Page 24 of The Flame Game

“You can expose yourself to me whenever you want.”

My husband chuckled. “I’m still amazed you were able to keep your hands off me for so long.”

“It was horrible. I hated when you came to my work, but damn did I love watching you go. And then you went off with Mary on the worst shift of my entire career as a barista. Also the last day of my career as a barista. I don’t miss that job, but damn it, I want to know why nobody showed up for work.”

“I know. After the divorce, I kept getting some seriously mixed signals from you. I thought I was going mad. I’d go to your work, you’d play me cold, and when I’d leave, you’d go hot and…” Laughing, he shook his head. “You’re something else.”

“Hot and lusty and pissed off because I was hot and lusty and you hated me.”

“Yes, I hated you. Utterly hated you,” he replied in his most sarcastic tone.

“Do you know why Mary didn’t return to work? It’s been driving me crazy.”

“You didn’t ask her?”

“I haven’t spoken to her since I wrote a bitchy note I was quitting, and then I got bombed with gorgon dust, then you happened. I need to get another little yellow dress.”

I’d let him decide for himself what I meant by my statement.

“That dress won’t last ten minutes,” he warned.

The first little yellow dress hadn’t lasted much longer once the incubus part of his heritage had come out to play, although I hadn’t known then he was more than just a human with a high magic rating.

“I know. That’s the best part.” I laughed and rubbed my hands, eyeballing the presents on my lap. I picked up what could only be a lingerie box and tore into the paper. Chucking the lid onto Quinn’s lap, I plucked off the tissue to reveal a lacy bra and panty set. “Oh, look. Someone likes you, Sam.” I seized the bra and held it up, marveling how little there was of it. “Someone likes you a lot.”

“I obviously need to send that person a thank you card.”

I tossed the lingerie at him and checked the box, uncovering a card. I opened it to discover a gift certificate to an adult store. “Apparently, I’m being sent to a store for naughty things for our enjoyment. Do you think you can handle such an adventure, Mr. Samuel Quinn?”

“That box must be Tiffany’s doing, as she definitely knows your sizes, and she’d find the idea of either one of us trying to go into an adult store to be the best entertainment money can buy. As a matter of fact, I can handle such an adventure. I’m not supposed to use real handcuffs on my wife, although I tend to ignore that rule at my leisure.”

Whee. “It’s a date.” I placed the gift card onto the coffee table and tore into the rest of the presents, and it didn’t take me long to determine someone had blabbed to the world what my sizes were, as I wouldn’t need to buy any lingerie for at least a year, even if my gorgon-incubus doohickey destroyed a piece every day. “Is this normal?”

“When I married Audrey, we got four toasters, three waffle makers, more pots and pans than any couple needs in their life, and a lot of towels and sheets. Do they like you or me?” Quinn picked up a particularly skimpy set in red and held it up. “Are they trying to tell us we need to relax? This is going to be a challenge. Knowing how much this stuff costs, I’m going to have to be careful. How are you supposed to wiggle into this without damaging it?”

“I have no idea. Maybe you’re supposed to help me into it before helping me out of it?”

My husband narrowed his eyes. “We’re going to need a babysitter that night.”

I ran out of gifts and went to work flattening all the boxes to make more space. Frowning, I considered the issue of Mary and none of my co-workers showing up the day Audrey’s brother had brought me a bomb loaded with gorgon dust. “I wonder if that might be a good place to start with this investigation. Is it possible Audrey and her brother worked together to make sure I was on shift that day to give me that cell phone? I mean, I’m convinced she wanted to test my immunities, and that grade of gorgon dust was perfect for her needs. So that makes sense to me. But how did they get to my co-workers? Why did they all abandon their shifts? Was that ever investigated?”

My husband frowned, directed his attention to my work laptop, and tapped at the keys. “That’s a good question. I don’t remember offhand if we investigated your co-workers extensively. We usually don’t question people who aren’t on a shift during a crime unless we have reason to believe they’re somehow involved. I do remember looking into McGee’s financials and not finding any ties to your workplace. That was one of the first things we looked into. For all credit cards and bank accounts we accessed, there was no record of him having been there prior. He disliked using cash for much.”

“He used cash to buy his coffee. It was a twenty, and he didn’t want any dust, so I had to break a big bill for a small order, and that sort of thing is fucking annoying. He tipped more than he paid for the coffee, too.”

“How much? Do you remember?”

“He put a five dollar bill in the tip jar.”

“Odd.” Wrinkling his nose, Quinn reviewed something on the laptop. “No, none of your former co-workers were questioned. I’ll have that rectified.” He grabbed his phone, dialed a number, and waited. “Hey. It’s Sam. I need you to pull up the original file for the gorgon dust bomb incident at my wife’s former apartment. It’ll be listed under Gardener. I need a pair to head over to her former workplace and question all of the employees, including the owner of the shop, Mary. We need to know why they didn’t show up to work that day. Get as much information as you can on it. You might need to get on the phone with the Queens chiefs for more information on the file, as we only have a partial record. If you need approvals, get ahold of the commissioner and tell him I’m pursuing an old lead for a live case. If anyone gives you trouble, have them call me.” After listening for a moment, he sighed. “Yes, that’s a good point. Tackle anyone in the stations who has gone to her former workplace and question them, particularly about the McGee family and any noticeable weird behavior by the employees. I’d like to get to the bottom of the gorgon dust incident. While we’re at it, reopen the files about 120 Wall Street and do another review of everything we have on it. I want a brief on my desk in a week. I’ll swing by to pick it up, so call me when it’s ready. Is there anything important I need to know about? Good. How is the new pair working?”

While Quinn chatted, I returned to my rabies case tracking, making a list by city or town to get an idea of where outbreaks had happened, leading up to when New York and the surrounding cities and states had become the epicenter of infection reports.

He hung up, set his phone down, and glared at it.

“No throwing your phone,” I rebuked.

“I was only thinking about it a little.”