After hanging up I felt a rush of anxiety. Had he blown me off? Was this flash powder? Even if not, the conversation hadn’t gone well. I knew he was already over it, but I couldn’t stop tormenting myself with the idea that his last thought of me was that I’d interrupted his already stressful workday with an accusation.
I had to resist the urge to think of something brilliant to say and call him right back. Only Dr. Davis’s voice, almost a part of my own consciousness by now, kept me from behaving like an idiot.
Push it away. He already has.
Caryl was sitting on her favorite couch in the living room, so I took myself and my crutches over to her.
“Whatever is going on,” I said, “I’m ninety percent sure it’s about the new studio. At least this gives us something to research. Berenbaum doesn’t want me talking to Vivian—”
“Neither do I.”
“—so I thought I would try Inaya West.”
“Just be certain that you do not—”
“—mention fairies or magic. I know, I know.”
My crutches were starting to bruise my armpits, so I decided to have a seat in my wheelchair, which now had a permanent parking spot in the living room. I idly turned myself in circles with my free hand while I waited for Inaya’s voice mail. Her outgoing message was an automated one that just spit back the number I’d dialed, so I couldn’t be certain I had the number right.
“My name’s Millie,” I said to her machine, keeping my tone warm and friendly. “I understand you’ve been trying to track down John Riven. I think you and I should talk.” I gave my number and left it at that. The simpler the better when dealing with people who are, as Teo would have put it, way above your pay grade.
As I relaxed in my chair to plan my next move, Gloria’s boyfriend, whose name I’d forgotten again, wandered in and sat down at the grand piano. After a moment’s hesitation, he started into a somber Rachmaninoff prelude.
As I listened I found my mind wandering back to the LAPD officer, feeling retroactively puzzled by the way he’d looked at me. Not because there was anything all that special about it, but because there wasn’t.
As wrong as it is, people in wheelchairs don’t get treated normally by strangers. People see the chair first and wrestle with their discomfort, then their guilt over their discomfort. Sometimes they cover for it with extra-friendly smiles; sometimes they look sympathetic; mostly they just avert their eyes for fear of being rude. Brian Clay hadn’t done any of those things, and it made me wonder why. Did he have a disabled friend or family member? Or was it just seen-it-all syndrome from years at a tough job?
I got back on my crutches and carefully levered myself up the stairs to my room, my phone tucked into my pocket. There was no point in holding my breath waiting for a celebrity to return my call, and I wanted to do something useful between now and the train station, so I found Clay’s card, and I gave him a ring.
“Yeah?” he answered more quickly than I’d expected.
“It’s Millie. Millie Roper, the girl you were following.”
“Do you have something for me?”
“I might,” I said. “Do you think we could meet somewhere? Coffee or something?”
There was a long pause, and I started to feel stupid, but then he said, “Where?”
I picked the closest coffee shop to the Residence to save on cab fare, and he said he’d meet me there.
Before leaving, I invaded Teo’s room to use the computer. I double-checked the time and departure track of Rivenholt’s train, then sent an e-mail to Berenbaum with the details in case he wanted to show up and catch me being heroic. I printed a copy for myself and stuck it in my backpack along with some cash, my ID, ChapStick, a roll of Certs: the usual sort of things you take with you when you are going to meet an attractive police officer.
The coffee shop was a corporate clone, utterly lacking in personality, and Clay was an odd match for it. He sat at a table against the wall, and as I hobbled over on my crutches, I was struck once again by the long, coarse lines of his face. He evaded handsomeness by a narrow margin, and his macho blue-collar vibe was heavily mitigated both by his goatee and by the metric ton of sugar he was dumping into his caffè mocha.
“Careful,” I greeted him. “I think there might still be some coffee in there.”
“Millie. Sit.”
“I hope you haven’t been waiting for me too long.”
“All my life,” he said, about as suave as a sack of bricks. I burst into startled snorts of laughter. “Sorry,” he said immediately, one corner of his mouth turning up. “I watch too much TV.”
I sat down, plopping my backpack onto the table and leaning it against the window. “I’ll try not to keep you from work too long,” I said, trying to hide the massive rush I felt at being flirted with. By a cop. What the hell?
“This could be work,” he said with a shrug. “You have information?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know if I should give it to you. This whole situation is just beyond weird. Is there anything you can share with me about the abduction you mentioned? When it happened? Johnny’s relationship to the girl? Anything?”
“No,” he said.