Divine Misdemeanors Page 4

Chapter 10-12

  Chapter Ten

  I went to Alice, who was behind the counter, and asked, "The man with long blond hair, ear implants, and muscles at that table - when did he leave?"

  "He left with most of the customers when the police came in," she said, and her gaze was serious and intelligent.

  "Do you know his name?"

  "Donal," she said.

  "Donald?" I made it a question.

  She shook her head. "No, he's very insistent about it being Donal, not after that stupid duck. His quote, not mine. I love classic Disney. "

  The comment made me smile, but I let it go, and asked the next question. "Is he a regular?"

  She nodded, making her black pigtails bounce. "Yep, he comes in at least once a week, sometimes twice. "

  "What's he like?"

  She narrowed her eyes and gave me a look. "Why do you want to know?"

  "Humor me," I said.

  "Well, he's one of those men who are rude until he wants to charm a woman; then he's sweet. "

  "Has he hit on you?"

  "Nope, I'm too human. He only dates fey. He's very insistent on that. "

  "Is he fond of any particular kind of fey?"

  Again, she gave me that look. "Just as full-blooded as he can get them. He's dated a lot of different fey. "

  "Can you give me some names?"

  Lucy's voice came from behind me, "And why do you want the names, Merry?"

  Frost and Doyle parted so I could see the detective. She was giving me a look that made Alice's suspicious look pale in comparison, but then Lucy was a cop. They give great suspicious looks.

  She spoke more quietly. "What's up, Merry? What do you think you've figured out?"

  The attempted rape and the perpetrator's death were public record, so I told her my suspicions.

  "Do you really think this Donal is the Donald that the client told you about?" she asked.

  "I'd love to get a picture of him and see if they could pick him out. It would be easy to hear Donal and just put the 'd' on the end to make it a more familiar name, especially if you were scared. "

  Lucy nodded. "Fair enough. I'll see about getting someone to snap a picture, discreetly. "

  "Grey's would be happy to help. "

  She shook her finger at me. "No, you are not involved in this from now on. If these are the same people, you almost got killed the last time you came up against them. " She looked up at Frost and Doyle. "Come on, big guys, back me up on this. "

  "I would love to tell her to stay away from such dangerous people," Doyle said, "but she's made it clear that her job as a detective requires risk. If we do not like that, then we can send other guards with her and we can stay home. "

  Lucy raised her eyebrows at them. Frost nodded and said, "We had this talk again before we went to the murder scene this morning. "

  "The only card, as you would say, that we have to play is potential harm to the babes she carries, and even that must be a card carefully played," Doyle said. His lips gave that bare movement of a smile, as if he were both amused and not amused by it all.

  "Yeah, that's what I've learned. She looks all soft and feminine, but push her and it's like trying to shove through a brick wall. It doesn't move, and neither does she," Lucy said.

  "You do know our princess," Doyle said, and his words were so dry that it took me a moment to hear the humor in them.

  Lucy nodded, then looked at me. "We'll get names of who this guy dated. We'll do some district checking. We'll get the picture and hunt up your old client. And by 'we' I mean the police, not you or anyone else from your agency or your entourage. " She pointed her finger at me as if I were a stubborn child.

  "You've used me on decoy assignments where the danger was a lot more real than checking a few facts," I said.

  "I didn't know you were Princess Meredith back then, and you weren't pregnant. " She held up a hand before I could do more than take a breath to protest. "First, before I could even bring you to see today's crime scene, I got warnings from my upper brass that I was, under no circumstances, to endanger you. That if anything happened to you because of involvement in a case of mine, it was my ass on the chopping block. "

  I sighed. "I'm sorry, Lucy. "

  She waved it away. "But more important to me, I've known you for about four years, and this is the happiest I've ever seen you. I don't want you to fuck that up because you're helping me on a case. You're not a cop. You don't have to put everything on the line for a case. That's my job. "

  "But this person is killing my people . . . "

  A shrill voice came. "They are not your people! They are mine! They've been mine for sixty years!" She was screaming the last at me as she pushed her way closer.

  Lucy must have made some sign because uniformed officers moved in to stop her forward progress. They blocked her until all I could see were the sparkles of light and the trembling top of her crystal crown.

  "Get out of my way!" she yelled. They were police; they didn't get out of her way.

  I heard someone shout, "Gilda, no!" then one of the uniforms fell straight down as if his knees had just buckled. He made no move to catch himself, and it was left to other officers to keep him from hitting the floor.

