“I guess we’re done talking,” Janet commented when Crescent stood up so quickly her chair fell over.

“There’s a back door behind the second coffee machine,” Drake said, “but I’m not sure now is the appropriate—Crescent?”

She ran for the door, and it was right where he told her it would be. She was through it in a flash and bounding up one, two, three flights of stairs, and praise all the gods, the door to the roof was propped open. And then she was out in the open.

She dove off the roof. At the last moment, she closed her eyes—she’d been disappointed too many times not to feel a twinge of anxiety. She knew she wouldn’t break any bones, but landing hurt all the same.

Except she wasn’t landing.

She cracked open one eye and saw Janet, Richard, and Drake standing on the roof, looking at her. Except they were upside down.

Correction: She was upside down. In midair.

“There we go,” Richard said cheerfully. “Problem solved.”

“Uh.” She could feel the grin split her face. “Can somebody reach my foot? I have no idea how to get down.”

Chapter 12

Now, it’s none of my business,” Janet began with, for her, heartening tentativeness.

“Oh, here we go.”

“She’s a little young for you, don’t you think?”

“I have to take relationship advice from a woman who hangs out with a dead guy?”

“Figured it out, did you?”

“Took me a while. He doesn’t really have a scent, you know? In fact, he smells more like you than anything else.”

They were back at Drake’s house, and the sun would be up soon. Crescent’s feet hadn’t touched the ground in three hours. Richard was amusing himself by bouncing her off the roof to see how high she would go. His personal best was sixteen feet. Drake and Janet were sitting cross-legged near the edge of the roof, watching.

“She’s one of a kind.”

“No shit. But she’s a little—uh—that is to say—you think she’s in it for the long haul?”

Crescent shrieked with joy as Richard bounced her on the balls of her feet and she shot into the air again.

“I have no idea,” he said.

“It’s just—you know, I didn’t really know what I was missing until Dick kidnapped me—”

“What?”

“Long story. Anyway, you’re a pretty good guy. I mean, I always liked you. It’d be nice if you could finally settle down.”

“Why, Janet, I never dreamed this tender side of you existed.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“And it’s kind of you not to mention my grossly debilitating handicap.”

“What? Oh, that. I’m not being nice. I just keep forgetting. I mean, you don’t act like a blind guy.”

“How exactly does a blind guy act?”