Page 21 of Shelter for Morgan

“Morning, Chief.” Rhett greeted him. “Want me to get you a cup of coffee?”

The Chief raised his hand with his travel mug in it. “No thanks, Rhett. I’ve got my own.”

“Okay, Chief.”

He turned back to ask Taco about the murals, but the Chief spoke up. “Rhett?”

“Yeah, Chief?”

“Don't take this the wrong way, but… are you smiling?”

Rhett looked up and caught sight of himself in the reflection of a glass panel.

And, yes, he was smiling.

When he lowered his gaze, he saw Squirrel looking at him over the top rim of his glasses. “Never thought I’d live to see the day.”

Rhett shrugged and tried to fight it down, but he couldn't.

He looked at everyone around the room who had suddenly stopped to look at him. "Yes. I'm smiling, okay?"

Nobody moved.

Nobody even seemed to breathe.

Rhett shrugged. "Look, it had to happen sometime, right?"

The Chief nodded and waved his hand to get the rest of the room moving again. "Of course. I'm sorry if I caused a scene, but I'm just happy to see you... happy."

"I hadn't even noticed," Rhett admitted. "I made coffee at home for Morgan since she starts her first day as a teacher today and I thought it would make a nice gesture."

"Absolutely." Squirrel cupped his mug in his hands, likely enjoying the heat. "I'm sure she did. It's always great to make an effort for the ones you... uh, for the ones you live with."

Rhett raised a brow at that. "I know where you were going with that, Squirrel. She's the sister of an old friend from Center City. And she needed a place to stay when this job popped up. She didn't have a lot of time to find a place since she had to start right away."

The Chief's expression changed, from happy to concerned. "Where is she teaching?"

Rhett dropped his chin as he looked down toward the floor as he tried to remember the name of the school. "Oh. Uh, Shilling High School."

"Shilling?" The Chief looked up as Crash walked into the room. "Crash? Do you remember when we were called out to that school about a week ago?"

Crash slowed his steps and came to a complete stop a few steps away from the table. "Uh. Yeah. We answered the call for the GSW."

Rhett's whole mood soured. "Gunshot wound?"

Crash nodded.

"Why didn't I hear about this?"

The Chief shook his head. "It was in the middle of the night. Right?"

Crash nodded. "We'd just finished a call about a fire, but it was a false alarm, and we were close to Shilling High School. It's out of our area, but not by much."

Driftwood spoke up from behind Rhett. "So dispatch was happy for us to go in when they got the call. All of the trucks in that area were dealing with a fire at a grocery store so they were stretched to their limit, and we beat the ambulance, but not by more than a few minutes. A teacher had been shot in the parking lot."

Crash nodded. "I heard later it was probably a carjacking attempt or something like that."

Chief Blaise shook his head. "Terrible thing."

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