She simply glared at me, her jaw working as she clenched her teeth behind the thin gash formed by her intense frown.
“Storm,” she finally snapped, turning to him. “Mark my words, Detective. Your days are numbered.”
“Yeah.” Ben half nodded. “I’ll be sure to put it on my calendar.”
Albright snorted haughtily then turned on her heel and stalked toward the front of the apartment. When she reached the door, she rested her hand on the knob and hesitated. After a brief moment, she turned to glare at the four of us.
“Yes, Lieutenant?” I asked, not sure what else to do.
“Just exactly what were you saying earlier, Miz O’Brien?” she queried in a demanding tone. “You kept repeating something.”
Felicity glowered at the lieutenant as she crossed her arms beneath her breast. I could tell by looking at her that it was taking an immense amount of effort on her part to remain calm. My wife arched one eyebrow and spoke, her accent and brogue heavier than usual from the anger, “Aye, Fek tu saigh, maybe? ”
“Yes,” Albright snipped. “I suppose that is one of your Witch curses.”
“Oh, nothing so eloquent as that, then,” Felicity answered. “But, aye, it was a curse all right.”
“What then?” Albright pressed.
I couldn’t help but notice that she reached up and began fingering the small cross hanging around her neck. Unless I was misreading her, there was actually a small swath of fear in her face.
“Are you certain that you are wanting to know that, then?”
“I ASKED, did I not?” Albright barked.
Her voice cracked when she spoke, revealing for a fact what I had suspected. For all her verbal bravado, she actually harbored a fear of WitchCraft.
Felicity drew in a deep breath, cocked her head to the side, and then translated the phrase into carefully measured English. “Fuck. You. Bitch.”
Indignation filled the lieutenant’s face, but not before a barely noticeable wave of relief washed over it. If I hadn’t been watching as close as I was, I never would have seen it. Nevertheless, I did, and I logged it away for the future.
She said nothing in return, but upon her exit, I would almost have to say that Lieutenant Albright gave my wife a run for her money in the door-slamming department.
CHAPTER 27:
“Damn,” I muttered in the wake of the door’s echo. “She’s getting just as melodramatic about this as Porter.”
“Yeah,” Ben acknowledged with a heavy sigh. “She’s got a real bug up her ass when it comes to you.”
“You mean she’s always like this?” Mandalay asked. “How does she keep her job?”
“Well, she was a lot worse just now than I’ve ever seen,” Ben told her. “Usually she’s just a Bible thumpin’… How’d you say that, Felicity? ‘Sigh’?”
“Aye,” she nodded. “ Saigh.”
“Yeah, one of those,” he continued. “But tonight, this was… Hell, I dunno what this was.”
She looked at him and shook her head in disbelief. “Storm, you absolutely have to go to Internal Affairs about this woman. I hate to sound cliche, but she’s a loose cannon.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” he agreed. “I’m tight with a copper that moved over to IAD a couple years back. Maybe I’ll drop in on ‘im tomorrow if I have a few minutes.”
“I think it would be advisable,” Mandalay replied.
“Well,” I spoke up. “I appreciate both of you coming to the rescue. Thanks.”
Ben grunted, “Uh-huh. I’ll prob’ly regret it. I’m bettin’ I shoulda let her arrest ya’ anyway.”
“What for?”
My friend turned his gaze on Felicity. “Did you talk him outta puttin’ his ass on the line?”
“No,” she returned with a shake of her head. Her voice was still covered with a frost of anger.
Ben swung his head back to me and then jerked his thumb toward Felicity. “That for.”
I expelled an annoyed breath, frowned at him, and then said, “We aren’t going to go down this road again, are we?”
“Somebody’s gotta chase after ya’,” he replied.
“Look,” Mandalay interjected. “Before you two start arguing, let’s just see what happens.” She rolled her arm up then pushed back her cuff to glance at her watch. You could almost see the quick mental calculation going on behind her eyes as she spoke. “It’s just past seven. The last call from Porter was a little less than forty-five minutes ago, and they had pegged a grid location on him. We haven’t heard a peep out of him since.
“We’ve all been a little preoccupied, especially with Lieutenant Albright. For all we know, this just might be a moot point by now.”
“Yeah.” Ben nodded in agreement with what she was implying. “The S.O. B might be cornered somewhere right now. Or, if we’re really lucky, maybe they’re stuffin’ his ass in a body bag. I’ll check with one of the coppers that I know who is on tonight. Mandalay, why don’t you call the Feeb house and see if they have anything.”
Constance gave her head an annoyed shake. “Field office, Storm. Can’t you just say field office? You should know we aren’t exactly fond of the nickname ‘Feeb.’”
He returned an innocent, questioning stare. “What? I didn’t call YOU a Feeb. I LIKE you.”
She rolled her eyes at him in answer then reached into her pocket and extracted a cell phone. She flipped the cover on the device open with a quick snap.
“So Mandalay,” Ben said as he fumbled his own cell from his belt with his wounded fingers. “Thanks for the backup with Albright.”
She continued looking at her cell phone as she keyed in a number. “No problem, Storm. Even with all your faults and overabundance of testosterone, I like you too.”
“I think I might have just been insulted,” Ben quipped.
“Give me a break,” she returned. “Just take it in the spirit it was intended.”
“So lemme ask you somethin’.”
“What’s that?”
“You really salutatorian of your class at Cornell?”
“Actually no,” she replied as she hovered her thumb over the send button and glanced up. “I was valedictorian. I just didn’t want to sound too pretentious.”
“Jeezus, Mandalay.”
“What?”
“Nothin’.”
“WHAT, Storm?”
“Well, it’s just that you’re a pretty good copper.” He gave her an embarrassed glance and half shrugged as he spoke. “And, sometimes, like when you fix yourself up… Well, you’re kinda hot.”
She squinted one eye and shook her head at him. “Storm, are you hitting on me? Because if you…”
“Hell no!” He scrunched his face and gave her a dismissive wave as he rushed to cut her off. “I’m just kinda surprised to find out you’re a nerd too.”
Mandalay rolled her eyes then turned her back to him as she dropped her thumb on the keypad and headed out into the living room.
“I’m going to check the television,” I announced as Ben began fat-fingering his own cell phone.
“Yeah,” he called over his shoulder absently. “Friggin’ media is prob’ly interviewin’ the bastard on every channel as we speak.”
I gave Felicity a nod, and we skirted around the massive Native American obstacle. He sidestepped as I gently nudged him, moving against the wall and allowing us to pass. We rounded the corner at the mouth of the small corridor and moved into the edge of the living room.
An earlier thought pushed itself up into view from the swirling tumult of my overtaxed brain, and I faltered for a moment before coming to a halt.
“Caorthann?” Felicity called my name in Gaelic, her voice threaded with mild concern. This was a pet name she’d had for me back before we were married, and I hadn’t heard it in a long while. “Are you okay, then?”
“I’m fine, honey.” I reached over and gently took hold of her arm. “What does the Queen of Swords mean?”
“The tarot card?” she answered. “I’m not sure. Mourning isn’t it? Feminine sadness? The tarot is really not my strong point, but that’s what I seem to recall from the little white book.”
The little white book; I hadn’t heard that one in a while. It was an affectionate nickname given to the booklet of definitions provided with what had to be one of the most widely known decks on the market-the Rider-Waite tarot.