Page 120 of A Matter of Time

“Do not test me,” he advised sharply, staring holes through me.

“Okay,” I agreed.

“Did you know that if you do not heed the detective on your case, you can be placed into protective custody against your will?”

“Is that what they told you? Because my understanding is that can only happen for very specific reasons that don’t pertain to me.”

“If you’re a danger to yourself or others⁠—”

“I think that’s if they’re trying to commit you to the looney bin,” I pointed out.

The look I got was not good.

I groaned loudly. “Come on, lighten up. All I’m saying is it’s gotta be super bad for them to put me under lock and key.”

“But you were in immediate life-threatening danger last night.”

“And look how well that turned out,” I advised him cheerfully.

He was back to staring holes through me.

“Please don’t worry about me.”

“How can I help that?”

“I promise you, I’ll be more careful.”

“Don’t promise me, promise Detective Kage.”

It would be a cold day in hell.

“Get on the phone, Jory.”

I called Detective Kairov instead and spoke to him briefly, assuring him that all was well. Everything was good after that.

I had just gotten back from lunch with my friend Tran, who worked on the fourth floor in the same building as me, when I realized there was a man standing beside my desk. Since there were no scheduled appointments, I was confused.

“Hello?”

The man strode forward and thrust out his hand. “Hello there, son. Truman Ward here for my one o’clock with your boss, Mr. Harcourt.”

Being Dane Harcourt’s assistant and actually being good at my job, I knew that the smiling man was not in the right place on the right day. I squinted at him. “I believe you’re a week early, sir.” I smiled slowly, shaking the offered hand. “You’re scheduled for the first Wednesday in December, not the day before Thanksgiving.”

His eyebrows furrowed. “Crap, was that what my secretary was trying to tell me this morning before I left?”

“Monica?” I dredged the name from my memory.

“Yes.” His face brightened. “That’s right.”

“Yeah, we talked yesterday,” I informed him. “It’s next Wednesday, December first, at this same time.”

“Well, hell,” he grunted, taking a seat in the chair closest to my desk. “That ain’t gonna work—I’ll be in DC. Could ya give the big man a call and see if maybe he might spare some time today? I just have a few things to talk to him about, some changes my wife wants to make to the house.”

Dane Harcourt hated making changes, but I didn’t say that. Instead I nodded and got my boss on the phone. He asked me if it was possible, and I said I could rearrange it for three but not before. He gave me the go-ahead and hung up. Mr. Ward was very pleased, and while we waited, we talked. Or he talked and I listened.

He started in about his wife, because that was the reason he was there. They’d been married forty years, and he was building her a new house in Highland Park to celebrate. I asked all kinds of questions, and he showed me pictures of his family, which he told me all about. He had two sons and a daughter; his oldest son was in business with him as a tax attorney/corporate lawyer, and his youngest son was going to be a plastic surgeon once he finished medical school. His daughter was getting her master’s degree.

“Got more women crawling all over him than I’ve ever seen.” He chuckled. “But he’s just playing the field, waiting for the right one to come along.”