The second cop
looked
at him and laughed.
“Forensics. For
the
lab.”
“Yeah,
forensics.”
They
both laughed. “Right.
They’ll
be all
over
that. At the
lab.”
A detective finally showed up, a tired middleaged
black
man named Sam Charleston from the Second District. The uni formed officers stood aside and Lacey repeated her story
to
him.
“So,
you’d
describe this suspect as black or white or what?” “Suspect?
He’s
a witness,
detective,”
Lacey
said.
“And
he’s
a mix of Asian, black, and maybe some white. Just my
guess.”
Detective
Charleston rolled his
eyes.
“No one on the
beat’s
going to stop and
figure
that one out. Not
even
a place on the
report
for
all
that.
What’s
his
skin
look
like?
Dark,
light,
medium?”
“Medium lightish, maybe,
but—”
“Okay,
we
got
an
Hispanic
teenager,”
he
called
to
the
young
cop. “In a blueandwhite
jacket.
Put it
out.”
“Hispanic?
Wait,
I
don’t
know
that,”
Lacey
cut in, “and ac tually it
was
a
shepherd’s
robe, not a
jacket,
and he did say
fif
teen,
but
then he said
twelve
and—”
The
detective
threw
her a look that stopped her cold.
“Yeah,
that’s
our
suspect.”
“No! I
didn’t
say
that,”
Lacey
protested.
“He’s
not a suspect!
He’s
a witness. He called for
help.”
Charleston
stroked
his
jaw.
“Right. Maybe he
was
just
wait
ing to hit you
over
the head too.
Take
your Christmas shopping
money,
credit cards, phone. Maybe he had an accomplice that ran
away
before you made it to the
alley.
You
show
up, he in
vents
a
cover
story.”
“You
think
he’s
lying about the candy cane? Who would
make
that up?”
“People will say
anything.
Let’s
say I’m
openminded.”
“But I really
don’t
think this kid hurt Cassandra!” She
won
dered if the little shepherd really could
have
had something to
do
with
the
attack.
The
kid
wouldn’t
know
about
Sweatergate.
How
could he? “The attack on Cassandra
was
personal. Sort of a grudge. What
would
some little
boy
have
against her?
What’s
the
kid’s
motive?”
“Motive?”
The
detective
snorted. “Who cares about his mo
tive?
All I care about is who did what. Assault in an
alley,
vic tim hit in the head? Pretty common.
We’ll
see if we got us a
serial.”
“Cassandra wrote an editorial about Christmas sweaters. It
was
negative.
Lots of people were
angry,
writing emails—”
Lacey
froze. That could
have
been her on the ground,
attacked
by one of the angry emailers.
“I hate the
holidays.”
Detective
Charleston closed his
eyes
for
a
moment
and
sighed
deeply.
“Look,
lady,
you’ve
got
a bleeding victim here and this Hispanic
teenager’s
the last one seen running out of the
alley?
He’s
the
suspect.”
“If
you
think
he’s
the
suspect,
why
don’t
you
think
I’m
the
suspect?”
He
gave
her his best cop stare.
“Lady,
you’re
making me
tired.”
The
EMTs
were
settling
Cassandra
into
the
ambulance
when
Lacey
felt a
warm
hand on her
shoulder.
She
was
still shaking her head
over
how
a
mixedrace
child who
was
a wit ness to a crime and had tried to help had
somehow
become a teenage Hispanic suspect. It
was
easier for her to concentrate on the
boy
than to think about
how
close she might
have
come to
Cassandra’s
fate.
“Lacey,
are you all right?” The
words
came with a
lovely
wave
of testosterone, a
voice
full of concern.
“I am
now.”
She touched the hand and turned and smiled up at
Vic
Donovan.
Even
though his
eyes
seemed troubled, she no ticed
how
handsome he
looked
in his
tuxedo.
She hugged him
tightly.
Lacey
didn’t
know
how
long she had been standing in the amber light of the
alley,
but
it felt
like
forever.
It might
have
been only half an
hour.
