His for the Holidays by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anthology
Publisher: Carina Press
Published: 2010-12-21T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

Harle Street, an hour before midnight. Plenty of late shifts McBride had worked here: it should have felt ordinary to him, dull. He sat at his desk. From here he could see and hear—glass walls, open doors—a handful of small dramas playing themselves out. Half a dozen tableaux. McBride cared about all the people in them, but he wasn’t wanted onstage just for now.

He rested his chin on his hands. Over in the corner, the two sound techs were crowing and high-fiving each other, so presumably the tapes from Toby’s wire were good. Royston, Davies, McKay and the others were grabbing their coats, waving at him distractedly as they scurried for the door: he nodded and lifted a hand in return. Outside Lila’s old office—and axes fell hard around here; even her nameplate had been stripped from the door—Amanda Campbell was pinned down under fire, making small placating gestures at her partner, Jennifer, who’d been waiting for them on their return. Enough of Jenny’s tirade drifted through for him to piece together the whole. “You swore to me it was a desk job! Then I phone to find out why you’ve not come home, and they tell me you’re on an armed siege in the Cowgate!”He repressed a smile. All sorts of lives finding their balance again. Andrew Barclay getting a bullet dug out of him in the Royal, expected to be fine. In an office over the hall, Toby Leitner with the duty sergeant, who was respectfully taking down his report.

And right in front of him, Libby, clutching her daughter as if she would squeeze the marrow from her bones. She’d been waiting at Harle Street too, hand in white-knuckled hand with Jennifer. Libby had Grace on her lap. Her face was buried in her hair. The child’s limbs were sticking out at awkward angles with the force of her embrace. Her voice came, small and winded, out of Libby’s jumper: “Ma, I cannae breathe.”

“I dinnae bloody care!”

Two Glaswegian guttersnipes. McBride watched them in satisfaction. He would take to his grave with him the memory of carrying Grace up the steps of Harle Street and into Libby’s outstretched, frantic arms. He said, “She’s not been hurt. At least—I’ve asked her, and I think she’s old enough to know what I…”

“McBride!”

That was his daughter, blushing furiously, mortified by both her parents. “McBride?” he said. “You called me Daddy on those tapes.”

“Aye, wi’ a gun to my head.”

“Gracie! He did not have…”

“No. It’s a figure of speech.” She gave him the shadow of her old wicked smile. “He just told me to make it sound good.”

McBride shivered. That was familiar. He could hardly bear to think of Carlyle near her: he’d kill him again if he could. And debonair and bright with mischief or not, she’d been at his mercy for two nights and three days. “I think she’s all right, Libs. But I don’t know if she understands.”

Libby raised her head. She said, her voice muffled with tears, “Och, we’ve had the talk.

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