FOUR

MATT handed me the paper. “Have they arrested anyone connected to the shootings? The article doesn’t have many details. What did Quinn tell you?”

When I didn’t reply he studied my expression.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

“No. Your mother tried to warn me, but with my morning team late, I haven’t had time to run to a newsstand or read the papers.”

“Well, you might want to read this one.” He slipped on his still-wet jacket and shivered. “I’m off for that shower—the one at the health club, not the one that nearly drowned me. See you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” I echoed, staring at the headline. “What’s tomorrow?”

“We’re going to see Gus, remember?”

“Oh. Right!”

“And don’t forget those cannoli cupcakes. I wouldn’t mind eating one or two or four myself.”

As soon as Matt pushed through the front door, I opened the paper and began to read—until I was interrupted by the arrival of my (late) morning shift.

“Hey, boss. On break already to read the paper? Wow, the perks of management never end.”

Esther Best (shortened by a forefather from Bestovasky) unwound her black spiderweb lace shawl. The commando overcoat came off next, to reveal zaftig hips and a short-sleeved Poetry Slam tee that displayed her literary tribute tattoos. With a rare smile on my goth barista’s fetching face, I let her barb pass without comment.

Nancy Kelly, my youngest barista, staggered in behind Esther. Her Midwest farm girl cheerfulness was absent today, her wheat-colored braids coming loose, her eyes puffy and red.

“Coffee,” she croaked. “Nancy needs coffee bad.”

“Tired?” I asked.

“We didn’t get much sleep, which is why we’re late, by the way.” She paused to glare at Esther. “My roommate was up all hours, listening to a creepy guy with a creepier voice recite really creepy poetry.”

“That was Allen Ginsberg,” Esther said, examining her nails. “I always listen to Ginsberg’s poetry when I’m feeling down.”

“Why? To push you over the edge? And you call that yacketayakking poetry? Ugh. After work, I’m buying earplugs. That demented maniac gave me nightmares.”

“That’s the idea. I get my best poems from nightmares.”

“Okay, enough!” I declared. “I need one of you to fill the pastry case and the other to unroll the rain mat at the front door.”

“But the storm is over, boss. Look outside. The sun is shining.”

“Fine, forget the mat. Just make sure all the rain that our Matt tracked in is mopped up. Flip a coin on the chores and get going. We open in eight minutes.”

Still bickering—but quietly now—my Odd Couple got to work. I opened the paper, only to be interrupted again, by another staff member, my longtime assistant manager, Tucker Burton.

“What are you doing here, Tuck? You’re ten hours early.”

“Only for this job . . .” He frowned down at Matt’s puddles before dodging Esther on a mission with her mop. “I have another gig starting in two hours, and I need some strong java mojo to pump me up.”

“What’s the other job? Theatrical, I assume?”

He headed for the espresso machine. “I’m holding auditions all day.”

“Another public service announcement?” Esther asked. “What is it this time? The dangers of salt? Sugar? Breathing?”

“I’ve been hired to direct a charity show at Irving Plaza. A superhero extravaganza for kids with cancer.”

“So what’s it going to be, a chorus line for men in tights?”

Tuck waved his hand. “A musical revue will hardly do. These kids have seen all the movies. They expect epic fight scenes, and that’s what I’m going to give them.”

“Rubber sets and breakaway furniture?”

“Precisely.”

“How exciting,” Nancy gushed from behind the pastry case. “Will the dark and brooding Batman be there? And the hunky Superman?”

“Both capes will be fluttering,” Tuck assured her. “And we’ll have that hot new dynamic duo Panther Man and Cub. I’ve also got to find an Iron Man, a Thor, and a square-jawed Captain America.”

Nancy sidled up to him. “You know, I wouldn’t mind helping you find a really hot Superman. Someone a Lois Lane like me could swoon over.”

Tuck tossed his floppy mop. “This is Greenwich Village, sugar. Finding a Superman is easy. What I need is an actor.”

“One who also happens to fill out the tights?” Esther cracked.

Tuck shot back his espresso. “That wouldn’t hurt, either.”

Nancy’s second offer to join the Great Superman Search was interrupted by the bell over our front door.

“Are you serving?” asked a desperate-looking young woman with a bulging NYU backpack. “My first law school class starts in thirty minutes, and I need coffee badly.”

“You’ve come to the right mountaintop, oh, Decaffeinated One!” Esther intoned. “And props for using the grammatically correct badly.”

“That means, come right in,” I told the law student. As I flipped our CLOSED sign to OPEN, she headed inside. That’s when I spied a familiar face.

“Hey, Clare, how’s it going?”

The jovial tenor belonged to Detective Finbar “Sully” Sullivan, twenty-two-year veteran of the NYPD and right-hand man to the decorated narcotics detective who’d won my heart.

As Sully entered, I gave him a hug and saw the man himself approach our door, Detective Lieutenant Michael Ryan Francis Quinn, the respected head of the department’s famous OD Squad.

Quinn’s commanding presence filled the coffeehouse the way his broad-shouldered silhouette filled the sunlit door, the way his courage and caring filled my life.

“Hi, Clare.”

“Hi, Mike.”

His NYPD jacket was rumpled from the all-nighter, and the dark sand of his five-o’clock shadow stubbled the hard line of his jaw. But despite his lack of sleep, there was no sign of fatigue in the blue of his switchblade eyes, or the sweet-sly smile he offered me.

“I’d give you a kiss,” I told him, “but I’d rather your mouth start moving for another reason.”

Quinn’s smile all but vanished when I unfolded the newspaper still clutched in my hand.

“‘Open Season on the NYPD,’” I read aloud. “‘Four Cops Shot in Three Days.’ And not one word from you. So come in, please. Because I want answers, and I want them now.”