LITMIR.BIZ

      “Where are you going?” Gretchen demanded as Mac grabbed his coat from the back of his chair and made for the nearest exit of the police station.

      Her hair was pulled back severely, causing pressure at her temples and straining her eyes so she had a Siamese cat appearance. It looked uncomfortable and he figured it wasn’t going to help her temperament. He’d tried to be absent when she arrived at the station this morning, but he’d gotten caught up in the case and suddenly it was eight-thirty and Gretchen was there with a box of doughnuts.

      “Home to bed,” he told her. “Pulled an all-nighter.”

      “Doing what?”

      “There was a fire. Glenn Stafford and Scott Pascal’s restaurant. Looks like Stafford’s dead.”

      “Are you for real?”

      He nodded, slid his sidearm into his shoulder holster, and grabbed his jacket.

      “Why wasn’t I called?”

      “Because the fire investigators haven’t labeled it arson, so there’s no homicide. And it’s outside of our jurisdiction.”

      “Bullshit. It involves our case.” The wheels were turning in her mind, the box of doughnuts dropped unceremoniously onto the corner of his desk.

      Mac headed toward the door, his head full of images from the night before. He intended to do just as he’d told Scott Pascal the night before: he was going to ask the Preppy Pricks about the notes. He’d made a couple of calls already and was on a mission.

      Gretchen was hot on his heels, her footfalls short and angry as she followed him outside. “Your attitude sucks, McNally. I’m this close to reporting you.” She held her hand out, so he could see the index finger and thumb separated by only a hairsbreadth.

      “To who?” Mac asked at his own personal Jeep. He’d parked the prowler around the back since he was going off duty—at least officially.

      “D’Annibal, for starters. The chief if I have to.”

      He’d had it with her. “I don’t know what your gripe is, Sandler. You’ve been to a number of interviews. You think the Jessie Brentwood investigation’s a waste of time, my personal white whale. You hate everything about being my partner. Do whatever the hell you want.”

      “You should have called me when you decided to go to the fire.”

      “Wake you up at two in the morning for something that might not be a crime?”

      “It was Pascal and Stafford’s restaurant! That’s critical to our investigation!”

      “What investigation?” Mac finally snapped back. “You don’t give a damn. All you want is a fresh body, not a twenty-year-old corpse.”

      “Fuck you.”

      “Back atcha.” He slammed into his Jeep and drove away, wishing the pavement was gravel so he could peel out and choke her with the dust. He slipped a pair of nearly forgotten sunglasses onto his nose as shafts of rare winter sunbeams slipped through the clouds and bounced off the wet pavement.

      Christ, she was a pain. And he didn’t need the headache. Between his obsession with this case, the other cases he was investigating, and his home life, which was centered around his kid, he didn’t have time for Gretchen Sandler’s histrionics. Not for the first time he wondered who she’d slept with to make detective. Worse yet, she had a way of making him lower himself to her level. The fact that he’d just baldly and gleefully lied to her pleased him in a way that defied explanation. Maturity was highly overrated, he concluded as he turned the Jeep away from the direction of his home and toward the garage where Mitch Bellotti spent his days.