The Day the Insects Grew by Audrey Swindon & Bob McCullough

Author:Audrey Swindon & Bob McCullough [Swindon, Audrey & McCullough, Bob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-13T23:00:00+00:00

5

They’re Eating the Kitchen

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. Just came in.”

“Aw, come on, Terry. It’s quarter to five.”

“I know,” she said. “But we’re Victims Services, remember?”

Jeff lifted his eyebrows. “On Friday?”

She shook her head and laughed. “For another fifteen minutes, anyway,” Terry said. “And you know how this goes—we’re supposed to be on call.”

He laughed. Thank god he had a secretary with a sense of humor. Jeff knew what some of the other administrative assistants were like, and if had one that was buttoned down he would have lost his mind.

“Yeah, but I’m the assistant department head,” he said. “As if that means anything.”

Terry grinned and looked at the clock. “You know that’s just a title, just like I do. We could switch places and nobody would give a rat’s ass.”

Jeff nodded, and he laughed again. “Yeah, but you’d have a lot less fun,” he pointed out. “Especially when shit like this comes along.”

“And this one’s a beauty,” Terry said, and she handed him her legal pad. “I took some notes.”

He smiled at her efficiency. This was the best thing about Terry; a lot of secretaries would have jotted something down on a Post-It note, or done nothing at all.

But Terry was all over most of the calls that came in, and she took good notes, too. She was absolutely right about them switching jobs, but Jeff knew she would have been even more miserable than he was.

He took the pad, frowning as he read her notes. Then he shook his head and read them again.

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. That’s exactly how it came in.”

“No way.”

“Way.” He smiled again. That was the other nice thing about Terry. Most people would have made fun of his movie references, which could be erratic, to be kind. She didn’t.

“I want to hear you say it out loud,” Jeff said.

She looked up toward the ceiling. “Really? You’d really make me do that?”

“I would,” he replied. “But only at a quarter to five on a Friday.”

This time they shared a good laugh. He liked the way Terry laughed, and sometimes he imagined them together. She was a little too young for him, but it might be fun for a little while.

“Fair enough, then,” Terry said, and he handed her the legal pad. “It’s from a wife whose husband is missing. He was on a business trip, and the puddle jumper he was on was snatched up by a giant dragonfly.”

“Wow.”

Jeff took it in for a moment. It sounded even weirder when spoken aloud, and he watched Terry’s expression carefully to make sure she wasn’t just pranking him as a Friday afternoon thing. Great prank if she actually was, though.

“So it really did come in, then,” he said when she finally shrugged.

“Yup. Moments ago.”

Terry gave him another shrug, this one more pronounced.

“Could I make shit like this up?”

“Probly not,” he said. “And if you could, you sure as hell wouldn’t be working in Vic Services.”

“Copy that,” she said, and Terry nodded at the pad. “With that kind of sense of humor somebody would have killed me by now.

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