“Ian is a moron,” Derek protested. “You didn’t deserve to get fired. You do good work. When you get around to it.”

When she got around to it? “What do you mean by that?”

“Just that you spend a lot of time hanging out with your police friends.”

The cigarette bent in Susan’s hand. “That’s me working. How do you think I get stories?”

“You don’t ever wonder if you’re too close to them?” Derek said. There was a characteristic in his voice that Susan didn’t like—air quotes around “close,” an implication of something sordid.

Susan was irritated by air quotes in general. But there was something about these particular air quotes that really got under her skin.

She took an angry drag off the bent cigarette. “Sure, yeah,” she said. “Which is why I didn’t want to write the story about Henry. It would have been inappropriate. I know the line.”

“Where are you right now?”

Susan turned so she was facing away from the task force offices. She felt ridiculous. It’s not like he could see her through the phone. “Shut up,” she said. “I’m mad at you.”

“So I called Leo Reynolds,” Derek said. “You got me. His family knows the Overtons. You may have noticed the Overton-Reynolds Wing at the museum.” Susan hadn’t. “And he obviously likes you. So I called him and I told him you’d been unfairly fired, and that if he really liked you, getting you your job back might be a grander gesture than slowly burying you in floral arrangements.”

“How did you get his number?” Susan asked. She happened to know that Leo was unlisted.

“You wrote it in Sharpie on your desk,” Derek said.

“Oh.” She remembered that now. She hadn’t been able to find a Post-it.

“I still think he’s bad news,” Derek said. He paused. “But he sure got through to Ian.” Susan could hear the smile in his voice. “You should have seen him get the call.”

Susan couldn’t help but smirk at the thought of that conversation.

The radio noise stopped, and she heard Derek open his car door. Wherever he was going, he’d arrived.

“So Ian unfired you?” Derek asked.

“He did.”

“Great,” Derek said. He sounded happy. He was out of the car. She could hear city sounds on his end, traffic, the slap of footsteps in water.

“Then I quit,” Susan said.

“Susan,” Derek said. He stretched the word out, turning it into a disappointed sigh.

She heard a siren then, someone on a loudspeaker, police radios yelping, the buzzing commotion of a hundred urgent conversations.

She felt suddenly very fond of Derek. “Where are you calling from?”

“Waterfront Park. Ian’s got me down here covering the sandbagging effort. Gotta go. On deadline.”