The next morning, I got up and had my usual routine shower. I left my hair to dry by itself, as always. Because my hair's short, it dries naturally in no time. Wrapped in a towel, I padded through into the kitchen area and shoved some bread in the toaster to cook while I got dressed.

I decided to put on my favourite top – red with only one sleeve, which wraps round the opposing shoulder, and a black mesh vest over it. My friend Emiiya, who I'd been at university with, had bought it for me from one of her visits back to her hometown in Bulgaria.

I teamed it with my leather grey skirt and my trusty big black boots. Kenichi thinks I'm crazy for wearing skirts when my job often calls for a lot of physical activity. Loose skirts are a bad idea, because they tend to put everything on show if you're running or climbing or diving on the floor, which is why I go for tighter ones.

You'd think tight skirts would restrict your movements, but all of mine have a satisfying amount of give. The only way I'd be likely to flash someone would be if I got knocked on my ass. Of course, this still happens. This is why I always wear tasteful girl boxers. Just in case.

I ate my now ready toast dry and one-handed, arranging my holster and gun with the other. I pulled on my trench coat, grabbed my shoulder bag along with both sets of keys and I was ready. I was staying true to my word. I was going to get Gibson some Starbucks.

The Starbucks I had in mind was only a few blocks down from my place. I'd actually worked there once upon a time, before I'd become a police officer. Back when I was in university and looking for any job that paid. I'd worked there for just over a year. I had really enjoyed it, but obviously it wasn't a career I'd wanted for life.

The saddest part about giving up the job when I started my crash course in police training was surrendering my entitlement to free drinks. Though, fortunately, my friend Masami still worked there and could bag me free drinks even now. I'd just have to hope I caught her on shift.

My luck was in. I'd literally just walked through the door and taken a few seconds to adjust my coat when I heard a loud and very enthusiastic, "Heeeey!"

I looked to the counter and saw Masami stood behind it, waving at me frantically with a thousand-watt smile on her face. I beamed back in response. It was impossible not to. Masami was the most ditzy, feminine person I knew and she had the unwavering ability to brighten anyone's day, whether it was intentional or not.

"Hey, Masami!" I greeted, joining her at the counter. The place was empty this early, so I was free to talk to her for a bit. "How's things?"

"It's all good!" Masami gave me a wide smile. "How about you? What have you been up to?"

I should probably mention that Masami is also the most gorgeous person I've ever met. She's an unusual, but stunning combination of Japanese, Filipino and Puerto-Rican. She's curvy in all the right places with flawless dark skin, perfectly curly black hair and eyes that literally sparkle. It's times like these that I'm glad I don't really care what I look like. Next to Masami, I must look like a total dog in comparison.

"Oh, you know; the usual. Chasing the bad guys, working with idiots..." I joked casually. "What about you?"

"Wow, your job always sounds so interesting!" Masami gushed, taking every word I said too literally as always. "It hasn't been very exciting here. I started seeing this guy, but he just can't keep his hands to himself..."

I let her carry on with her boy tirade. This was what I loved about Masami. She could talk for hours without needing much prompting and her ideas of conversation always seemed so trivial. That sounds a little insulting, but it's honestly something I love. When you've got drama going on or you have to deal with the darker side of life, as I so often do, it's nice to know that life can still be so easy for some people.

After her story about how'd she gotten rid of this touchy-feely guy, she started telling me about the latest pair of shoes she'd bought. I smiled at her words. We were so completely different, it was quite impressive. Nobody would have ever pegged us as friends.

Masami was popular and hung around with a very up-market crowd. But in spite of that, she still seemed to really like scruffy old me. Likewise, she wasn't the kind of person I'd tend to befriend. We really didn't have much in common. But her happy-go-luck personality and her devotion to friendship just totally sold me.

By the time her shoe story was over, I'd found myself to be part of a small queue. Thankfully, there was another girl serving and she took care of the new customers. Masami finally snapped into her business mode. "Sorry Gee, I've been talking for ages! What would you like?"

"Don't worry about it," I laughed. "Could I have a hazelnut hot chocolate and a cappuccino please?"