  The cops began to shout, "Drop the wand! Drop it now!"

  Doyle and Frost were suddenly in front of me and moving me farther away from the action. Doyle said, "Door. "

  I didn't understand at first, and then Frost was leading me toward a second smaller door leading outside. I glanced back to see Doyle close behind us, but facing the police and Gilda. I protested, "The door is alarmed. The noise could make it all worse. "

  Frost's hand was on the handle as he said, "It says for emergencies. This is an emergency. " Then he was pulling me by one arm through the door with the alarm screeching and Doyle spilling out behind us. We were on the sidewalk in the bright sunshine and warm, but not too warm, Southern California air.

  Doyle took my other arm and kept us moving. "Bullets travel. I don't want you close to them. "

  I tried to pull free of their hands, but I might as well have been trying to pry metal away from my skin.

  "I am a detective. You can't just pull me out of a case when it gets dangerous. "

  "We are your bodyguards first and foremost," Doyle said.

  I let my legs collapse under me so that they had to either stop or drag my bare legs and feet on the concrete. They stopped, but only long enough for Doyle to say, "Pick her up. "

  Frost picked me up and kept walking away from the police and the potential fey riot. Gilda's retinue would not take kindly to their queen being arrested, but what else could they do?

  "Fine," I said, "you've made your point. "

  "Have we?" Doyle asked, and then he was suddenly in front of Frost and me. He glared down at me, and I could feel the weight of his anger behind the dark glasses. "I don't think we have made our point at all, or you would have been the first one out that door. "

  "Doyle," Frost began.

  "No," he said, and pointed his finger at both of us. With Lucy it had reminded me of a child being scolded, but there was something ominous about Doyle reaching out with the anger riding his body. "What if you had caught a stray bullet? What if you had caught a stray bullet in the stomach? What if you had killed our children because you simply won't run away?"

  I didn't know what to say to that. I just stared at him. He was right, of course he was right, but . . . "I can't do my job like this. "

  "No," he said, "you can't. "

  Then suddenly I felt the first tear slide down my face.

  "No crying," he said.

  Another tear joined the first. I fought not to wipe at them.

  His hand dropped to his side and he took a deep breath. "That's not fair. Don't cry. "

  "I'm sorry, I don't mean to, but you're right, I think. I'm pregnant, damn it, not crippled. "

  "But you c
arry the future of the Unseelie Court in your body. " He leaned in so that his arms went around Frost's until their faces touched and both of them were looking down at me. "You and the babies are too important to risk like this, Meredith. "

  I wiped at the tears, angry now that I had cried at all. I'd been doing that more lately. The doctor said it was hormones. More emotions I did not need right now.

  "You are right, but I didn't know we'd end up with police all around us and guns. "

  "If you simply avoid cases with the police involved, it will guarantee that you do not end up surrounded by police with guns," he said.

  Again I couldn't argue with his logic, but I wanted to. "First, put me down; we're attracting attention. "

  They glanced out from the circle of their arms over me, and there were people staring, whispering among themselves. I didn't have to hear them to know what they were saying. "Is that her?" "Is that Princess Meredith?" "Is that them?" "Is that the Darkness?" "Is that the Killing Frost?" If we weren't careful, someone would call the press and we'd be besieged.

  Frost put me down, and we started to walk. A moving target was always harder to photograph. I tried to keep my voice low as I said, "I can't avoid this case, Doyle. They're killing fey here in the only home we have left. We're nobles of the court; the lesser fey are watching us, waiting to see what we'll do. "

  A couple came up to us, the woman saying, "Are you Princess Meredith? You are, aren't you?"

  I nodded.

  "Can we take your picture?"

  There was a sound to the side as someone else used their phone to take a picture without asking. If they had the right phone, the photo could be on the Internet almost instantly. We had to get to the car and get out of here before the press descended.

  "The princess is feeling unwell," Doyle said. "We need to get her to the car. "

  The woman touched my arm and said, "Oh, I know how hard the baby thing can be. I had terrible pregnancies every time. Didn't I, dear?"

  Her husband nodded, and said, "Just a quick picture?"

  We let them take their "quick" picture, which is rarely quick, then moved away. We'd have to double back for the car. But the voluntary picture had been a mistake, because other tourists wanted a picture and Doyle said, no, which upset them. "They got a picture," they said.

