Ray would have growled but it didn’t seem worth the energy, and anyway, Callalily only seemed to enjoy his growling.
Ray wondered, not idly, if he had been this flustered when he had originally met Cal, or if he had thought that the way Cal acted made Cal foolish and not brave.
“How he is,“ Ray echoed after Cal and Benny had left, and glanced to Penn at his side. “What does that mean?”
“That he’s worried.” Penn looked at her phone as she walked and yet never once tripped or even hesitated before putting a foot down.
“I’m a were,” Ray said. It felt like he’d been saying that all day. He frowned, looking over the station’s parking lot. An officer getting into their car stopped to watch Ray in obvious surprise.
Penn made a noise in her throat.
Ray glanced at her again. “What?”
Penn lowered her voice although no one was near them. “We’re going in here, and we are not staying long. Maybe being in a familiar place less touched by Cal will help you, I can’t say.” She placed a hand at Ray’s elbow. “But we are not staying long. We are telling people you’re grabbing paperwork to get done while you’re at home. That’s all we are telling them.”
“Penn….”
“Whatever you and the Hardy Boys got up to today has you rattled.” Penn met his eye. “Rattled enough that they called me, which means Cal didn’t think he could deal with it. And don’t think that doesn’t bug him because it does.”
Which would explain why Cal had gone quiet when Ray had irritably asked for something to do and Penn, through her phone call with Benny, had suggested Ray come to the station with her. “It wasn’t anything he did.”
Penn held up a hand. “Tell me later, if you want. When we’re alone.”
He frowned at her, at the implication that he wasn’t to talk about Cal once inside. He wasn’t surprised anymore, but he didn’t like it.
“That’s the look,” Penn said approvingly. She continued on toward the entrance. “Don’t misunderstand me. It’s not the talking about Cal so much; it’s that I don’t think you are calm enough to deal with whatever might be said in response.”
Ray rolled his jaw and pulled in a deep breath and stared straight ahead as they walked inside.
He was unprepared for the cooler, stale air that mean the air conditioning was running, the wave of dizziness at the well-known smell of countless humans and their sweat and various odors, coffee, coffee everywhere, paper and floor cleaner and the musty scent of an old building. The higher-ups kept talking about moving to a newer one, but there was really nowhere to go; Los Cerros was a small city.
The noise hit Ray next, murmurs and distant shouts, doors opening and closing on this floor and the one below. The sounds from upstairs were more muffled. Squeaky soles catching on the floor, chairs being pushed back. Someone laughing, on the edge of hysterical, also from downstairs.
Ray hid his flinch, then quickly inhaled to find Penn’s salt and olive oil, seawater scent.
It must have been the headache. Even the hospital full of people hadn’t made him freeze like the first time he’d stepped into an airport.
None of the weres Ray knew liked flying, and it wasn’t about safety concerns or the height. It was about the clamoring mass of people at very close range. Ray had a similar problem at conferences, although some weres must get used to it somehow because weres attended conventions and large group meetings like anyone else.
Ray took another breath, forcing the tension from his hands if not his shoulders, and closed his mouth so he wouldn’t make a sound.
They passed the reception desk without slowing. Ray looked over to the officer and two clerks, who looked back. O’Brian gave a belated nod. The two clerks, human, middle-aged, both of them white, clucked their tongues and shook their heads. Ray scowled and that set them off another round of head shaking.
“Stop making the admin staff blush,” Penn remarked without even a glance in their direction.
Those women were too jaded to blush. Ray scowled at Penn’s back as she headed to the rows of desks for the detectives, then to their desks, positioned next to each other.
“So, Ross has had no contact other than his lawyer and his mother.” Penn had already relayed this information in front of Cal and Benny, but the rest of it was new and just for Ray. She locked her gun away as she spoke. “Unless he and his mom have been communicating in code. I’m not even going to consider that, and it would attract more attention if I investigated that much anyway.”
In Cal’s words, Ross was not a chess player. Ray could barely remember the man and accepted Penn and Cal’s assessments, at least for now.
“He’s still delusional about you,” Penn passed this on, although, again, she had already said that to the others. “He’ll see the truth in time, blah blah.“ She waved a hand dismissively and stopped next to her desk. “So, we can’t rule him out, but don’t really think he has the clout to arrange this from where he is. Granted, Cal and Benny have a point; some might hold him up as an example of beings mistreating humans and try to use him, but, if they are, those people also aren’t visiting him. As for the rest, I can’t check his correspondence without giving someone a good, official reason, and we don’t have any.”
“You seem tired.” Ray considered her, then the surface of his desk, which looked untouched since the day before, at least as far as he could remember.
She flipped him off. “Of course, I’m tired. My best friend has been wounded and my workplace is a minefield.”
She didn’t say it loudly. She didn’t have to, with Ray’s hearing. He glanced around them despite that, before he asked, “It was before, wasn’t it?” Far too much tiptoeing had been going on.