"No problem, honey," said Masami brightly, grabbing two Styrofoam cups. She started up boy conversation again while she worked. "So haven't you got any sexy men in your life right now, Gee?"

I snorted. "God, no." Masami could talk about guys for hours. Recently, I could barely offer enough to fill five minutes.

Masami laughed. "You need to stop being so picky! Isn't there anyone you've seen lately that you thought was remotely cute?"

I actually gave the question some real thought, just to please her. I didn't come up with much. I could discount everyone I worked with for various reasons and my closest male friends were gay. "Erm, there was a guy in the supermarket last week that looked a bit like Rob Lowe?"

Masami didn't seem very impressed with my poor answer. "Nobody you know?" I shook my head. "That's rubbish. I'll have to try and set you up with someone."

"Oh, god, please don't..." I laughed.

I had to spend the next few minutes talking her out of the idea. This wasn't the first time she'd threatened to play matchmaker. I had enough trouble finding a guy I liked on my own, without input from anybody else. Eventually, she let it go with my insistence that I was too busy for a boyfriend and a promise that she'd be the first to know if I found someone I liked.

She pushed the two drinks towards me, refusing to let me pay for either of them. I put them both into cardboard holders. Another good thing about Masami – she was always extra generous with the whipped cream. I was definitely going to be in Gibson's good books.

"Thanks, Masami." I gave her a grateful smile. "I'm sure I'll be back again soon."

"You'd better be!" replied Masami with a grin, giving me a one-armed hug over the counter. "Take care!"

"You too!"

I was feeling brighter than usual as I made my way to the police station. I liked to think I was generally quite an optimistic person – nothing compared to Masami, of course – but being around her always seemed to rub off on me even more. I was grateful for it. It could only help to start the day with a smile on your face.

And I wasn't the only one. Gibson completely lit up when he saw me. I would have liked to have thought it was due to my presence alone... Unfortunately. I knew he was only interested in the damn coffee.

"You're a star," said Gibson gratefully as I handed him one of the Styrofoam cups. "You should be this nice more often," he teased.

I grinned, taking the seat opposite him. "As opposed to my usual stubborn-ass self?"

"Got it in one." Gibson winked at me before taking a swig of his drink. He sighed and made an appreciative sound. "Damn, this is good stuff. I take it back; maybe I should be nicer to you."

"Well, I sure as hell won't stop you," I smiled, starting on my own drink. Mmmm. Chocolatey heaven in a cup. "So did you come up with a meeting time for us?"

Gibson nodded, took another drink and put his cup on the desk. Down to business. "As long as it's okay with L, then we could actually arrange a meeting for this afternoon. Both Kenichi and Chad are only on low priority patrols from two o'clock onwards, so it won't be a problem to take them off duty for a few hours."

Wow. I hadn't expected things to start happening so quickly. "And if he can't do today?"

"Same scenario the day after tomorrow, but from eleven onwards," answered Gibson. I nodded. "These times are okay for you too, right?"

I laughed. "Gibs, you could ask me to meet at three in the morning and it'd still be fine. It's never too late for me. Or too early. Whichever way you wanna look at it."

"Good," said Gibson, pleased. "So do you want to page L now then?"

"Sure," I said warily, fishing the pager out of my bag. I had a feeling he was more interested in seeing me work the pager than anything else. Tough. I'd gotten one step ahead and looked it up online last night. It was fairly basic. He wasn't getting any laughs out of my technophobia today. I keyed in the number L had told me and sent the page. "Done."

Gibson looked disappointed that I hadn't had more trouble with it. Asshole. "Why do I get the feeling you cheated by asking someone how to work that thing?"

"I didn't ask anybody," I said innocently. It wasn't exactly a lie. Technically, I hadn't asked a person. I'd just asked Google.

"I sense a loophole in that answer," Gibson grinned.

I couldn't help smiling back in response. "You know, sometimes I really hate how well you know me."

He laughed. "Trust me; the feeling's mutual. Sometimes your ability to psych people out is just downright scary."