  We kept moving, but a car stopped in the middle of the street, a window glided down and a camera lens came out. The paparazzi had arrived. But it was like the first hit in a shark attack. They came in to hit you to see what you'd do and whether you were edible. If you were, the next hit used teeth. We had to get out of sight and onto private property before more of them arrived.

  A man was yelling from the car, "Princess Meredith, look this way! Why are you crying?"

  That was all we needed, not only pictures of us but some caption about how I was crying. They'd feel free to speculate on why, but I'd learned that trying to explain was worse. We made ourselves a moving target. It was the best we could do as the first photographer ran up the sidewalk toward us, from the direction we'd been heading. We were trapped.

  Chapter Eleven

  Doyle used his more-than-human speed to pick me up and take us inside the nearest shop. Frost locked the door behind us. A man protested, "Hey, this is my business. "

  Doyle set my feet on the floor of the small family-run deli. The man behind the counter was balding, and round under his white apron. The entire store matched him, old-fashioned, with cut meats, cheeses and unhealthy sides in little containers. I didn't think anything like this could have survived in L. A. , land of the health obsessed.

  Then I saw that the short line of customers was made up almost entirely of fey. There was one elderly man who looked full human, but the short woman behind him was small and plump with red curly hair and eyes like a hawk's, and I mean that literally. They were yellow, and her pupils spiraled up and down as she tried to get the best look at me. A little boy of about four clung to her skirts, staring at me with blue eyes and white-blond hair, cut modern; short and neat. The last person in line had a multicolored Mohawk with a long tail of hair trailing down his back. He wore a white T-shirt with a band logo on it, but his pants and vest were black leather. He was pierced, and looked out of place in the line, but then so did we.

  They stared at us, and I stared back. Staring wasn't considered rude among us. Most fey didn't sweat high cholesterol or high blood sugar or any of a myriad of illnesses that might kill a human being eating foods with salt and preservatives. Immortals don't really sweat heart disease. I had a sudden craving for roast beef.

  The door rattled behind us. One of the reporters was banging on the door angrily, shouting at us to open up, saying that this was a public area. We had no right to do this.

  Cameras were shoved in front of the glass so that the daylight was gone in a brilliance of flashes. I turned, shielding my eyes. Apparently, I'd left my sunglasses in the break area of the Fael.

  The slender fey male with his Mohawk, who most would have thought in his teens, came forward. He made a rough bow. "Princess Meredith, may I get you a seat?" I looked into his slender face with its pale greenish skin. There was something about his face that simply wasn't human. I couldn't have put my finger on it, but the bone structure was simply a little off for a human. He looked like a pixie drawn to short human size by some mix of genetics. His pointed ears had almost as many earrings as Doyle's did. But the earrings in his lobes were dangling and had multicolored feathers brushing the shoulders of his leather vest.

  "That would be lovely," I said.

  He drew up one of the few small chairs and held it for me. I sank into it gratefully. I was suddenly very tired. Was it being pregnant, or was it the day?

  Doyle went to the shopkeeper. "Where does the back way empty out to?" Not was there a back way, but where did it go.

  A woman spoke as she came out of the back. "You'll not be getting out back there, I'm afraid, Princess and Princes. I had to bar the door to keep the hounds of the press from outflanking you. "

  At first glance she matched her husband, all soft folds and comfortable roundness, human, then I realized that she'd had the same kind of surgery that Robert at the Fael had had done, though she had only done enough to pass for human, not tried to make herself gorgeous. Pretty had been enough for her, and when she came around the counter and looked at me with those brown eyes, it reminded me so much of my grandmother that it made my chest and throat tight. I would not cry, damn it.

  She knelt in front of me and put her hands over mine. Her hands were cool to the touch as if she'd been working with something cold in the back.

  Her husband said, "Get up, Matilda. They're taking pictures. "

  "Let them," she said over her shoulder, then turned back to me. She looked up at me with those eyes that echoed Gran's.

  "I'm cousin to Maggie Mae what cooks in the Unseelie Court. "

  It took me a moment to realize what that meant for me personally. Once I knew that I had no sidhe relatives exiled outside faerie, I'd not thought that there might be other relatives here who weren't sidhe. I smiled. "Then you're cousin to my Gran. "

  She nodded. "Aye," and there was an accent in that one word thick enough to walk on. "If it's a brownie from Scotland who came to the new world, then we're cousins. Robert down the way, well he's Welsh, so not related to me. "

  "To us," I said.

  She gave me a brilliant smile that flashed teeth too white to be anything but dentist whitened, but then we were in L. A. "So you would own me as kin?"

