Page 42 of Deja New
“What can we do for you?” she asked again. “And by ‘we,’ I mean ‘I’ because, I promise, the rest of them will bring nothing but chaos.”
“And brownies,” Jack pointed out. Angela smiled at him, she couldn’t help it, her smallest, sweetest brother/cousin.
“Yes. And brownies.”
“Brownies?”
Angela realized Jason hadn’t meant to say that out loud, because he immediately flushed. The smile she’d given Jack she now turned on him. “Skipped lunch, huh?”
“Paperwork.”
“Siddown,” Jack ordered, already tying on his Darth Vaderapron.*“We have so much food, what with all the adolescents still growing and the adult male who thinks he’s still growing.”
A yelp from Paul: “Hey!”
“Won’t take two minutes to heat something up for you. Five if you want it fresh.”
“I’m aware that’s my social cue to say something like ‘Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly’ or ‘I don’t want to impose,’ but your kitchen smells wonderful. Your whole house does. And I can linger. I went off shift an hour ago. If—if I’m invited.” Jason immediately sat at the turtle table. “I may have skipped breakfast as well.”
Jack looked delighted at the prospect of someone new on whom to practice his culinary wizardry and got to work. Paul gave Angela an inquiring look. “D’you need us?” and she shook her head so hard the room spun for a few seconds.No. God no. Go away and let me gaze dreamily at Jason Chambers. I’ll save you the leftovers from the leftovers.“You want us back in, just holler.” But they were already turning away, knowing the look of a cop who had no updates. Mitchell lingered long enough to lean over and murmur, “If Mom wakes up, I’ll try to keep her out of here.”
“Thank youverymuch,” she replied, then turned to Jason. “Drink? We have milk, chocolate milk, iced tea, pop...”
“Chocolate milk would be great.”
Gah, he likes chocolate milk. That is ADORABLE.
She brought two large glasses and sat across from him.Chocolate mustache, here I come. Because as awful as I look right now, I can always look worse.
“Sorry about the Horde. They tend to descend, create chaos, abruptly lose interest, and then vanish, emerging periodically to feed or do laundry.”
“Looks like a fun group.”
She snorted. “Let me guess: only child, right?” She’d heard such mythical, blessed creatures existed.
“No. Well, now I am. My brother was murdered when I was in high school.”
Shocked, she instinctively reached out, then remembered herself and yanked back her traitorous exploratory hand. “I’m so sorry. That must have been awful. Is still awful, I imagine.”
He nodded. “Twelve years last month.”
“Is that why you became a cop?”
“No, I entered the academy because I lost a bet.”
She blinked.Weird.“Oh.”
He quirked a small smile. “Kidding. Yes, that’s why I became a cop. And your father’s death was why you became a paralegal.”
“Well, that and my obsessive love for files and piles of paper and legal jargon and briefs... Jason, can I ask you something?”
“Of course.”
He leaned back in his chair and propped his right ankle on his left knee, which was the most relaxed she’d ever seen him. And she wasn’t going to check out his socks. No way. “Please don’t misunderstand, because we’re all grateful you took an interest when Kline retired. And you’re here on your own time—you could have been home a couple of hours ago—which is above and beyond and that isn’t a criticism at all. I think—we thinkyou’re great to do this. But... why? There must be thousands of old cases. And you probably have a dozen open files at any given time.”*
He laughed. “Only on my days off. On my days on, I have more.”
“Right. So...” She spread her hands, palms up. “Why us?”
