A Stroke Of Midnight   ::   Гамильтон Лорел

“You probably don’t remember me—I was just another uniform keeping the crowd back—but I saw you the dayyour father died. They gave you his sword.”

If I’d had any doubts that I’d called the right person, that one sentence took them away. Out loud I said, “Yes, yes, they did.”

“Catching this bad guy won’t catch your father’s killer.”

“That is a very insightful remark for a man I’ve only met twice.”

“Well, I’ve been the uniform on faerie duty off and on.”

“My mistake, but it was still insightful, uncomfortably so.”

“Sorry. Sometime after we’ve caught this guy, and if faerie princesses have drinks with lowly police majors, I’ll tell you why I became a cop.”

It was my turn to be insightful. “You lost someone, and they didn’t catch the bastard who did it.”

“You knew that already.” He sounded accusatory.

“No, I swear I didn’t.”

“Then that was a hell of a guess.”

“Let’s just say that those of us who bear a particular wound recognize it in others.”

He made a humph sound, then sort of growled, “Yeah, I guess we do. What will you be doing while I make phone calls and get everyone out there?”

“I’ll be questioning witnesses.”

“You know, it’d be nice if I were there for the questioning.”

“Most of the fey who may have witnessed anything are ones who almost never travel outside of faerie. They’re a little shy around humans, especially humans in uniforms. They all remember the last great human-fey war.”

“That was almost four hundred years ago,” he said.

“I’m aware of that.”

“I’ll never get used to it.”

“What?”

“How you guys look so young, but you remember this country before my great—great—great-grandfather took a boat here.”

“Not me, Major. I’m just a poor mortal girl.”

“Poor my ass,” he said.

“I’ll let you know if we learn anything that’s useful from the witnesses.”

“I’d like to decide what’s useful and what’s not.”

“Then hurry up, Major, but I do not promise that any fey will talk to you. I can’t even promise that you’ll be in the room when I question everyone. Some of them will simply not talk to the human police.”

“Then why am I coming?”

“So that when the press follow us around we can stand shoulder to shoulder and show that you are helping solve this case. And bring the officer who shot at me with you.