Page 100 of Sean's Sunshine

“My baby’s beautiful,” she told him, her face crumpling.

“Just like his mother,” Henry said, kissing her cheek—and leaving the faintest blood smear. Over the intercom they could hear somebody mustering police for intruders in the building, and it was time to go.

They’d gotten out early enough that nobody was there to stop them as they pulled away from the parking lot and into traffic. Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it was back to work, heigh-ho.

Henry was on the phone to AJ before they hit the street, asking if maybe, pretty-pretty please, he and Crystal could hack into the cameras at the police station and erase everything that had happened in the last twenty minutes?

Crystal said she’d already started, and Jackson gave thanks for psychic friends.

Adele Fetzer called them before they’d gotten to the office.

“Where are you?” she asked, all irritation.

“In traffic, Adele!” Jackson said brightly. He sounded a little congested; he’d broken his nose. Again.

“Do you have any idea who just walked into a police station, beat the hell out of five officers in an elevator, and got away clean?”

“Nope. What do the security feeds say?”

“Nothing. The whole system went down five minutes ago.”

“That’s a shame. Was anyone hurt?”

She let out a low chuckle. “According to the guys in the elevator, they just ran into walls.”

Jackson held his closed fist up, and Henry bumped it delicately. Both of them had torn knuckles and strained wrists, and that was as violent as they wanted to get for a high five.

“Adamnedshame. I’m sure they’re the nicest people,” he said, acid dripping from his voice.

Adele’s whoop of laughter putthatlie to bed. “Oh, kid. I’d say you didn’t make any friends today, but that little baby-faced hamster kid—Kenny Kinsey, bless his heart—has asked for a different trainer, and he had athumb driveof moments his phone got after Carruthers asked him to turn off his body cam. Carruthers is going to be lucky if he’s allowed to retire with his pension.”

Jackson sucked air in through his teeth. “So, uhm, body cams—were they on?”

“No,” she said pleasantly. “They were all off. The guys were in the station and all. What was going to get them there?”

“Not a thing.”

Adele rang off shortly after that, and Jackson let out a breath.

“We got the folder?” he asked.

“Got the folder,” Henry affirmed. “I think. My eye’s starting to swell shut. What, uhm, are we going to tell Ellery.”

“The truth?” Jackson hazarded.

Henry snorted. “Sure.”

“NOTHING HAPPENED?”Ellery repeated in disbelief.

“Nothing,” Henry agreed, but he was staring at Jackson as though not sure he’d actually said that.

“Nothing,” Jackson told them both. “According to the police department, five men just ran into doors.”

“In an elevator,” Henry added.

“In an elevator,” Jackson repeated, as though that somehow made it more credible.

“Five menincludingyou?” Jade asked, eyes narrowed.