Luca was up and running for the door. “Which way did he go?”
She pointed to his right. “That way.”
Rushing out the door, he caught sight of long legs in a pair of jeans running around the next corner. Putting on the best burst of speed a human could manage, Luca took off after the suspect.
When he rounded the corner, he spotted a guy who was indeed carrying a woman’s purse. The guy was fast, but Luca was faster.
The guy disappeared around the next corner, but Luca spotted him as he tried to enter a business from its back door. He tackled the guy on the linoleum floor of a bakery, and the two of them went sliding into a metal table covered in flour. It tipped just enough to coat both of their dark blue pants in white powder.
“You’re under arrest,” Luca said, whipping out his handcuffs and immobilizing the guy in record speed.
A portly older gentleman walked back to where they were with his hands on his hips. “I knew I should have locked that door this morning.”
Luca yanked the guy up off the floor, looped the leather purse over his shoulder, and recited his Miranda rights as he marched him back to the cruiser. Joe and the woman were standing outside the restaurant. He was taking notes as she answered questions for the report he’d have Luca write up later.
“My purse! You got it!” And as he handed it to her, she babbled, “Thank you! I had my mother’s ring in there. I was getting it sized to fit my future daughter-in-law.”
Luca nodded. “Glad to be of service, ma’am. Did you want to check and make sure it’s still there?”
“Yes,” she said quickly. She opened the zipper and fished out a small box, revealing a sparkly diamond ring inside. She let out a deep sigh of relief. “Oh, thank goodness.”
As Luca stuffed the guy into the back seat of the cruiser, the perp said, “Damn, you can run. I didn’t even see you until you were on top of me.”
Joe smiled and offered one nod of respect in Luca’s direction.
Almost as if the universe had heard his apathy, Luca took the compliments with ease and felt like he understood what Joe had been trying to tell him a little better.
Their presence had stopped this guy from getting away with grabbing the purse. Luca had been able to prevent a personal tragedy. Okay, maybe tragedy was a bit of an overstatement, but as they pulled away and he saw tears glisten in the woman’s eyes, he felt damn good.
“Hey, Fierro?”
“Yeah?”
“Better clean your pants as soon as we get to the station. Otherwise, they’ll think you made a cocaine bust.”
* * *
TGIF. Dawn did a little twirl in her office chair when 1:00 p.m. rolled around.
She’d got to work that morning without any mishaps and no visions, thank goodness. She couldn’t afford to miss another day.
Last night, Annette had made her some chamomile tea and told her a cup of tea after a vision would help. She did feel better after the tea, but that could also have been due to the fact that she was curled up on the sofa with Annette, watching an old movie at the time.
Work was pretty uneventful. Her manager asked her how she was doing, and Dawn came up with some twenty-four-hour bug excuse. Dawn’s mind kept wandering to Luca. She didn’t have any more bloody visions, so that was a good sign. But what was more telling was she kept glancing at her phone, to see if he might have texted her about going out. Would he call her? Why was she so nervous about it?
Dawn always finished work at 1:00 p.m. on Fridays, since she started every day at 8:30 a.m. and worked until 5:00 p.m. Monday to Thursday. Those extra three hours came in handy, especially given her new “extracurricular activities.” Dawn hopped on the subway and headed to her first weekly check-in at Karma Cleaners. Today, she would talk to Lynda about Luca and the missing girl.
The dry cleaner was busy with a line that reached the door. She looked around and tried to discern if the people in line were there because they had spilled wine on a shirt or because they had a shitload of bad karma in their lives. When she got to the front of the line, she smiled and greeted a petite brunette wearing a pair of neon-pink 1950s secretary glasses.
“Hi. I’m supposed to ask for May.”
“Hi, Dawn. Are you here for pickup or drop-off?”
Dawn leaned in and gave the code phrase. “I’m here to pick up my wedding dress.”
“Just go down the hall to the back where we have our special orders.”
“Right. Thanks.” Dawn smiled and opened the door on May’s left. The code phrase would change every week, but she understood it was the easiest way to avoid any odd looks by the dry-cleaning customers. Before she and Lynda had parted after their initial meeting, she had been given the code phrase and a three-digit code. She walked down the long hallway, barely noticing the gray floor tiles and off-white walls. The door at the end of the hallway had a sign that read SPECIAL ORDERS. She had to punch in her three-digit code to unlock it. Then she walked down a shorter hallway that led to two sliding glass doors. Dawn sighed in pleasure as she stepped through the doors.
