As much as she enjoyed the scene, she recognized when she’d been shown the door.
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “I’ll call my own cab.”
“Celia … are you sure you’ll be okay? It’s no trouble, I’d really like to make sure you get home safely.”
Her giddy feeling was relief. Mark was back safely. He hadn’t been killed in her place. The kidnappers had just … let him go. Whatever the reason, she wasn’t going to argue. All was well with the world. So what if the relief fed into other things?
She stood on tiptoe and pulled his head closer, so she could whisper in his ear. “Don’t think that just because you took me home you’d be getting any gratitude sex for being all brave.”
He drew away and looked properly shocked, blushing, his tongue stumbling over denials. Finally, he noticed that she was grinning. He was a cop; she’d have to train a sense of humor into him.
She kissed him. A nice, cinematic kiss on the lips, warm and tingling, lasting a half-dozen heartbeats. Enough time for him to react and close his arms around her. The officers and staff who’d gathered in the lobby at Mark’s return cheered and catcalled. Even the drunks and hookers cheered. Appleton didn’t cheer.
“I’ll see you later,” she said.
Mark took a breath. “Right. Yeah. Good.”
She separated herself from him, readjusted her shawl, and made a calm, smooth exit.
Out on the sidewalk, she let herself giggle. Damn, that had been fun.
EIGHT
MAYOR Paulson made a public statement the next day at noon. Mark called her at home to tell her about it.
“Celia, turn on the news.”
“What? Why?”
“Dad just gave a statement about last night.”
She grabbed the remote, turned on the TV, and curled up on the sofa.
A perfectly manicured reporter at a news anchor desk read off the teleprompter. “—scene a half hour ago at City Hall.”
The picture switched to the marble-lined foyer of City Hall. The camera turned to a podium as Anthony Paulson, flanked by assistants, emerged from a door behind it. Celia recognized some of the flunkies from the concert. Cameras flashed and reporters clustered forward. The mayor, his face set in grim lines, waved them back.
After a moment, he received the silence he needed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming on such short notice. In light of recent attacks and the proliferation of organized criminal elements bent on ruin and anarchy, I am announcing the creation of a task force to deal with these elements. I will hire a hundred new police officers to patrol our streets. Some people will say that I’m overreacting, that I’m taking last night’s theft of priceless musical instruments from the symphony gala personally because it also involved the kidnapping of my son Mark. My answer to them is yes, of course I’m taking it personally. As well I should. Every crime committed against a citizen of Commerce City is committed against someone’s son or daughter. Someone takes each of those crimes personally. It is my sworn duty to protect the safety of every law-abiding man, woman, and child in this city, and so I must take every crime personally.
“And I must apologize for a certain laxness in fulfilling that duty. It has become clear that for too long we have depended on outside, independent forces to defend us. However, it seems that unless those forces are faced with an adversary of the Destructor’s magnitude, they simply can’t be bothered. I will not be taking questions at this time. Thank you for your attention.” He turned and slipped back through the door, followed by his swarm.
“Celia, are you still there?”
Celia had held the phone to her ear silently while watching. When the announcement ended, she had to repeat to herself what the mayor had just said. What she thought he’d just said.
“Yeah, Mark. I talked to Robbie last night and he said the cops told them to stay out of it.”
“Robbie?”
“The Bullet. I don’t know where your dad got his information, but the Olympiad didn’t help last night because the cops asked them not to. I’ll bet the other vigilantes didn’t even know about the theft—they don’t have the level of access the Olympiad does.”
“Are you sure?”
“About Robbie? Why would he lie to me? If it was a miscommunication, then it probably ought to get cleared up before something comes along that the cops can’t handle.”
“You don’t have a whole lot of faith in the cops, do you?”