Cavanaugh On Call. Marie Ferrarella

It’s my job to know everything,” he told her mildly. Turning toward the bartender, he signaled for the man’s attention. When he got it, Sean indicated the two people sitting at the table behind him. “The next round’s on me,” he told the bartender.

      Scottie protested immediately. “No, I just stopped in for the one.”

      “You don’t have to drink it,” Sean told her good-naturedly. “Just hold on to the bottle. ‘Getting a drink at Malone’s’ is, for the most part, just an excuse to linger on the premises and mingle with your brothers and sisters in blue.” His smile, a genial, comforting expression, widened as he added, “In my family’s case, that’s truer than you’d expect. Be seeing you around,” he said to both Bryce and Scottie just before he walked away and left the establishment.

      “Two of the same, right?” the bartender asked, depositing two more bottles at the table that she was sharing with her partner.

      “I really never drink this much,” Scottie told the man sitting opposite her.

      “Like Uncle Sean said,” Bryce reminded her, “you don’t have to drink. It’s just an excuse to linger.”

      She wanted him to get something straight right off the bat. “If I wanted to linger, I wouldn’t need an excuse,” Scottie told him.

      His mouth quirked just a little. “The key word here being wanted,” Bryce guessed. It was obvious that she wanted to leave. He sat back. He would have wanted her to stay a bit longer, but he wasn’t about to tie her to her chair. “Well, you lived up to your bargain, so you’re free to go.” But before she left, in the spirit of honesty, he couldn’t help telling her, “I was just hoping that once you came, you’d want to stay a bit.”

      Scottie had been feeling restless and antsy ever since she’d come out of the homeless shelter empty-handed. “I don’t like wasting time.”

      Bryce gestured around to not just include their table but the surrounding people, as well. “This isn’t wasting time.”

      She pinned him with a look. Everyone was sitting around, exchanging bits and pieces of what had once been conversation. They lived in a world of abbreviations and sound bites.

      “All right, then tell me. What is it?” she asked.

      “It’s recharging your batteries, maybe talking things out with other law-enforcement agents who might have a clearer perspective than you do. It’s clearing your head so that you can go home without keeping everything bottled up inside and scaring the person who means the most to you. At its simplest level,” Bryce added, “it’s networking.”

      She focused on the first couple of points he’d mentioned. “So that’s what’s going on here?” she asked, doing her best to keep the sarcasm she keenly felt from infiltrating her voice. “Crime solving?”

      “At times,” Bryce responded without blinking an eye. “And, like I said, at other times, it’s just kicking back, unwinding and recharging. That’s a lot more important than you think.”

      “I do that at home,” she informed him and then, because it was getting noisier, she raised her voice and said, “I don’t need a network to get me there.”

      “More power to you. Some of us, through no fault of our own, do need a little help with that, and being around other people who know what it’s like to lay your life on the line 24/7 makes it just a little easier to communicate.” She was leaving, he could see it in her eyes. Because his curiosity had always been unbridled, he grabbed the last chance he had and asked her one more time. “Who were you looking for at the shelter?”

      His curiosity made her curious. “Why is it so important for you to know?” she challenged.

      He repeated his offer, making it seem more appealing this time. “Because, you might have noticed, I have this huge network I can tap into.”

      Bryce waved his hand around the bar. There were a lot of his relatives there, as well as a lot of fellow law-enforcement agents he’d had occasion to work with. Most were great believers in the “one hand washes the other” axiom as long as no laws were broken and no one was hurt in the process.

      “And if you tell me who you’re looking for, I can help you find him—or her.” Bryce tagged the latter on just in case she was looking for a woman.

      She supposed that he meant well, even though he was prying.

      “Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” Scottie rose. “Thanks for the drink.”

      “You didn’t finish it,” he pointed out, standing.

      Scottie paused to drain the last of the light beer from the first serving. The round that Sean had paid for stood untouched.

      Despite the speed with which she drank the last of her initial beer, she felt nothing, not even a slight buzz.

      “There you go,” she announced, dramatically putting the empty bottle down, then smiling up into her partner’s face. “Finished.”

      But as she started to go, Bryce caught her by her wrist and held her in place. There was silent accusation in her blue eyes as she glared at him and tried to yank free.

      “Why don’t you wait a couple of minutes until that hits bottom?” Bryce suggested. One drink was nothing, but he had no idea about her tolerance for alcohol and the last thing he wanted was to have her on the road when she suddenly became light-headed and unable to navigate that little thing she called a car.

      “It’s light beer,” Scottie protested, trying to pull away again. But he only tightened his hold on her wrist. “There’s nothing to ‘hit,’” she insisted.

      Bryce’s stance was unwavering. “Humor me,” he requested.