“I think I’ll hang around for a while,” he told her. “I’ll just sit here and watch you work, if you don’t mind.”
She looked at him, opened her mouth.
He shook his head and said, “Don’t. I came close to losing a lot this morning, so just bear with me and let me sit here and watch for a while. When you least expect it, you’ll turn around, and I’ll be gone, headed off to start my day.” He stared at her for a long while. “But, for the moment, I just want to know all is well.”
And, true to his word, when she looked around about an hour later, she saw no sign of him. She turned to Rodney and asked, “Seen Simon lately?”
“Nah, I haven’t seen him in a while.”
She smiled, then looked down at the coroner, Dr. Smidge.
He looked up at her and asked, “Is this the end of it?”
“Uniforms are checking the running paths for more booby traps but haven’t found any. So, yes this is the end of it,” she stated. “Well, let me say, it’s the end of this one anyway.
He gave her a glare and nodded. “And, no doubt, tomorrow there’ll be another one.”
She hoped not, but unfortunately it was all too likely. Maybe, if she were lucky, it would wait until Monday.
Epilogue
Monday Morning
When Kate walkedinto the station Monday morning, the sergeant looked at her and frowned.
“Thought you were taking a couple days off.”
“I didn’t ask ahead of time,” she noted, “and I did take yesterday off, which I needed badly, but I wasn’t sure about scheduling more.”
“You’ve got a lot of hours piled up,” Sergeant Colby told her. “So why don’t you take a few days?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I could finish off a few things that I didn’t quite get done on Saturday, then maybe work this week and plan on taking a long weekend—if that’s okay with you?”
“It’s fine by me,” he said. “You’re doing a great job, you know?”
She looked at him in surprise because words of praise were very scarce from him. “Thank you, sir,” she replied.
She walked into the bullpen to the others standing up and cheering. “What’s that for?” she asked, embarrassed by the attention.
“Well, we couldn’t decide if we should say,Good joborCheersor whatever,” Lilliana explained. “But you know? You seem to have accepted some of Simon’s work. Rodney told us all about it. He heard it from Simon apparently, about his visions that connected to you.”
Kate winced at that. “I’m still not real comfortable with that whole thing.”
“Another thing,” Owen added, as he walked toward her and gave her a hug. “You took a hell of a beating on that hill, but you held your own. So,Yay for still being alive. Not to mention the fact that you closed the case with four murders, and you got it all done within eight days.”
She smiled. “Thanks, guys. I have to admit it was pretty nice to have it come to an end, without anybody else dying. I mean, obviously Charlie died, and, for that, I’m sorry. However, if there had to be an ending, that’s a good one to have, I guess. So, please tell me there are no new cases and that it’ll be an easy week, and then I can take a long weekend.”
They all burst out laughing. “We caught one last night,” Lilliana said. “If you’re up for it, we got a couple gang fights out in lower Hastings again.”
She winced. “What is with that area?”
“Hey, it’s just one of those tough areas of town.”
“Knives, I suppose?”
“Yep, two sliced out, one dead.”
She asked, “Open-and-shut?”