Scary was a word that had only been applied to me once – by Masami when she'd seen my toy corner at home. Particularly the bust model I have of Pinhead from Hellraiser. She'd told me I was a scary girl and that I should get into shoes and make-up more. I'd taken it as a compliment. I was going to do the same now.

Someone knocked on the door and I turned round, thinking for one bizarre moment that L had somehow managed to get here in the three minutes since I'd paged him. No, I do not have a one-track mind.

"Come in," Gibson called.

The door opened and Shirley, the strawberry-blonde receptionist, leant into the room. "Tod, you have a phone call. Do you want me to put them through or should I ask for a message?"

I raised my eyebrows at Gibson. Shirley was new – I'd only seen her twice before now. She seemed to have gotten onto a first name basis with Gibson pretty quickly. The only other person I'd known to call him Tod had been Teddy Harper. Was Mr. Morals himself actually dipping his pen in the company ink?

Gibson didn't notice the look on my face, however. "No, that's fine. Put them through."

Shirley nodded and shut the door after her. I rearranged my expression. I could harass Gibson about it later. "Want me to go wait in the staff lounge?"

"I'll see who it is first," said Gibson, picking up the receiver on his desk. "If I think it's going to be a long call, I'll wave you out and you can go and chill for a bit."

I nodded. "Plan."

Shirley had obviously forwarded the call then, because Gibson suddenly slipped back into his professional manner. "This is Superintendent Gibson; how can I help you?" His expression shifted to confusion. "May I ask who's calling?" The answer obviously threw him. "Oh! I see. Well, you can actually ask her yourself; she's here right now."

He held the phone out to me. I blinked. Who would be calling me at the police station? Everyone I knew had my cell phone number. I took the receiver curiously. "Hello?"

"Georgia Shidou? This is Ryuzaki."

Oh, right. One person didn't have my cell phone number. The Shirley diversion had caused me to briefly forget about L. Maybe I did have a one-track mind after all. "How is it fair for you to go by an alias, but then still refer to me by my real name?"

"My apologies," said L. He didn't sound very sorry to me. Though I was at least happy that he wasn't using voice filters now. "What would you like me to call you?"

"Just Gee is fine," I said stiffly. I glanced at Gibson and immediately wished I hadn't. He looked far too amused. "What did you want to talk to me for?"

"You paged Watari, did you not? I didn't recognise the code, so I knew it would be you, seeing as Mr. Gibson and yourself are the only ones who have Watari's pager code," L explained.

Well, duh. I knew he was responding to the page. "That's not what I meant. What did you ask when Gibson said you could ask me yourself?"

"Ah. I actually wanted a contact number for you," said L. "I was going to ask Mr. Gibson for it. I never realised you'd be at the police station at this moment."

Okay. Hadn't expected that one. I wondered why he hadn't asked for it yesterday. Had I unnerved him as much as he had me? Nah. "Oh, sure thing."

I recited my number to him. I didn't bother asking if he had something to write it down with. I knew he wouldn't need to. I stupidly looked at Gibson again. He gave me the thumbs up and mouthed 'score'. I ignored him. He was enjoying this too much for my liking. Sometimes it was hard to believe he was nearly ten years older than me.

"Thank you," said L. "Now I'm assuming you've decided on a meeting time for all of us?"

"Right. How does half two this afternoon sound?" I figured half an hour would be enough time for Kenichi and Chad to finish their patrols and then for all of us to get to my place. "If that's too short notice, we could do Wednesday at half eleven."

"No, today at half two is perfectly fine," replied L. "And the meeting will still take place at your office?"

"Yep, that's cool with me," I assured.

"Good. In that case, I shall see you and the rest of the team at half past two."

He hung up without saying goodbye. Kenichi had the same habit. It was only a little thing, but it had always irritated me. One of these days, I was going to hang up while he was still talking, just so I could get there first.

I decided to ignore it for today. I could preach about manners another time. "And we're underway," I told Gibson, handing the phone back to him.

Gibson still looked quite bemused. "Wow. You started to lay into him already. You knew before that he knew your full name."

