Free Spook Squad by Jordan Castillo Price Page A

clearly baffled by my body language. We pause-walked to the doors, completely out of synch, and finally she needed to reach across me to push the call button. I did my best not to flinch visibly. The doors slid open. We climbed in, the doors closed, and we faced our blurry reflections. The elevator began to rise. “So, what is standard issue?” It would’ve been smooth, if I’d said it maybe five seconds sooner. As it stood, it came off as a non-sequitur.
    “What?”
    “Weapons. Does everyone have matching sidearms?”
    “No…not exactly. Most of our field agents go with a Sig P229. Ex law enforcement tend toward Glocks.”
    “And you carry…?”
    “Only if I’m assigned to a sensitive location.” I’d been aiming for a make, but she took the question in a different way entirely—whether she packed any heat at all. Like it didn’t occur to her that Jacob had told me she was at the range. Like I didn’t know a shot had likely come from her general direction that day in front of the prison. “Most days I work here. I’m really more effective if I have access to my secure computer and all my databases and files.”
    “And your slim jim.”
    She gave an edgy laugh and said, “The car I had in grad school was such a beater. The hinges on the driver-side door were rusted through, so I couldn’t open it without the whole door falling off—which it did on Maxwell Street, you know, when they used to have that big Sunday flea market? Someone actually tried to buy it from me, too, like I was going to drive home without a door. Once I wired that back on, my key broke off in the passenger door lock. Slim jim and I got to know each other really well that year.”
    “Wow. My first used car smelled like hard-boiled eggs. I hate to think why.”
    She appeared to relax, just a bit. “Can I ask you something?”
    Hopefully it wasn’t why I was so interested in her gun. “Sure.”  
    “Is Con going to have you sweep the fifth floor?”
    So. She’d dropped the Agent Dreyfuss . Not that I knew what it indicated. “He might.”
    “I hope he does.” She gave a shudder. “How can he stand it? That feeling, you know, like someone’s watching you.”
    Hard to say if ghosts were her entire problem in that regard. After all, the ex-husband who now signed her paycheck was a remote viewer. Did she know? Or was that fact a strategically placed glimpse good ol’ Dreyfuss revealed to make me feel like a special snowflake? The elevator stopped and I steeled myself to exit, but then I realized we were only on the fourth floor—and that someone was getting on. Someone who’d recently written WASH ME on my beleaguered little car.
    “Hardcore Vic!” Richie grabbed my hand and pumped it up and down as if we hadn’t seen each other in years. He wore brown loafers, brown wool pants, and a nubby brown cardigan over a beige permanent press shirt that was buttoned wrong, so one side of the collar rode higher than the other. The top of his head, of which I had a great view, was nice and shiny. His hand was moist. Once he was done giving me the big handshake, he swung around to Laura and said, “There you are. I’ve been trying to call you for like ten minutes .” Then he swung back to me—and Stefan’s Camp Hell impression of him swinging around to look at people when he spoke came to mind, which made me feel like a dick. Because of course that classy boyfriend and I had laughed ourselves inside out over the way Einstein couldn’t talk to someone without lining them up with his whole body. “What’re you guys doing?” Richie demanded, insinuating hanky panky between Laura and me with the subtlety of an eight-year-old.
    “I was helping Detective Bayne unlock his car,” she said placidly. Not like it cost her any effort, either. I wondered how often she dealt with Richie. My guilt over the way I’d mocked and antagonized him would undoubtedly wear thin at some point, and his unbridled stupidity would begin to annoy me.