a fan page on Facebook by now.”
Gerard chilled. He went positively frosty and flexed his hands on the steering wheel like he was picturing them around someone’s neck. “I swear, rookie, if little Miss Ghostbuster blows this investigation for me, I’m going to make sure she—and you—are sidelined until monkeys fly out of my ass.”
Taylor spoke low and grim, reminding me why I wanted to stay on his good side. “You know, Gerard, the Minneapolis field office didn’t ask for us. They asked for Daisy. You wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for her. Maybe you’d better think about what’s best for the case instead of what’s best for your career.”
Just a guess, but this wasn’t going to make Gerard like me any better. He slammed the SUV into gear and pulled out from in front of the dorm so fast my head bounced on the back of the seat. Fireworks exploded and my stomach flipped over.
I must have made a sound, because Taylor turned to look at me. “Hang tight, Daisy. We’re headed to one of the precincts in Minneapolis. We’ll base out of there, and you can get some rest in the ready room.”
A swig from my latest bottle of Coke helped me sound half normal as I said, “You should take me with you if you’re going to see Maguire.”
“How do you propose we explain you?” sneered Gerard, eyes on the road. He wasn’t even pretending to be nice now that we were in private. “Junior Miss Marple, goth edition?”
That might have been funny if he weren’t such an ass. “He’s going to know about me from the six o’clock news anyway. And crime boss or not, he’s a dad. Parents will try anything to find their kids.”
Taylor and I had searched for enough children to know. It only took one.
With his arm hooked over the seat back, Taylor studied me. From his skeptical frown, I figured I must look as bad as I felt. “No offense, Daisy, but are you going to be good for anything? You look like you’re about to hurl.”
“Do not throw up in this car,” snapped Gerard. “We’ll be responsible for having it cleaned.”
Just when I thought I couldn’t hate him any more than I already did.
• • •
We arrived at a police station in Minneapolis, where we—meaning the agents—were liaising with the local PD and meeting someone from the FBI field office. I was hazy on the details, and Taylor didn’t introduce me to anyone before he strong-armed me into an office, sat me on a sagging sofa, and made sure there was an empty trash can within easy reach. I would have protested, but the fluorescent lights sent signals to the hammers inside my skull. A dark office was only sensible.
“An hour,” I told Taylor as I flopped over on the couch. It smelled like shoe polish, stale coffee, and cop eighteen hours into a twenty-four-hour shift. “That’s all I need. It will take that long, at least, to get the search warrant for Maguire’s house, right?”
“Longer,” he assured me, with a glance at his watch, “since they’ll have to drag a judge away from his dinner.”
The thought of dinner made me glad for the trash can. “I’m sorry,” I moaned, my cheek sticking to the pleather sofa.
“Why?” Taylor crouched to eye level, which would have helped if I could see straight. Just then he had four dark-blue eyes and two square jaws. Not quite as handsome as the usual number. The expression on his face made up for it. “The fact that you can’t locate Alexis is a good thing, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. It meant she was alive. “But all that stuff about the black dog. And Bruiser. It was so weird. And worse, it was useless.” I closed my eyes because they were starting to sting and I didn’t want to cry in front of him. “I wish my head would stop hurting so I could think.”
After a quiet moment, Taylor picked up my legs, which were hanging off the couch, and put them properly up beside the rest of me. Then he covered me with a scratchy blanket that smelled like gunpowder. His hand clasped my shoulder before slipping away. “Get some rest, kiddo. There’s nothing to do right now anyway.”
Ugh. Kiddo. That was nearly as nauseating as the migraine and the sofa smell.
Someone shook me awake about five seconds later. It was a young woman with short blond