Blood Rites by Jim Butcher Page B

enough to scowl at me. "What's that supposed to mean?"
    "No pod, huh. Maybe you're an evil twin from another dimension or something."
    The muscles along her jaw clenched, and her expression promised murder.
    I sighed. "You don't seem to be your usual self. I'm not an analyst or anything, but you kinda look like something is bothering you. Just maybe."
    She waved a hand. "It's this paperwork—"
    "No, it isn't," I said. "Come on, Murphy. It's me."
    "I don't want to talk about it."
    I shrugged. "Maybe you need to. You're about two steps shy of psychotic right now."
    She reached for her door again, but didn't close it. "Just a bad day."
    I didn't believe her, but I said, "Sure, okay. I'm sorry if the dog added to it."
    Her expression became tired. She leaned against the doorway. "No. No, he was great. Barely made a sound. Quiet as a mouse all day long. Even used the papers I put down."
    I nodded. "You sure you don't want to talk?"
    She grimaced and glanced around the office. "Maybe not here. Walk with me."
    We left and headed down the hall to the vending machines. Murphy didn't say anything until she bought a Snickers bar. "My mom called," she said.
    "Bad news?" I asked.
    "Yeah." She closed her eyes and bit off a third of the candy bar. "Sort of. Not really."
    "Oh," I said, as if her answer made some kind of sense. "What happened?"
    She ate more chocolate and said, "My sister, Lisa, is engaged."
    "Oh," I said. When in doubt, be noncommittal. "I didn't know you had a sister."
    "She's my baby sister."
    "Um. My condolences?" I guessed.
    She glowered at me. "She did this on purpose. With the reunion this weekend. She knew exactly what she was doing."
    "Well, it's a good thing someone knew, 'cause so far I have no freaking clue."
    Murphy finished the candy bar. "My baby sister is engaged. She's going to be showing up this weekend with her fiancé, and I am going to be there without a fiancé or a husband. Or even a boyfriend. My mother will never let me hear the end of it."
    "Well, uh, you had a husband, right? Two of them, even."
    She glared. "The Murphys are Irish Catholic," she said. "My not one but
two
, count them,
two
divorces won't exactly wash clean the stigma."
    "Oh. Well, I'm sure whoever you're dating would show up with you, right?"
    She glanced back toward the SI offices. If looks could kill, hers would have blown that section of the building into Lake Michigan. "Are you kidding? I don't have time. I haven't been on a date in two years."
    Maybe I should have gone for the ultimate inept remark, and started singing about how short people got nobody to love. I decided to sting her pride a little instead. She'd reacted well to it before. "The mighty Murphy. Slayer of various and sundry nasty monsters, vampires, and so on—"
    "And trolls," Murphy said. "Two more when you were out of town last summer."
    "Uh-huh. And you're letting a little family shindig get you down like this?"
    She shook her head. "Look. It's a personal thing. Between me and my mom."
    "And your mom is going to think less of you for being single? A career woman?" I regarded her skeptically. "Murphy, don't tell me you're a mama's girl under all the tough-chick persona."
    She stared at me for a moment, exasperation and sadness sharing space on her features. "I'm the oldest daughter," she said. "And… well, the whole time I was growing up, I just assumed that I'd be… her successor, I guess. That I'd follow her example. We both did. It's one of the things that made us close. The whole family knew it."
    "And if your baby sister is all of a sudden more like your mom than you are, what? It threatens your relationship with her?"
    "No," she said, annoyance in her tone. "Not like that. Not really. And sort of. It's complicated."
    "I can see that," I said.
    She slumped against the vending machine. "My mom is pretty cool," Murphy said. "But it's been hard to stay close to her the past few years. I mean, the job keeps me busy. She doesn't think I should have divorced my