Page 56 of Forget Me Not

“Who can say?” Melly wondered out loud, shrugging. “They might send her out too.”

“Truly, you don’t look well,” Carla interrupted again.

“Calvin’s boy should at least know to feed you. Men always like a meal.” Melly gave a disdainful sniff, at which part of that statement, Ray had no idea.

He raised his eyes.

Melly’s jaw dropped. She stepped back, quicker than she ever had, and murmured, “I should get over to the desk,” before hurrying off.

Ray turned to Carla, who didn’t quite flinch before giving Ray a jerky nod and taking off in a different direction. “Feel better!” she offered over her shoulder.

Ray bent his head and focused on the surface of his desk, stickers and notes and cheap pens. He inhaled; ink and the floor cleaner again. Melly’s lingering perfume.

A visitor was starting to get heated over by the reception desk. A car alarm sounded when someone came through the entrance, then faded as the doors closed behind them. The IT guy was still swearing. Shoes scuffed. Belts creaked. Radios were a constant crackle and hum.

Ray shut his eyes. The world behind his eyelids was red and pounding.

“Ah, Ray,” Penn’s voice was low and distant but it made Ray open his eyes, “I was wondering if Cal spoke to you about dinner.” She was making her way down the stairs, her gaze on him, a warning in her expression.

Ray shook his head. He didn’t have his phone. But Penn wasn’t really asking about dinner. She was distracting him.

And apparently others.

“Cal?” someone echoed in surprise. Ray didn’t turn his head in that direction, but the person didn’t speak again, so Ray didn’t seek them out.

“Cal seems to think I do nothing but eat,” Ray offered in return, his voice not as clear as it could have been.

“You don’t eat enough.” Penn’s answer was a vaguely amused, or relieved, grumble. “Perpetually hungry but used to ignoring it. As for myself,” she raised her voice, making it an announcement for anyone listening, “I need coffee. So let’s hurry up so we can go get some. Breathe, Ray,” she added quietly, for him alone.

She sat at her desk but looked as if she wanted to fuss over Ray like the admin ladies had.

“Everyone keeps telling me to breathe and rest.” Ray snapped his teeth since people seemed to expect him to, and snarled because it felt good. It ended in a huff, and Ray hot with embarrassment. “Thank you.”

Penn stared at him for a moment, then began to rummage through her desk. “I don’t think I want to be here either.” Her voice was tight. “Let’s just do this and go.”

He’d wait to ask her what had happened upstairs until they were truly alone.

“People have touched my desk and yours,” Ray informed her, surprisingly calm, but then, he had other things on his mind and at this point, it didn’t feel unexpected. “Not the cleaning staff, or at least, there’s no hint of cleanser. There is some latex-scent, so gloves were used. My stapler has moved. This file was turned the other way the last time I saw it.”

“Anal,” Penn muttered distractedly. Then added, “Moving the stapler is a good excuse—if we’d asked about it. ‘Just looking for office supplies.’” She sighed. “I really want coffee.”

“One cup doesn’t affect you either.” Ray remembered Cal’s remarks from that morning. “Either we drink a ton every day just to feel something, or we’re drinking it to fit in.”

“I can do both,” Penn snarked. “Also I, unlike you, enjoy the bitter taste and am a coffee snob. Is anything missing from your desk? Focus on that.”

Ray opened the drawer he’d broken to poke around inside. Lock or no lock, he didn’t think he’d have kept anything important at the station. He didn’t let himself to pause to worry over that. He kept digging through neatly organized pens and notepads and correction tape as well as three packs of red licorice and an opened bag of butterscotch discs. He searched through those in case he’d hidden something else for Cal there.

In the drawer below were more files, along with several reference books that belonged to the city library and were possibly years overdue for all Ray knew. He sighed. His opened emails were replies to record requests, some at the state level, others from different city offices, one from Springwell, the tiny town that bordered Los Cerros to the southeast, on the border of the woods. Marriage records, old building plans, that sort of thing. Since Ray didn’t know all of the cases he had been working on, he didn’t know if that was odd.

Forwarding them to his personal email would leave a trace, so he pulled out a notepad to jot down some of the names and dates in case he needed them later. Then he went through the paper files in his trays. The records might have also been for Cal and Benny, since Ray had no doubt he assisted them when asked. Anyone could make a record request, but the department could sometimes get results faster.

Some of it was indeed paperwork Ray needed to complete, so he put that in a stack, stuck the notepad in his pocket, then glanced at Penn.

He trusted Penn. Yet he hadn’t told her his suspicions, if he’d had them, or whatever he had clearly been working on in bits and pieces. Perhaps he’d wanted more information before bothering her. But he thought it more likely that he’d been protecting her, and by the same logic, Cal and Benny.

So the danger was close to home, had been even before Ray had been attacked. Telling Penn now was risky for her, not that Ray had anything to tell her except that he hadn’t even been leaving sticky notes for his official cases around his desk.

He had chased Cal away from the station, lied by omission to Penn, and allowed human magic into his home. And it hadn’t even worked to protect them, although it had clearly made someone, or some ones, very worried or very angry.

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