[Merry Gentry 04] - A Stroke of Midnight by Laurell K. Hamilton Page A

“I’ll be sure to let Major Walters know that the FBI has such confidence in the locals.”
    He gave a dry little laugh. “I’m sorry if I made this harder for you. I tend to get a little obsessed.”
    â€œGood-bye, Gillett.”
    â€œBye, Merry.”
    I hung up and leaned heavier on the desk. Galen held me against him, careful of my hurt arm. “Why didn’t you let Gillett come down?”
    I raised my face and looked at him. I searched that open face for some hint that he understood what had just happened. His eyes were green and wide and innocent.
    I wanted to cry, needed to cry. I’d called Gillett because the murders had raised ghosts for me. Not real ones, but those emotional pains that you think are gone for good until they just rise again to haunt you, no matter how deep you bury them.
    Doyle came to me. “I watch you grow more worthy of being queen every day, Meredith, every minute.” He touched my good arm lightly, as if not sure I wanted to be touched at that moment.
    My breath came out in a sharp cry, and I threw myself against his body. He held me, his arms fierce and almost painful. He held me while I cried because he understood some of what it had cost me to let go of childish things.
    Barinthus came up to us and put his arms around us both, hugging us to him. I glanced up, and found tears running down his face. “You are more your father’s daughter in this moment than you have ever been.”
    Galen hugged us from the other side, so that we were warm and close. But I realized in that moment that Galen, like Gillett, was a child’s wish. They held me, and I wept. Crying didn’t cover it. I wept the last of my childhood away. I was thirty-three years old; it seemed a little late to be letting go of childish things, but some wounds cut us so deep that they stop us. Stop us from letting go, from growing up, from seeing the truth.
    I let them all hold me while I cried, through Barinthus cried, too. I let them hold me, but part of me knew that Galen, and only Galen, didn’t understand what was happening. He’d been my closest confidant among the guards. My friend, my first crush, but he’d asked, why didn’t I let Gillett come?
    I cried and let them hold me, but it wasn’t just my father’s loss I was mourning.

CHAPTER 7
    I CLEANED OFF THE REMNANTS OF THE MAKEUP THAT I HADN’T cried away. Got the lipstick that still looked like clown makeup off, and even gave Frost a makeup cleansing cloth so he could do his own face. We were clean and neat and presentable when we started back to the crime scene. I felt hollow inside, as if a piece of me were missing. But it didn’t matter. Walters would be here soon with the CSU team. We needed to have finished the questioning of the witnesses before then in case they said something that we didn’t want the human police to know. I wanted justice, but I also didn’t want to make the bad publicity worse by sharing some dark secret with the human world.
    Doyle stopped so abruptly that I ran into him. He pushed me farther back into Galen and Usna’s suddenly waiting arms, as if he’d given some signal that I had not seen. With Doyle and Adair in front and Galen and Usna suddenly very close on either side of me, I could not see what had frightened everyone. Barinthus, Hawthorne, and Frost were bringing up the rear. They had turned to face back down the hall as if they were worried about someone sneaking up behind us. What was happening? What now? I couldn’t even manage a drop of fear. I’m not sure it was bravery so much as exhaustion. I was simply too tired emotionally and physically to waste the adrenaline on fear. In that second, if we’d been attacked, I’m not sure I would have cared.
    I tried to shake it off, this feeling of desolation. I called, “Doyle, what is it?”
    Barinthus answered, “The Queen’s Ravens are in the hall, blocking