Perhaps it was some kind of joke, he thought. Maybe Ashton Kutcher was somewhere close by.

“Mike Coletti, you’ve just been punk’d,” he muttered, his face creasing in a wry smile.

“What’d you say?”

Coletti turned to find Smithson standing behind him. “I was just, uh, wondering what was taking you so long,” he said, averting his eyes so she wouldn’t see his embarrassment.

She smiled. “Thanks for waiting.”

“My car’s in the lot,” he said, starting back toward police headquarters.

She placed a hand gently on his chest. “I thought we could walk. I’ve been cooped up in that building all day.”

Coletti nodded, and the two of them started down Race Street, silently taking in the sounds of cars on the nearby Ben Franklin Bridge and the laughter of children in the playground across the street.

“So I guess they grilled you about the shooting today,” Coletti said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and staring at the ground in front of him.

“It’s like the commissioner said. There wasn’t a lot to tell. The guy pulled a gun on me and Mann shot him.”

Coletti’s brow furrowed. “Yeah, I remember you said that. I was a little confused, though. If the guy pulled the gun on you, why didn’t you fire?”

“I hate guns,” she said, lowering her eyes and forcing a tight smile. “I can’t bring myself to use them unless I absolutely have to. I guess that’s kind of strange for a cop, huh?”

“That depends. Are you a cop who happens to be a profiler or a profiler who happens to be a cop?”

Smithson thought about it for a moment. “I guess if I had to choose one of the two, I’d be a profiler first. That’s why I got my doctorate in criminal psychology—to study criminal minds.”

She laughed absently. “Five years ago, when I realized the FBI would actually want me to work cases before recognizing my genius as a profiler, I applied to the state police. They cut me a deal. I could be a profiler, but I’d have to carry a gun. It was a trade-off that worked out pretty well until this morning.”

Coletti stared at her as she spoke. Her face was soft and supple, with fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and deeper lines extending across her forehead. Her shoulder-length blond hair framed a wide, rounded jaw, and her lips were barely full enough to kiss. She was more handsome than beautiful. That is, until she looked at him with those eyes.

“Do you study everybody that way?” she asked when she caught him staring. “Or were you saving all your weirdness for me?”

“I’m sorry. I was just wondering why you…” Coletti hesitated. He didn’t want to make himself sound like the loser he knew he was.