Total pages in book: 50
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46314 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
She recovers bravely. “I still get paid per click.”
“Not on NSFW images, you don’t. Try to run ads on those and it will be the last thing you ever do with that account.”
“You know a lot about online advertising.”
“I know a lot about a lot,” I reply. “But we’re not here to find out what I know. We’re here to find out what you know about the disappearance of Sally Holmes.”
“Sally’s disappeared?” Randy’s face is smug and surprised at the same time.
There’s a banging at the one-way mirror and a second later, Chief Connor barges into the interview room and damn near pulls me out.
“I told you she’d get more out of you than you got out of her.”
“Why didn’t you tell me she didn’t know specifics of who went missing?”
“I did. I said she knows one of our detectives went missing. I didn’t say which one. That’s pretty clear, isn’t it?”
Shit. He’s right. It is pretty clear. I’m making stupid mistakes which is really annoying because I do not make stupid mistakes. I make smart mistakes.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re right.”
He softens. He does that with me a lot. Because of the leg. Because he doesn’t want to tear strips off a crippled girl. That’s what I am to him, and to a lot of people. It’s almost worse this way, being pitied in the middle of a deserved dressing down.
“Go work some other angles,” he says. “I will deal with Ms Carrick.”
I nod and slink away as best I can on three legs. Randy Carrot knows something, and I am no closer to finding out anything.
I decide to take Obigor for a walk. He still likes to go out and bumble around the nearby park, if only because it indulges his lifelong passion for peeing on literally every upright structure he sets his eyes on.
We make a pair, he and I. A slow, broken down, getting-older-by-the-fucking-second pair. But he doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter how old Obigor gets, he keeps doing him. And that’s what I’m going to do too. He will pee on everything he can find, and I am going to find Sally.
“Tessie.” A dark, gravelly voice comes from the shadows nearby. Obigor turns around and starts shriek barking, his body weight back on his haunches so he can perform geriatric maneuvers as swiftly as possible.
“Oh my god!” I cover my mouth with one hand in a cliched expression of surprise.
It’s Order. He’s hiding his true form with a jacket fitted to make his upper arms look like his only arms, and his eyes hidden by large wrap-around shades. In typical human clothing he almost completely passes. Almost. In a small town he’d probably stick out like a sore thumb, but in a place like New York where there are people actively trying to be weird on every corner, he fits right in.
“I had to see you,” he says.
I can’t stop staring at him. That fucking jawline just slays me.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I say. “How did you find me?”
“I went to the precinct and I asked for your whereabouts and the young woman at the counter whose eyes never left her phone told me that you had probably gone for a walk to the park or something, so here I am. She was accurate, if not polite.”
I resist the urge to hug him, and then wonder why I am resisting the urge, and then while I’m wondering, the moment passes.
It soon turns out this is not a social or romantic visit. Order has not risked exposure to humanity as a whole just to walk with me in a park, as much as I might find that idea flattering and sweet.
He takes my arm in his and leads me to a quiet corner under a tree. Above our heads, one of his little cousins is working on its web. I have never minded spiders as much as some people, but I’ve also never felt affection for them before.
“I have reason to believe that our home, my home, has been attacked. I was not aware of the burned out truck. I have to say, I have been distracted. It did not occur to me that something, anything would have the knowledge or the strength to strike at our heart. But it does explain why you have not heard from your friend. There are protocols we undertake in case of attack. We seal all communication channels and go dark.”
I mull that over, and he keeps talking.
“If they’ve cut me off, it means I am something approximating a suspect. Our family has been breaking apart of late, cracking under the pressures of the modern world. We were made to serve humanity and save it in the event of war, but this is no time for heroes. This is a time for mercenaries, at best.”