“I’m saying I didn’t use any more ammo the last time we had two full moons in the cycle.”
A scowl flicked over Bennett’s face for a moment at the dodge. She visibly shrugged the brief black mood off and leaned back against the counter to finish her coffee.
“Lucky you,” she said. That was all. She still managed to convey the impression that he’d somehow slacked off.
There was a pause while Bennett drank her coffee. Marlow took the opportunity to finish the forms. He kept one eye on Erin as she started to unpack his kit, each weapon logged back in as she went. Anything that didn’t tally between her count and what he’d signed out that afternoon—yesterday afternoon—had to be accounted for in his incident report. Technically. In practice, IA didn’t have enough manpower to investigate every dropped bullet. Unless it was flagged in connection with a different active investigation, a few discrepancies weren’t enough to worry about.
It was still a good idea to keep an eye on the clerk as they worked. Last year, one of Callen’s kits had been logged back in under McCall’s name. It had been cleared up in two days, but the investigation had rolled on for six months before Callen got assigned to active duty again. He’d missed his chance at a leadership position.
Erin lifted out the tear gas carefully and checked them. The armory was sealed, but if one of the canisters went off, it would take three days of scrubbing the walls down with toothpaste and vinegar before they could reopen it. Even adulterated to decrease the potency, the aconite would send any wolf who got a sniff straight to the ER… whether their nose was human or not at the time.
“I hear Harrison has requested early retirement,” Bennett said abruptly.
Marlow was startled enough to botch his signature. He swore under his breath, scribbled it out, and tried again before he looked up at Bennett. “You sure?”
“New wife, new life,” Bennett said. “I guess she doesn’t want him shot. Me, that’s the first thing I’d want to happen to my husband and his police pension. Then I could be a Merry Widow.”
Bennett winked at Erin, who laughed and then gave Marlow a quick, awkward look before she went back to work. There were still two blotches of high color on her cheeks as she pulled out the ammo boxes and counted the bullets. She had to pause again as one of the other clerks ducked in from the back to murmur in her ear.
“She isn’t the first wife who wanted to change him,” Marlow said. “Night Shift has always hung on to him before.”
“Well, she might be the first one to pull it off,” Bennett said. “My source knows what they’re talking about. Paperwork was signed and handed in. If he doesn’t back out, you going to go for the job?”
Marlow hesitated as he thought about that. As an abstract, one-day thing, he’d always assumed he would, but the reality was a bit more daunting.
“I guess,” he said after a moment. “You?”
He got a scathing look for that. Bennett had been acting sergeant for two years while her sergeant was off on extended medical leave. Only, he’d come back as fit as a fiddle and ready to take back the reins.
To her credit, she’d handed them over, but everyone knew she missed it.
“What do you think?”
Marlow shrugged his acknowledgment of that. “Probably Dawson over on day shift too.”
“She’s night-blind,” Bennett said. “What good would she be?”
“OT got her those glasses,” Marlow said. “And she needs the money, with her husband.”
Bennett had to give him that, with an annoyed twist of her mouth. “Maybe—”
Before she could finish, O’Malley cleared her throat. When they both turned, she slid a slip of paper through the slot in the partition. The other clerk had written the note in loopy, messy letters that were still legible.
“The captain wants to see you,” O’Malley repeated it anyhow. “Down in the morgue.”
Her finger unconsciously tapped the paperwork she had almost finished, just over the tally of Marlow’s bullets. He’d brought back less than he’d checked out. It happened. A wolf was a wolf until it wasn’t. It couldn’t be talked down or reasoned with. Sometimes silver was the only way to keep its teeth out of someone’s throat.
That didn’t mean there wasn’t hell to pay when someone died.
Ifsomeone died. Marlow could have sworn that every wolf he’d crossed paths with last night might wake up pissed off, but theywouldwake up. Maybe he’d been wrong.
“Damn,” Bennett said. She clapped Marlow on the back, hard enough to hurt, in rough sympathy. Or close enough to it. “I guess I don’t have to worry about you as competition after all.”
She chuckled at her own joke as she headed out to the locker rooms.
“Look, take your gear back, and I’ll finish up this,” O’Malley offered. “It’s everything but the last two boxes, and they aren’t touched. I can notarize the forms.”
Marlow hesitated for a moment, but there was no reason to say no. Or there was, but those reasons were either paranoid or ungrateful.
