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Disappointed—and slightly unsettled for reasons I didn’t understand—I started to head out. But then Hope’s voice filled the room again, walking Paisley through a resource on the biggest screen at the center of her console.
“This here’s where you’ll look up the external numbers if you can’t remember somethin’ off the top of your head,” Hope explained, scrolling through an impossibly long list of contacts. “You’ll get a lot of calls durin’ the day for stuff that isn’t a police or fire matter, and if you don’t find the number you need in this list? Tell ’em to Google it.”
My brows shot up at the same time Paisley asked, “Hang on, really?”
Hope chuckled, her tight curls bouncing as she did. “Nah, not really. You’d slide over to your resource computer,” she said, doing just that while gesturing to one of the smaller monitors that sat on the side of the big one, “and you’d Google it for ’em. Sometimes there’s a healthy dose of customer service wrapped up in this job.”
Paisley nodded. “Gotcha. I can do that.”
“Wasn’t it like that back home?” I asked, wincing as my curiosity finally got the better of me. So far, I’d just creepily stood there and watched, keeping my questions and comments to myself.
Paisley slowly turned in her chair. “Uh, what?”
Plowing ahead since it was too late to turn back, I tipped my chin toward the resource computer. “Weren’t the calls durin’ the day more customer-service-like when you dispatched in Texas?”
Paisley and Hope exchanged a glance before they both turned back to me, and Paisley shrugged. “Guess they were. If they were callin’ about a loose dog, we’d send them to animal control. If they said the lights were flashin’ at a stoplight—we only had a couple—we’d call in the street team. And if they were askin’ about an order of protection, we’d get them to the court.”
I nodded, rubbing my hand along my jaw.
Clearly, I’d been wrong to ask. Of course she remembered what to do with basic, daytime calls like that. This wasPaisley. I’d seen her organize an impromptu concert in town square with hardly any notice, and it still went off without a hitch.
Not to mention the way she’d managed international stadium tours, album launches, and large-than-life media meltdowns.
The woman was a force.
But all of that proved why I was so confused over her behavior today. She wasn’t giving Hope an ounce of pushback about re-learning the basics, and for as long as I’d been here… the only one who’d brought up her past experience in this job wasme.
Who was this woman, and why was she playing dumb about stuff she already knew how to do?
“Why’s his face all pinched up like that?” Paisley asked Hope in a stage whisper, both women still staring at me.
“Beats me. Maybe he didn’t know any of that since we don’t send officers out for that stuff?”
“Well, sometimes we do. Loose dogs at night when animal control is closed.”
Hope clucked her tongue. “Right. And for traffic control when the lights are flashin’, and people don’t realize they’re supposed to treat it like a stop sign.”
“Good point. Ooh, and then there’s the order of protection violations. They’re always goin’ out for those, but they know the initial paperwork comes from the courts.”
“They sure do.” Hope frowned. “Why do you reckon he looks so confused, then?”
I shook out my arms before standing straighter and re-crossing them. “Are y’all about done?”
The fact that they’d been able to have that entire conversation while talking out of half their mouths, keeping their eyes glued to me, had me more than a little on edge.
“That depends,” Paisley said, rising from her chair.
“On?”
“On what you’re doin’ here, and if you’re plannin’ to leave soon,” she replied.
She took a step toward me, but I wasn’t worried. She couldn’t get much closer, considering she was leashed to the desk.
Those headsets should really be wireless. What decade were we in?
Great, look at me tryin’ change things. She’s rubbin’ off on me now.
“Adam?” Paisley asked, snapping her fingers. “Anyone home?”