  I nodded. "Of course," I said. Some tension that I hadn't even realized just went out of them all, as if until that moment they'd been nervous, or even afraid. It seemed to free them all up to come closer.

  "Most of the highborn like to pretend there's nothing but pure sidhe in their veins," she said.

  "He doesn't pretend," the punk pixie said. He nodded toward Doyle. "Nice rings. You got anything else p
ierced?"

  "Yes," Doyle said.

  The boy smiled, making the rings in the edge of his nose and his bottom lip curl cheerfully with it. "Me too," he said.

  Matilda patted my hands. "You look pale. Are you having a hungry pregnancy or a starving one?"

  I frowned at the phrasing. "I don't understand. "

  "Some women are hungry all the time and some don't want to look at food when they carry babes. "

  The frown eased and I said, "I'm craving roast beef. Protein. "

  She flashed that brilliant smile again. "That we have. " She called back over her shoulder to the man. "Harvey, get some roast beef for the princess. "

  He started to protest about the photographers and such, but she turned and gave him such a look that he just turned away and did what she said. But apparently he wasn't doing it fast enough, because she patted my hand again and got up to oversee, or help.

  We were all pretending that there wasn't a growing crowd of people pressed against the windows and door. I kept my back to the flashes against the glass and wished for my sunglasses.

  The young-looking man, who was probably older than me by a century, sidled closer to Doyle and Frost. "Are you hiding pointy ears?"

  It took Frost a moment to realize that he was the one being addressed. "No," he said.

  The boy gazed up at him. "So you're what pure sidhe looks like?"

  "No," Frost said.

  "I know you don't all look the same," the boy said.

  "I am not pure sidhe any more than Doyle. "

  I turned in the chair and said, "Or me. "

  The boy looked from one to the other of us. He was smiling, and pleased.

  A throat-clearing sound made me turn to see the woman with her human-looking child. The woman dropped a bobbing curtsey, blinking her hawk eyes at me. The boy with her started to try to do the same, but she caught him by the arm.

  "No, no, Felix, she's a fey princess, not a human one. You don't bow to her. "

  The boy frowned, trying to understand.

  "I'm his nanny," she said, as if she needed to explain. "Fey nannies have become quite popular here. "

  "I didn't know," I said.

  She smiled brightly. "I would never leave Felix here. I've been with him since he was three months old, but I can recommend a few others if they're between charges, or are willing to leave their charges. "

  I hadn't thought that far ahead, but. . . "Do you have a business card?" I asked.

  She smiled and got one out of her purse. She put it on the table and wrote on the back of it. "This is my home phone so you don't have to go through the agency. They won't understand that you need different things than most clients. "

  I took the card and put it in the small wristlet wallet that was all I'd brought with me. We'd been headed to the beach; I'd wanted my ID and not much more.

  Matilda brought me a small plate with roast beef folded artfully on it. "I'd put something else with it but when a lady's expecting you never know what to add. "

  I smiled at her. "It's perfect. Tha - sorry. I know better. "

  "Oh, don't worry about it. I've been out among the humans for centuries. It takes more than a thank-you to lay this brownie, eh, Harvey?" She laughed at her own joke. Harvey behind the counter looked both embarrassed and pleased.

  The roast beef was tender, just the right side of rare, and exactly what I wanted. Even the little hint of salt was perfect. I'd noticed that about the cravings, that if I gave in to them the food tasted amazing. I wondered if that was typical.

  Matilda pulled up a chair, and the nanny, whose name was Agnes, did the same. It wasn't like any of us could leave. We were walled in with the press. In fact, the reporters and paparazzi in the front were being squashed against the windows and door. They were beginning to try to push back, but there was too much weight behind them.

  Doyle and Frost stayed standing, keeping an eye on the people outside. The young-looking man stood with them. He was obviously enjoying being one of the guys, and was showing his shoulder tattoo to Doyle and Frost.

  Matilda had told Harvey to put coffee on. I realized with a start that this was the first time in weeks that I'd sat down with other women and not felt either like a princess, a detective, or someone else in charge of everyone I was dealing with. We'd brought sidhe women with us out of faerie, but they'd all been part of the prince's guard. They'd spent centuries serving my father, Prince Essus, and he'd been friendly, but not overly so; he'd been as careful of the boundaries as the queen, his sister, had been careless. Where she'd treated her guard as her harem and her toys to torment, he'd treated his guard with respect. He'd had lovers among them, but sex wasn't looked down on among the fey. It was just normal.

