Hannah Jayne - Under Wraps

He raised one caterpillar eyebrow hopefully. “Perhaps for lunch?”

“No.”

His other eyebrow went up. “Perhaps for a little wink wink, nudge nudge in the supply closet?”

“Good-bye, Steve.”

“Steve will be waiting for you, Sophie! Steve will always be here waiting for Sophie.”

I spun on my heel, trying my best to forget about Steve, standing three feet tall in the UDA hallway behind me, grinning salaciously, gray troll eyes staring me down.

I kept my head down, shrugged my bag over my shoulder, and hopped into the elevator with a hobgoblin and two pixies. We rode up in silence, three sets of eyes all fixed on the digital readout going backward. When the doors opened at the police station we shuffled out, exchanging positions with two female cops on their way to the garage. The dark-haired woman jostled against one of the pixies. I sucked in my breath as the pink-haired pixie flushed angrily and narrowed her eyes, but she stepped out without making a scene. As the doors slid closed, I heard the cop murmur, “I never know what to call them. Midgets? Little people?”

“I don’t know,” said the other. “Anyone under three feet tall gives me the creeps. My kids included. Do you want to get a latte?”

The San Francisco Police Department was housed in a cavernous room with desks every ten feet and uniformed officers threading their way past the occasional plainclothed employee carrying stacks of manila file folders. There was always a phone ringing or a radio squawking, and whether or not there was an actual crime spree going on, the officers were always ready to move. I sucked my breath in as a uniformed officer shimmied by me, his head cocked as he listened to the radio cradled on his shoulder, the butt of his gun brushing up against my hip.

“Excuse me,” I muttered, jumping out of the way. “Sorry.”

My heart thumped as two officers pushed through the heavy glass doors and led a sullen-looking woman in, her hands in cuffs behind her back, her hair matted, eyes looking caged-animal wild and rimmed with smudged black liner.

“I swear,” she was saying as the officers led her past me, “I’m telling you exactly what I saw. It was flying. It was a person and he just flew away.”

“Just like last week,” one of the officers answered back, his boredom obvious. “What was it then? A dog the size of a couch, jumping over a car? You and Superman, lady.”

The woman fought against the officer clutching her arm, and I heard her handcuffs rattle. She stopped in front of me, her eyes wide, intense, and terrified.

“You believe me,” she said, sniffing, moving her flushed face just inches from my own. “I know you do.”

I stepped back, my stomach souring as much from the overpowering smell of alcohol and urine wafting from the woman as the intensity of her eyes, the biting truth in her words: You believe me…. I know you do.

The officers ushered the woman out of the way, and I beelined toward what seemed to be the front desk. I cleared my throat at the top of the officer’s bent head.

“Good afternoon. I’m here to see Detective Hayes,” I said.

The officer didn’t look up.

“Excuse me,” I said again, a little louder. “I need to see Detective Hayes.”

The cop looked up at me, and I blinked twice.

He was twelve.

Maybe not twelve, but certainly not old enough to be strapped into an officer’s uniform and running the front desk—even if he was just doing a Sudoku in yesterday’s Chronicle. His small hazel eyes were red-rimmed and set too far apart. His nose was thin and freckled and a few stray whiskers—a petty attempt at a beard?—grew in odd angles above his upper lip. With his close-cut cropped strawberry-blond hair and big ears, he looked like an odd cross between Opie and Butthead. Or maybe it was Beavis; I could never remember which one was which.

“I’m sorry, miss, what was that?” Opie asked me.

“Um, Detective Hayes,” I said for the third time, then patted my shoulder bag affectionately. “We’re working on something.” I straightened my shoulders and stood up taller. “A case. We’re working on a case together.”

Opie raised one red-blond eyebrow, and I forced the polite smile I used for gargoyles—hard-headed, stubborn, immovable gargoyles—and nodded. “Do you know where I can find him?”

Opie jerked a thumb over one shoulder, his hazel eyes never leaving the top of the blouse I forgot to button. I pinched the fabric together over my breast and narrowed my eyes on the officer. “Officer?”

“Down the hall, on the left. You’ll see the sign.”

I turned to leave, but Opie stopped me. “Ma’am?”

I bristled, and then reminded myself that to the police force under fifteen, I would be a ma’am.

“You’ll need to fill this out first, please.” Opie slid a clipboard toward me, and I sighed, filling in the obligatory information, then clipped the little plastic badge he gave me to my jacket.

After two wrong turns and several glares from angry-looking hooker types being led around by their cuffed arms, I found the correct hallway and Hayes’s office. There was a folded piece of paper Scotch-taped to the frosted-glass door, the name DETECTIVE HAYES scrawled on it in black Sharpie.

“How very Barney Miller,” I muttered before knocking quickly.

“‘S’open!” I heard Hayes bellow from inside.

Okay, here’s the thing. Like I said before, I’m not man crazy. But the sound of Detective Hayes’s rich voice floating out did something to me, and every hair on the back of my neck stood up, every nerve ending pricked—especially the ones in the nether regions I cared not to mention. I wondered what that voice would sound like first thing in the morning, gruff with sleep, whispered in my ear.

“Come in,” I heard again.

I shook myself from my fantasy and pushed through the frosted-glass door.

Hayes was leaning back in his ancient leather office chair, his feet resting on the corner of his desk, ankles crossed. His dark eyebrows were knitted and intense as he scanned the papers stacked in his lap, his perfect teeth chewing on his full bottom lip as he read.

I steadied myself against the little flutter I felt when his crystal blue eyes glanced up from his work and settled on me; I gripped the strap of my shoulder bag even more tightly when his face broke out in a warm, genuine grin that made my knees go medically oozy.

“You made it!”

I slung my bag onto one visitor’s chair and slunk into the other.

“How do you manage around here? The environment is so hostile!” I shuddered and pulled my jacket tighter across my chest, and edged my chair a little farther back when I noticed the outline of an ankle holster against Detective Hayes’s left pant leg.

A half smile cracked across the detective’s face. “This from the woman whose coworkers are blood suckers.”

I rolled my eyes.

“And clients are monsters.”

“Demons,” I corrected, “and you shouldn’t judge until you know one.”

Hayes crossed his arms. “I could tell you the same thing.”

“I’m sure you have a very friendly bunch up here,” I said, doing a quick mental scan of the office: Cardboard file boxes. Super Big Gulp cup. Deeply stained coffee mug. Obligatory framed motivational poster propped on the floor behind the desk. No grinning, happily-ever-after wedding picture. No glossy black-and-white of a supermodel girlfriend. No “Proud Parent Of” bumper stickers, no five-by-sevens of a fat Michelin baby with cute brown curls and Detective Hayes’s bright blue eyes. Not that I was interested. I let out the tiny breath I didn’t know I was holding, and Detective Hayes raised one concerned eyebrow.