Nora Roberts - High Noon

After the meeting, Phoebe went down to the firing range to work off some frustration. She set the target, put on her ear protectors and fired a clip.

Then could only sigh at her scores. She set again, fired again. "You've always been a crappy shot."

Reviewing her grouping on the target, ear protectors lowered,

Phoebe shrugged at Dave. "Extremely crappy. I don't practice enough."

"A good negotiator's rarely going to have to draw, much less discharge, a weapon. Not when she listens and talks as well as you do.

Which is why-since you do-I wonder what you were doing up there in that meeting."

"Asking questions like someone taught me. Trying to make sure the focus isn't so narrow we miss what may be outside the blinders. I don't understand what happened out there, and I can't just swallow the easy solution."

"Has it occurred to you that you don't understand, and you can't swallow, because you did what you were supposed to do? You talked him down, talked him out. And you still lost him. You've been doing this long enough to know what an impact losing one has."

As he spoke, he set himself up with a fresh target. Once he'd fired his clip, he and Phoebe studied his results together. "You're a crappy shot, too."

"Yeah, but you're still crappier. How have you been sleeping?"

"Spotty. I know the signs, Dave. And yes, I have some of the classicsI feel let down, stressed, restless, irritable. But I know it, and I know why. What I don't know is why that boy's dead. That's the reason I spoke up in the meeting."

"Phoebe, the chief isn't what we'd call a creative thinker. He's more politician than cop-"

"I thought the same thing when we were up there. I guess we share more than crappy shooting."

He let out a half laugh, rubbed her shoulder. "Well, believe me, he's more concerned now with public relations and the possibility of civil liability than why a sixteen-year-old gangbanger's dead."

"You have ambitions for me." She loaded another clip. "I know that, too, Dave. I appreciate it."

"If I've got a legacy, it's you and Carter." Someone fired down the line, and the sound was harsh in contrast to his quiet voice. "When I'm ready to turn in my papers, I want to know you're taking my desk." He'd wanted children; his wife hadn't. Though he'd never told her, Phoebe knew it because she knew him. So she and Carter were his. "You're worried if I speak up too often and don't say what the brass wants to hear, I'm shooting myself in the foot. Which is something I believe I could manage in the literal sense as it's fairly close range."

"The chief wants this put to bed. If he has to sacrifice Harrison in the public arena, he will. He'd sacrifice you, but there're no grounds. The simple fact is, Phoebe, logic and circumstances strongly support the idea that this was gang-related. A crime of opportunity and turf. That's the drum that's going to be beat."

"Maybe someone should listen to what's under the drum." She lifted her weapon again and fired.

Stupid, Phoebe thought later. Stupid to push and prod where the only result was going to be annoyance to all parties. Politics and public relations were going to play this out, she reminded herself as she changed into a gray suit-black seemed too presumptuous somehow.

She had nothing to add to the mix that wasn't already on record. Except for a few minutes before she'd taken over negotiations, and that horrible aftermath, she'd been inside the diner.

Nobody liked a Monday-morning quarterback, she told herself.

She would go to Charles Johnson's viewing, then she would have to put it away. No comment, she promised herself, unless the department directed otherwise. What more did she have to say, in any case?

She pinned her hair back. Nothing would sober the color, she mused, but the style seemed more respectful than loose.

She stepped into the family parlor. Her mother was crocheting in front of the TV, and Carly was sprawled on the floor paging through a picture book. Puppies, Phoebe realized with a little sink in the belly. "I'm heading out now. I shouldn't be more than an hour."

"Mama! Wait, Mama, look! Aren't they cute?"

Carly scrambled up to hold out the book. The page was full of irresistible balls of fur and adorability. "They are, sweetie. They couldn't be cuter. But they also need to be fed and watered and walked, and cleaned up after, and trained, and-"

"But you said someday we could get a puppy."

"I said maybe someday." And only after she'd been worn down to a nub by pleading glances from those big blue eyes. "And I'm just not sure it's someday yet. I can't talk about it now because I have to go. And this isn't going to be just my decision. I'm at work all day and you're in school, so I need to discuss this with Gran and Ava before we get close to thinking about it. Where is Ava?"

"Book club." Essie gave Phoebe a puzzled look. "She mentioned it at dinner."

"Oh, of course she did. Slipped my mind." No, Phoebe admitted.

She hadn't heard a word anyone had said at dinner. Apparently she hadn't just stopped active listening but listening at all. Time to pull it back together. "You be good for Gran." Phoebe bent to kiss the top of Carly's head. "I'll be back before long."

As she walked out she heard Carly using her slyest, most sugarcoated tone. "Gran, you like puppies, don't you?"

It should've been funny. She wished she could see it as funny. But all she could think about as she headed downstairs was that Carly was going to manipulate the other two adults in the house until they ended up with some shoe-chewing, puddle-making, middle-of-the-nightwhimpering canine.

She liked dogs, damn it. But she just wasn't ready to take on another responsibility.

She knew Ava planned to take her son on a trip out West this summer. She deserved it, absolutely. And it meant ten days where there was no one around to run to the store, the bank, the dry cleaner's, to haul Carly, to do all the endless errands.

She already had an active seven-year-old and an agoraphobic to tend to. Phoebe didn't think it made her a heartless monster not to want to add a puppy to the mix.

But, of course, she felt like one, so when she opened the front door to go out, her scowl was already full-blown.

Duncan came up the last step to the portico. "That's timing."

"What are you doing here? You didn't get my message? I'm sorry, but-"

"No, I got it. I'm going with you."

"To the funeral home?" Shaking her head, she closed the door firmly behind her. "No, you're not. Why should you? You didn't know him."

"I know you, and you shouldn't go alone. Why should you?"

"I'm perfectly capable."

"A reason you could, but not why you should. If it irritates you so much to have me along, you'll just have to pretend I'm not there. You don't go into something like this by yourself. That's stupid, and you're not."

Phoebe yanked out her sunglasses, shoved them on. "Simple competence and responsibility aren't stupidity, thank you very much."

"Okay." Hair trigger, he thought again. Why did he like that about her? "Do you want to stand out here debating the issue, or do you want to go do this thing?"

"I'm not going to drive up to this poor boy's viewing in a Porsche and walk in with some rich guy in Armani."

"First." He stepped aside, gestured. There was a black sedan of some sort at the curb. "Second, this is Hugo Boss, or maybe Calvin Klein. I can't keep that sort of thing straight-so now that I think about it, it may be Armani. And I may be rich but I grew up not two spits from where that kid spent his short sixteen years. Not in a mansion on Jones. So don't call the pot, honey."

She stared a moment, then shook her head. "A few minutes ago something that should've made me laugh just couldn't. Now this just strikes me as funny. Or maybe it's just ridiculous."