Page 93 of Bears Behaving Badly
“Your muttering is more nonsensical than usual, dear.”
Enough. It’ll come to you.“I think there’s a way we can get more info from Lund.”
“Does it involve a séance? I would adore a séance.”
“It does not. How many times do I have to tell you, no séances during work time! And your vacation might have been wrecked, but I’m pretty sure we can still arrange some entertainment.”
“I’m not especially worried.” Nadia shrugged. “That’s what vacation insurance is for.”
“There’s a clause for getting your money back when you miss your flight because you’re trying to keep your colleagues out of jail by distracting officers of the court?”
“There will be when I’m finished with them.”
“I don’t doubt it,” David said, and for that he got a megawatt smile from Nadia.
“Now! The memorial starts in twenty-five minutes and it’s in the next town over, so you two need to put the petal to the metal.”
“It’spedal. With ad.”
“Do shut up, Annette.”
Chapter 29
“I never told Brennan my name. He called me Annette, but we didn’t even give him our cards. We didn’t want to make it easy on him to alert IPA about what we were up to.”
“Jesus.” David, who had been turning into the White Funeral Home, nearly went into the ditch. “I was so busy talking myself out of throwing him out the window, I didn’t notice. That’s fucking embarrassing.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s good you didn’t throw him out the window.”
The parking lot was half-full, which was good as well as bad; there were fewer people to keep track of, but the two of them would stand out more. Even if one of them hadn’t been wearing salmon with a cardigan whose sleeves she wasn’t allowed to use. “Is this a hunch? I feel like this is a hunch. A hunch is the same as desperately clutching at straws, right?”
David shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got right now. Unless you want to go see Gomph and get arrested.”
“No. But an organized mind should always have a Plan B.”
David gallantly presented an elbow for her to grab and walked her up the sidewalk. It was a beautiful day, the kind Minnesota used to lure suckers into moving.Come on over! Feel that warm sunshine, smell that crisp air! Pick apples! Go on a hayride! Stroll through jewel-colored fallen leaves! (The winters aren’tthathorrible.)
“You know, David, if not for the miasma of violent death hanging over this, we could be on a date.”
To her surprise, David took her seriously. “No. I’d never expect you to… I mean, obviously this isn’t a date.”
“Right. That’s…correct.”Say something. The only thing worse than an awkward pause is a looooong awkward pause.“I didn’t actually think it was. A date, I mean.”
“Good.”
“It’s the salmon, isn’t it?” she fretted. “It makes me look jaundiced and you’re turned off. Nadia won’t listen. I know what looks good against my own skin tone, dammit!”
“You don’t look orange.”
“Oh. Relief.”
“You look the opposite of orange.”
“I look blue?”
“No! Beautiful. I think you look beautiful.”
“Thank you. You look good, too. Are you all right? You’re sweating.” And it was something to see. The man hadn’t been this rattled when a faceless thug tried to run him down in a parking garage.