“How
did you
know
I
was
here?”
“Lucky
guess.
You’re
not at the Christmas party with me, where
you’re
supposed to be. So I just
looked
for the cops. I al
ways
figure
that if there are flashing lights and sirens
anywhere
nearby,
Lacey
Smithsonian is bound to be
involved.
And look, I
was
right.”
“Very
funny.
You’re
just
drawn
to
excitement.”
She
broke
the hug and he reached for her hand.
“It’s
the
excop
in you.
Like
a moth to a
flame.”
He smiled, his green
eyes
crinkling. An unruly lock of his curly hair fell
over
his forehead. “Just
like
you. But are you the moth or the flame?”
Vic
kissed
her.
“So
what’s
going on here?”
“Short or long
version?”
“Short
now.
Long one
over
drinks
later.”
She briefed him and he shook his head. He wrapped his arm around
her.
“So you probably
saved
your
buddy
Wentworth’s
life, you and your mysterious little shepherd. Pretty
exciting.”
Vic
looked
at her
hopefully.
“Any
chance
you’re
too trauma tized and upset
now
to go to that ridiculous
office
party?”
“Not
a
chance,
Donovan.”
She
stared
him
down.
“I
may
be
upset,
but
this
dress
is
immune
to
trauma,
and
I
am
showing
you
off
in that
beautiful
tuxedo
and
you’re
not
weaseling out
of
it.”
“So this is the
Smithsonianshowsoffherman
event?”
“I
warned
you.”
Lacey
tickled
his
ribs.
“You’re
the
trophy.”
“Just think, sweetheart, if you had just said yes
way
back when, we could
have
been happily
bickering
like
this for years.
You
really
want
to go to that silly thing at the Press Club? Just to see Mac in a Santa cap?”
“You
bet.
You’re
already dressed to the teeth,
Vic.
So am I.
We
deserve
it. And I
have
to let people
know—”
“Because
it’s
news?”
“Yes,
but
it
affects
the paper too. Besides, if I
don’t
go to the
party,
I’ll
just brood about this
awful
attack, the
spooky
alley,
the weird
sweater,
the strange little shepherd
boy—”
“And
before you
know
it,
Lacey
Smithsonian’s
taking a per sonal interest in the
case.”
Vic
folded her hand in his.
“And
that
would
be too much
excitement
for me. So, my
dear,
let’s
party.
We’ll
drink to
forget.
We’ll
dance the night
away.”
“You
have
no
faith,”
she started to
say.
“Au
contraire, my sweet
reporter.
I
have
all the
faith
in the
world
in your ability to get
involved
where you
don’t
need to. Smithsonian rushes in where angels fear to
tread.”
“Hey,
buddy,
you’re
lucky
you
have
me.”
“I
never
said I
wasn’t
lucky.”
Vic
suddenly swept her into a hug and kissed her till her knees felt weak. “I’m
very
lucky.”
He escorted her back upstairs to her
office
so she could pick up her bags. Most of the desk lamps were out in the
newsroom.
Lacey
noticed cub reporter
Kavanaugh
in a pool of light at a desk in the
far
corner,
referring to notes, presumably typing up her story about the incident in the
alley.
It
looked
like
a lot of
effort
for what
would
be a
twoparagraph
brief, and it
wouldn’t
even
make
tomorrow’s
paper.
It
was
after deadline, the edition had already gone to bed. The attack on Cassandra
wouldn’t
see print until
Sunday.
Kavanaugh
was
engrossed in her
story.
She
didn’t
look up and
Lacey didn’t
bother
her.
Vic
grabbed
Lacey’s
bags from her desk. “Ready?
Carry
your books, little girl?”
Having
a
boyfriend
to carry your pack
ages
was
a
good
thing,
she
decided
all
over
again.
Vic
squired
her back to his Jeep and then
drove
them to the National Press
Club.
Where she had been looking forward to seeing all
the
newspaper’s
managers
clad
comically
in
Santa
caps.
But
it
wasn’t
so
funny
now.