Page 2 of Luna & Andres

I hurried out. The sunlit day smelled of rain, but the fresh scent didn't ease my mind. I paused at the bottom of the stoop and glanced over my shoulder at the door to the apartment building. The filthy rectangular piece of glass in the center of the door couldn't obscure the dark forms of the officers as they spoke with Meyer. Meyer shook his head, but waved his hand at the stairs. They nodded and proceeded up the stairs.

I turned away and glanced at my watch. Ten minutes until nine. I was going to be late for work again.

Work waited for me, or rather, a reporter from upstairs. His name was Devin Quill, one of the guys on the crime beat. I found him beside the mail room door with his tablet in hand and a smile on his face. I didn't trust that smile.

"Good morning. Mind if I ask you some questions?" he greeted me.

"Don't you have a mugging victim to bother?" I wondered as I pushed past him.

"Probably half a dozen, but today is homicide day for me, and I heard there was something in your neighborhood," he informed me.

I froze. My eyes widened. I spun around and narrowed them at Quill. "Like what?"

He shrugged. "Just some guys being torn to pieces by a large animal."

"And how'd you find out it was near where I lived?" I questioned him.

He laughed. "You're in the wrong department. You should be a journalist. As it is, I heard it from a source higher up. I won't name names because sources and all, but they heard you were being looked into."

I raised an eyebrow. "By another department?"

He nodded. "Yeah, but not the ones you're thinking of. The admin department is interested in you." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. The keyboard on his tablet phone was at the ready. "Mind telling me why you're suddenly so popular?"

"What I tell you about coming in here, Quill?" Elliott's voice interrupted us. He stormed from his office and grabbed the man by his collar. "You can wait for your hate mail like everyone-" The door to the mail room opened. In stepped Miss Bao. She had a look of death on her face as her eyes fell on me.

"Mr. Regis would like a word with you," she informed me.

Elliott dropped Quill and glared at her. "She can come up when his mail's ready."

"He would like to speak with her right now," she insisted.

Elliott's frown deepened, but he turned to me and jerked his head towards Bao. "Go on then, but don't bullshit for too long."

I passed through the two men and followed Bao to the elevator. The doors closed behind us and we shot up the floors. Bao stood in front of me and close to the pad with the floor numbers. She slightly turned her head and her eyes fell on me.

"Why does he want to speak with you?" she questioned me.

I frowned. "Shouldn't you know that?"

She pursed her lips and faced forward. "He neglected to tell me."

I raised an eyebrow. That was her way to saying he hadn't told her a thing. That piqued my interest more than the summons itself. Bao was his right-hand man. By not telling her he had essentially amputated part of himself.

There were no interruptions on our flight up the elevator. That in itself was suspicious. We stepped off the admin floor and Bao led me down the long hallway. She stopped at the pair of doors that led to Reggie's office and opened one of them.

"Mr. Regis, she's here," she announced.

"Let her in and close that damn door," his gruff voice replied.

I stepped into the room. Bao shut the entrance behind me. The curtains behind Reggie's desk were closed. Darkness created deep shadows in the corners of the room. Only the lamp on his desk provided light. Reggie sat in his chair close to the desk. His elbows were on the desk and his hands were clasped together.

He gestured to the chair opposite him. "Have a seat." I took him up on his invitation and slipped into the chair. He studied me for a moment. The lamp cast deep shadows on his old face. There was tension between the lines. "I'm sure you're wondering why you're here. It's because of the attack last night near where you live."

I raised an eyebrow. "What about it?"

"We've had a few of our people working on the case. They've interviewed a few witnesses, and some of them say they saw a person matching your description around the scene of the murders shortly before and after the attack," he told me.

"Is that why Quill was bothering me?" I guessed.

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