  The female guards would give their lives to keep me safe, but they were meant to guard a prince, and there were no more princes in the Unseelie Court in or out of faerie. I'd killed the last one before he could kill me. The guards didn't mourn their lost prince. He'd been a sexual sadist like his mother. One thing we'd managed to hide from the media so far was how many of the guard, both male and female, were traumatized from the tortures they'd endured.

  Some of them wanted Doyle, or Frost, or one of the other fathers to be named prince so they could be their guard. Traditionally, making me pregnant would have made the father a prince and future king, or at least royal consort. But with so many fathers, there was no precedent for making them all princes.

  I sat with the women and just listened to them talk about normal things, and realized that sitting in the kitchen at my Gran's or in the kitchen with Maggie Mae had been the closest to normal I'd ever known.

  For the third time that day I felt tears at the back of my eyes, in my throat. It was that way every time I thought about Gran. It had only been a month since her death. I guess I was entitled.

  Matilda said, "Are you well, Princess?"

  "Merry," I said. "Call me Merry. "

  That earned me another bright smile. Then there was a sound behind us.

  We all turned to see the glass begin to crack under the weight of the reporters crushing one another against it.

  Doyle and Frost were at my side. They got me to my feet, and we were running for the counter and the back area. Agnes picked up the little boy and we ran for cover. We heard screams, and the glass gave with a high, thin cracking.

  Chapter Twelve

  There were ambulances, police, and glass everywhere. None of us in the shop were hurt, but some of the paparazzi were taken to the hospital. Most of the people plastered against the glass had been photographers trying to get that one special picture that would make them rich. Certain shots were rumored to go for hundreds of thousands of dollars. After today, I believed the rumors.

  Lucy was standing over me as the ambulance medic checked me out. My protests of, "I'm fine. I wasn't hurt," fell on deaf ears. When Lucy had found me inside the glass-covered deli she'd been pale. I looked up at the tall brunette and realized that though we might never go shopping together, she was my friend.

  The emergency medical technician pulled the blood pressure cuff off my arm and pronounced, "Everything seems fine. Blood pressure, all of it. But I'm not a doctor, and I'm sure as heck not a baby doc. "

  "So you think she should go to the hospital?" Lucy asked.

  The EMT frowned and I felt his dilemma. If he said no and he was wrong, he was fucked. But there were other people who were actually injured, and if he left one behind to take me, just in case, and the one left behind died, he was also screwed.

  She turned to Doyle and Frost for backup. "Tell her she needs to go to the hospital. "

  They exchanged a look, then Doyle gave a small nod as if to say "Go ahead," and Frost answered, "We don't 'tell' Merry what to do, Detective. She is our princess. "

  "But she's also carrying your babies," Lucy said.

  "That doesn't give us the right to order her around," he said.
r />   Doyle added, "I expected you to understand that better than most, Detective Tate. "

  She frowned at both of them, then turned back to me. "You promise me you never fell or had something fall on you?"

  "I promise," I said.

  She took in a lot of air, let it out slowly, then nodded. "Fine. Okay. I'll let it go. If none of you are worried, I don't know why I bother. "

  I smiled up at her. "Because you are my friend, and friends worry about each other. "

  She looked almost embarrassed, then grinned at me. "Fine. Go enjoy what's left of your Saturday. "

  Doyle reached out a hand and I let him help me stand though I really didn't need it. They'd both been calmer than Lucy, but then they'd been with me the entire time. They knew nothing had happened to me physically, but they were still more careful of me than they had been before. It was both touching and a little irritating. I was worried that as the pregnancy progressed it might become a lot less touching and a lot more irritating, but that was a worry for another day. We were free to head for the beach, and there was still daylight to enjoy it. It was all good.

  The EMT asked, "So I'm done here with the princess?"

  "Yeah," Lucy said, "go find someone who's bleeding to take for a ride. "

  He smiled, obviously relieved, and hurried off to find someone who really did need a ride to the hospital.

  "I'll give you uniforms to escort you back to your car. " She sort of nodded toward the press that was being held back by tape and barriers. Oddly, the paparazzi who had gotten injured were now news themselves. I wondered if they were enjoying being on the other side of the camera.

  "Some of them will follow us to the beach," Frost said.

  "I can try to lose them. "

  "No, I do not want to see what that would mean on the roads to the beach. " Doyle said it very quickly and even Lucy picked up his unease.

  "So tall, dark, and deadly is still not comfy riding in regular cars. " She addressed the comment to me.

