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Cooper
    60

    Benedict had left for his other job around noon, when
    Penn had also insisted Ray eat more than just donuts with
    his coffee. After two burgers, rare, they"d decided to head out
    for the rest of the interviews. If working at his desk next to
    Parker was bad, being trapped in the same car with him for
    hours at a time was torture. Exquisite torture. His smell and
    body heat so close, that running mouth offering startling
    thoughts on everything from string theory to the perfect glaze
    for pastry.
    They"d worked another case once involving glazed pastry
    and a particularly gruesome murder. Cal had stopped eating
    Danishes and all other breakfast pastries afterward for
    months. It was only when Ray had left a donut heavy with
    sprinkles out for him—the brightest sprinkles he could find,
    chock full of so much food coloring it should have been
    toxic—that Cal had finally started to enjoy baked goods
    again. Not Danishes anymore, not ever again, but his love for
    sprinkled donuts was a thing to behold.
    But in between his pastry lectures and driving Ray crazy
    with a thousand casual touches from the backseat, Parker
    had been eating candy buttons from a roll of wax paper—if
    Cal could single handedly keep candy stores in business, the
    demand from the rest of the fairies could fuel an entire
    industry—and leaving sticky fingerprints and bits of paper in
    the backseat until Ray had snapped for him to clean it up.
    “You"re so anal, Branigan.”
    “You try living with heightened senses in a human world
    and see how much you enjoy a mess.”
    He had at least had the satisfaction of knowing that
    after that, the bits of paper had mysteriously disappeared. It
    Some Kind of Magic | R. Cooper
    61
    had only been lessened somewhat by then having to listen to
    Cal lick his fingers clean.
    Ray had shifted in his seat. Penn had given Ray a look.
    She did it again as she got out of the car back at the
    station, well aware that they"d wasted a day and that his
    mood wasn"t any better than hers. His was actually worse,
    since Penn wasn"t fighting every instinct in her body.
    He looked back at her, watching her finish another
    bottle of seawater and tactfully not commenting as their
    absent-minded genius scrambled out of the backseat,
    stretched invitingly, then dashed into the station in search of
    a bathroom. Ray realized he"d forgotten to ask where Cal had
    purchased those candy buttons and to remind him to keep
    his nose out of his other cases. He sighed.
    “Suddenly everyone has an alibi,” Ray declared to Penn
    instead, twisting to look at the rising moon, the setting sun.
    “I"m going to get some dinner.”
    “I"m going home,” she announced. “Call me if we get
    something.” With a wave and another sip that made him
    wrinkle his nose, she was heading toward her car. He could
    have gone home too, but frustration carried him back into
    the station.
    The captain saw him and called him over, letting him
    know Perretti had friends working on posting his bail, but
    then grinned as he added that they probably wouldn"t be
    able to raise the money. Apparently the ADA working the
    case had asked for and gotten a newer, higher amount, as
    some detective had been very emphatic in their belief that
    Perretti was a flight risk.
    Lex was good. Ray could almost smile for that, but then
    hearing that Perretti had friends was enough to make him
    Some Kind of Magic | R. Cooper
    62

    frown again. The man was a flight risk. He"d vanished for
    years and had no known address.
    “You"d better lock this up. You have a bigger case
    waiting.” Murphy was stern, and Ray didn"t blame him for
    that. But the idea that Nasreen"s attack was somehow less
    serious, when she could have died, made him narrow his
    eyes.
    He didn"t growl; he didn"t threaten. He never did. But
    his chin came up, and Captain Murphy"s expression
    changed. He wasn"t afraid, but if anything, his look grew
    thoughtful. After a moment he relaxed, shrugging in