3. You’re really going to make me get into the box, aren’t you? #3
“I don’t know. Maybe to hide the identity of the person who gave you a bomb tainted with gorgon dust? Seems like a logical conclusion to me. If they’ve got the skills to make gorgon dust without becoming infected themselves, a geas is child’s play.”
Okay, while I deserved the rebuke, did he really have to sound so damned snarly about it? “Someone really put a geas on me?”
“That’s what knocked you out in your apartment.
We’re speculating you were about to say something that would violate the geas, and you were punished as a result.
Perkins noticed it, and after I got the mask in place, we called in a few people to remove it.
It’s gone, but we couldn’t figure out the exact conditions to trigger it. We have a few guesses, though.”
“Magnus McGee gave me the phone. He said it had important information on it regarding a missing person, and he wanted to hire me to locate them.”
“Magnus McGee was found dead yesterday morning in Central Park in a rather compromised position. His partner was a tree.” Chief Quinn grimaced, and when I glanced his direction, he was hard at work untangling tubes and righting bags on the IV stand.
“I had assumed he was the culprit. A few of my cops had seen him near your workplace.”
“I quit.” Chief Quinn’s small role in my change of employment status shouldn’t have pissed me off so much, but it did. It was bad enough Mary had ditched her shift, but to have done it with him? I wanted to wring both of their necks over the stunt.
Mary and Chief Quinn. Together. That the thought had crossed my mind at all was proof the universe hated me.
Why had I agreed to help him in the first place?
If I hadn’t taken his stupid camera and gone hunting for his wayward wife, I could go back to my wishful thinking and fantasizing without reality getting in the way.
Chief Quinn sighed. “I heard. Your boss was rather upset over it, and then she found out someone had tried to kill you on top of it. She didn’t take that well at all. I questioned her rather thoroughly along with the rest of the store’s staff.”
“Did you enjoy taking her for a ride, Chief Quinn?” Shit. Why did my mouth always have to go blurting the bitter things I didn’t want anyone to ever hear me say?
“Should I take that as an invitation to explain the situation?”
The anger of having dealt with an eighteen hour hell shift flared back to life.
“I really don’t give a shit what two consenting adults do in your car.
You know what I do care about? Not being left alone to run the shop for eighteen hours.
So what if you took her for a ride in your car?
I don’t care who she dates. At least she could’ve called someone in to take her place.
What happened instead? I soloed my job from opening to closing.
To add insult to injury, your former brother-in-law bombed me with gorgon dust probably hoping to get rid of you, since someone had probably told his wife about the certified barista you called in for consulting work.
I was just the bonus. If he took me out, he had a damned good chance of being able to eliminate you from the picture. ”
Silence.
Crap, crap, crap. I had said too much. My face flushed, and I scrambled to find some sane justification for unloading all my speculations, one that didn’t involve magic.
“I see.” His lifeless tone partnered with his completely neutral expression told me everything I needed to know. My barbs had struck true, and he wasn’t happy about it at all. “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Miss Gardener?”
How could I possibly be so mad at someone yet still be so attracted to him?
At the rate I was going, I wouldn’t know which end was up.
Since ‘I’m not wearing anything under this gown’ qualified me for early admission into an asylum and counted as sexual harassment, and ‘spank me, I’ve been bad’ wouldn’t go over so well, either, I mumbled, “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. ”
“I’d be pissed, too, if someone had tried to kill me in his effort to get revenge on someone else. I’m a big boy. I can handle anything you throw at me. That’s all I needed to know. Thank you for your time, Miss Gardener. Enjoy rehab.”
How did he make sliding off an examination table look good? It really wasn’t fair. Considering I’d already ruined any chances of having a civil conversation with the man, I went all in and threw caution to the wind. “I’m not wearing anything under this gown.”
He walked towards the door without reacting to my words. Fine, if he wanted to play hardball, I’d play hardball. “Hey, Sammy. If you want someone to teach you how the reverse cowgirl should really be done, give me a call. I know some girls.”
There. Not only did I pour gasoline on the situation, I lit a match and tossed it on. It wasn’t like I ever had a chance with a man like him anyway. It was better for me if he avoided me indefinitely.
Chief Quinn slammed the door so hard I felt it from across the room. For some reason, my victory only made me feel even worse. Damn it.
I deserved every bit of hatred the man threw my way.