Page 103 of Thankless in Death

He unsealed the comp then took some sort of minidrive out of his pocket, attached it to one port, attached his PPC to another. Glanced at her as she pulled out of the garage and into perfectly miserable traffic.

“You’re tired,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“You are, and you show it very likely because you haven’t had any real food since breakfast.”

“I had a cookie. And I have a little box of them—which, damn it, I left in my office. Say good-bye to those.”

“Real food,” he repeated.

Had she? She couldn’t remember. “I’ll eat when we get home. Mommy.”

He drilled a finger into her side in retaliation, then tapped and swiped on the in-dash ’link. “AC mode,” he commanded, “twelve-ounce protein shake, chocolate.”

Received... Selecting...

“AC mode? What AC mode?”

“The one programmed into the system because my wife starves herself most days.”

Delivering...

He had to take off his seat belt, shift, reach through the seats to the back. She heard the quiet slide, little click, and frowned into the rearview, but couldn’t quite get the angle.

“Where is it? How is it?”

“It’s in the backseat console. Just a mini,” he said as he handed her the shake. “It’ll only hold a few basics. A couple of shakes, coffee—”

“Coffee?”

He gave her a long look, dry as dust. “It must be love.”

“Coffee,” she said again.

“A few protein bars as well. You told me you’d read the manual.”

“I did. Most of it. Some of it. A little of it,” she admitted. And because it must have been love, drank the shake. It didn’t suck.

“Why aren’t you tired? Why don’t you have to have a protein shake?”

“Because I had a decent lunch and a little tea with biscuits a couple hours ago.”

“I was chasing a killer a couple hours ago.”

“Maybe if you’d eaten something you’d have caught him.”

“Would not. Lucky bastard. Who gets in and out of a health clinic inside thirty minutes? Nobody. But he does. It’s been breaking his way, but with this”—she jerked her chin toward the comp—“maybe it’ll start breaking mine.”

She pulled up at the morgue.

“If you don’t need me to come in, I’ll start working on that break.”

“Yeah.” She started to get out, hesitated, then put her seat back. Reaching under, she tugged, then pulled out a candy bar with sticky tape crossed over the wrapper.

“Clever girl.”

“That damn candy thief can’t get into a shielded vehicle, so I keep emergency candy.” She broke it in half, handed him a share. “It is love,” she confirmed, then climbed out.

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