  I smiled and shook my head.

  "I prefer the limo; at least then I can't see the road so clearly. "

  Lucy smiled and shook her head. "You know, it makes me like you better that you're afraid of something, Doyle. "

  He frowned at her, and probably would have commented, but her phone rang. She checked, and saw that she needed to answer it. She held up a finger for us to wait.

  "Tell me this is a joke," she said. Her tone was anything but amused.

  "How," she asked, then listened and said, "Sorry doesn't fix this. " She got off the phone and cursed softly but completely under her breath.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "While we were down here cleaning up this mess our witness fled the scene. We can't find her. "

  "When did she get. . . ?"

  "He doesn't know. Apparently when there were fewer of us, Gilda's entourage got braver, and when they calmed it down the witness was gone. " I noticed that she was careful not to say Bittersweet's name out in public. It was a good precaution when murders are magical; you never know who, or how, someone is listening.

  "Lucy, I'm sorry. If you hadn't come down here to help us this wouldn't have happened. "

  She gave a glare to the paparazzi who were not hurt but whom the police had forced to wait for questioning. "You wouldn't have needed help if these bastards hadn't mobbed you. "

  "I'm not even sure you can charge them with anything," I said.

  "We'll find something," she said, her voice full of anger. The anger was probably more about Bittersweet fleeing the scene and having to tell her bosses that she'd been rescuing the faery princess from the big, bad reporters when it had happened, but the uninjured paparazzi would make a nice target for that anger.

  "Go, enjoy your weekend. I'll take care of this bunch and give you an escort to your car. I'll have some cars make sure that no one follows you from the Fael, but if they're waiting for you farther away" - she shrugged - "afraid there's not much I can do. "

  I took her hand and squeezed it. "Thank you for everything, and I'm sorry that you're going to take grief about the witness. "

  She smiled, but her eyes weren't happy enough for it. "I'll deal with it. Go, have your picnic or whatever. " She turned away, then back to frowning. She moved closer to us and whispered, "How do we find someone who is only four inches high in a city the size of Los Angeles?"

  It was a good question, but I had a helpful answer. "She's one of the smallest of us, so she's very sensitive to metal and technology. So look for her at parks, vacant lots, street sides with trees like today's scene. She needs nature to survive here. "

  "What kind of flower faery is she?" Frost asked.

  "I don't know," Lucy said.

  "Good idea, Frost," I said. "Find out, Lucy, because she'll be attracted to her plant. Some of them are so tied to a bit of land that if their plant goes extinct they die with it. "

  "Wow, that'd make you environmentally active," Lucy said.

  I nodded.

  "Who would know what flower she likes?"

  "Robert might know," I said.

  "Gilda would know," Doyle said.

  Lucy frowned at him. "She's already called for her lawyer. She's not going to talk to us. "

  "She might if you tell her that not cooperating endangers her people," Doyle said.

  "I don't think she cares that much," Lucy said.

  He gave that small smile. "Tell her that Meredith cares more than she does, obviously. Imply that Meredith is a better, kinder ruler and I think Gilda will at least tell you the plant. "

  She looked up at him with a nod of approval. "They're both handsome and smart. It's so not fair. Why can't I find a Prince Charming like these guys?"

  I wasn't sure what to say to that, but Doyle was. "We are not the Prince Charming of our story, Detective Tate. Meredith rode to our rescue and saved us from our sad fates. "

  "So she's what, Princess Charming?"

  He smiled and this time it was that bright flash that he didn't give often. It made Lucy blush just a little, and I realized that she liked Doyle. I couldn't blame her. "Yes, Detective, she's our Princess Charming. "

  Frost took one of my hands in his, and looked down at me with everything in his eyes. "She is. "

  "So instead of waiting for the prince to find me, I need to find one to save and bring him home?"

  "It worked for me," I said.

  She shook her head. "I save people all day, or try to, Merry. Just once I'd like to be the one being saved. "

  I shook my head. "I've been both, Lucy. Trust me, it's better to do the saving. "

  "If you say so. I gotta go see if Robert knows where to find our little friend. " She waved at us as she made her way toward the crowd.

  Two uniformed officers appeared as if she'd told them to step up when she left us; she probably had. It was our old friends Wright and O'Brian. "We're supposed to see you safely to your car," Wright said.

  "Let's do it," I said.

  We started the trip back the way we'd come, through a barrage of new camera flashes from yet more and different paparazzi and reporters.