Part 245 (2/2)

”I'm doing okay. Really.”

”Glad to hear it. Is Michael going to the beach with you?”

”No, he's working.”

Marianne wrinkled her nose. If she couldn't be around to look after

Emma, she counted on the cop to do so. She could hear the shower in the

next room and wished lazily that her new lover would come back to bed

instead of heading off to fight plaque. ”Tooth decay or bad guys, I

guess a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. Look, I'm thinking of

coming out in a couple of weeks.”

”To check up on me?”

”Right. And to finally meet this Michael y(ju've been keeping to

yourself all these years. Have a good time hanging ten, Emma. I'll

call you tomorrow.”

MICHML LIKED BEING our in the field. He didn't have any real gripe with

paperwork, or the hours it sometimes took talking on the phone, going on

door-to-doors. But he liked the action on the streets.

He'd had to ignore a good deal of ribbing in the early years. The

captain's son. Some of it had been good-natured, some of it hadn't, but

he'd weathered it. He'd worked hard for his gold s.h.i.+eld.

In the station now he stole a doughnut from a nearby desk, eating it

standing up, while paging through the paper an a.s.sociate had left next

to the coffee maker.

He went straight for the comics. After a night like he'd put in, he

needed all the laughs he could get. From there, he went looking for

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