"I don't care. If he's not using his real name over the phone, then he's not using mine either. Plus he got on my nerves yesterday. He had it coming." I knew I sounded childish, but I didn't really care.

Gibson just laughed. "This is definitely going to be entertaining. So where is this meeting taking place? I can't see the famous L just waltzing into the police station."

I couldn't see him waltzing full stop. "My place. He wants to work the rest of the case from my office."

"I see. Any particular reason?" Gibson asked meaningfully. I did not like the look he was giving me.

"Trust me; once you meet him for yourself all of those kind of thoughts will go straight out the window," I said adamantly. "He said my office is in a fairly quiet area, but still public enough that nobody should notice the same people revisiting."

Gibson didn't seem half as interested in that answer. "Ah, okay. So it's probably a good idea not to take one of the police cars, right?"

"Right," I agreed. "I think you and the guys should dress down a little before we go too. I don't want people knowing I'm bringing a bunch of police officers over there and I'm sure L would agree. I'll take you all in my car and I'll bring you back to the station afterwards."

Gibson nodded. "Good idea." He checked his watch. "We've still got a few hours before we'll need to leave, so I'm gonna try and get some paperwork out of the way."

"Okey dokey." I got to my feet. "Make sure you guys look less cop by then. I'm gonna go reconcile with Dracula."

Gibson chuckled. "How many times have you read that damn book?"

"If you knew the actual number, you'd be worried," I told him.

"Fifty?" asked Gibson, making what he probably thought was an absurd guess.

I hesitated before admitting, "More."

He whistled. "Jesus... You're right; I don't think I want to imagine the real number."

XXX

The drive back to my office must have looked a real picture. My car is pretty small and all three guys are pushing six foot. To my annoyance, Chad called shotgun and then spent the whole ride playing with the fluffy green dice that I have hanging from my rear-view mirror. It was highly distracting. He'd also taken up Johnny's job of trashing my music.

I threatened to shoot him and Gibson told me off. Where was the justice in that? If they didn't start playing nice, then they could damn well walk back to the station after.

When I let us all into my office, I noticed an immediate problem – I didn't have enough chairs. Well, crap. I'd never had to accommodate more than two clients at a time before. You don't usually get a whole family on an outing to go and see the nice detective.

I'd have to invest in some cheap fold-away chairs. But for now, we were just going to have to make do. With my desk chair as well, there were still only enough for three people. That already left one of us standing. And that was before L even got here.

"I so need more chairs," I sighed out loud. "Looks like I'll be standing."

"I'll stand too," Kenichi volunteered. I knew he was also thinking about catering for L too. I gave him a grateful smile.

"I can stand if you want to sit down, Gee," Gibson offered.

"Thanks, boss, but it's fine. I don't mind standing," I said. "Plus I'm kinda the hostess here."

"Then I dibs Gee's chair," Chad announced, throwing himself into my chair. It groaned from the impact.

"Hey, be careful! My chair's not used to that much weight," I chastised him.

"Are you calling me fat? I'm hurt, Gee," said Chad with a look of mock offence, though his eyes were twinkling. "This is a perfectly capable chair. Just because you're such a runt doesn't mean it can't handle me too."

"I swear to god, Chad..." I felt my hand twitch subconsciously as if I'd wanted to reach for my gun. It was just a habit, I promise... Short-tempered, who, me?

Gibson obviously noticed and understood the slight movement. "Gee, don't be ridiculous," he said calmly, settling into one of the chairs opposite Chad.

He knew I was only being overdramatic. When it comes to it, my bite can be worse than my bark, but most of the time I'm just a load of empty threats. But hey, when you're female and only just pushing past five feet tall, you've gotta do something to make it work with the big boys.

"Just don't break my chair," I said grudgingly.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything important," came a new voice.

This time, I wasn't the only one who instinctively went for my gun. Ha! The guys all made the exact same movement. Well, weren't we all a paranoid little bunch? Working on the force does that to you. Word of advice; never go on a ghost train ride with a cop. You'll end up a nervous wreck.

We all turned towards the intruder. L was stood in the doorway, face blank and completely unaware of the disturbance he'd just caused. What the hell did he have against my doorbell? He'd been a heartbeat away from having four guns pulled on him, the idiot.

"I have a doorbell, y'know," I grumbled, easing my hand out from inside my coat. Nobody else relaxed. "You can chill out, guys. This is L." Yeah, I may have forgotten accidentally on purpose to call him Ryuzaki. Maybe now he'd quit using my full name over the phone.

Oblivious to the almost painful silence, L asked, "May I come in?" He was still hovering in the doorway. Maybe he was secretly a vampire and couldn't cross the threshold without being invited in.

"Sure, take a seat." I waved him in. Nothing like allowing the undead into your home.

"Thank you."

I pointedly didn't look at anybody else as L climbed onto the only empty chair. I could only imagine the looks on their faces. I knew that if I caught anyone's eye – especially Chad's – I wouldn't be able to keep a straight face. Now wouldn't that be professional?

L was followed into the office by Watari, the man with the hat. Only without the hat, this time. He was older than I'd thought, but he didn't seem in any way weak. He had neat white hair, half-moon spectacles and a tidy little moustache. He looked like a mix between a favourite grandparent and a maths teacher. Or maybe Albus Dumbledore, minus the beard.

Yes. You don't need to point out that I'm a geek. That's old news.

I hadn't even known there'd been anybody else out there. I contemplated turfing Chad out of my chair so that Watari could sit down, but he dutifully took up position beside Kenichi, who was standing against the wall. He didn't seem to mind. He gave Kenichi a small nod and I remembered that Kenichi had worked for L previously. He didn't seem to have met Watari before either, because although he nodded back out of politeness, he didn't show any signs of recognition.

Seeing as we were now all here, I retrieved my keys from my pocket and locked the front door. The blinds were still closed from protecting my hangover yesterday morning. I figured L would appreciate our little group having some privacy from the outside world.

I took off my trench coat and hung it off the hook on the wall above the printer, along with my shoulder bag. I left my gun holster on. I couldn't have been safer, seeing as I was in a room with three highly skilled police officers, but hey, I didn't want to feel left out.

I moved across so that I could lean against the wall opposite Kenichi and Watari and see everybody better. Man, were we a funny-looking little group...

L seemed happier with the door locked. "Can I please ask that everybody turn off their cell phones and place them here on the desk?" he requested, totally bypassing any introductions.

I didn't see why we should. I opened my mouth to say so, but Chad actually beat me to it. "Why? Do you think we're gonna try and broadcast this meeting somewhere?" Go Chad!

"No. I find it to be very distracting when a cell phone rings in the middle of a conversation," L explained tonelessly.

Chad shot a glance at Gibson, who shrugged. Kenichi was the first to take out his cell phone and lay it on the desk in front of L. He seemed happy to do what he said. The rest of us followed suit. I placed my iPhone down with the nice green Psych cover facing upwards so that everyone could marvel at its awesomeness.

Nobody did. I docked brownie points off all of them.

"Thank you," said L, once everyone's cell phones were asleep on the desk. "Now... Let us get down to business. We're all here together to make this easier, so let's start discussing the case at hand."

I had to fight very hard not to make a retort to that. He was only here working with us all in person because I'd practically bullied him into it. But I bit my tongue. We'd never get anything done if I kept making snide comments in response to everything he said. None of the others mentioned anything either. Either they weren't as wound up by L's remark as I was or they were thinking along the same lines as me.

"So what's going to be our next move from here, Ryuzaki?" Gibson asked professionally, getting straight to the point. "We haven't had much luck with any of our leads so far."

L chewed the end of his thumb absent-mindedly. "We may have to resort to retracing our steps. Not the murder scenes – they've been completely covered at this point - but we can try and get some more interviews underway. I'm thinking acquaintances of Elizabeth Montgomery and Carter Burnham in particular. They were where the case started, so we should start back there ourselves."

I nodded along with the others, but I felt quite disappointed. Even though the rest of us hadn't been able to, I'd kinda been hoping L would come up with some brilliant new lead for us to follow. But the truth was that this case had hit a dead end. Even the world's greatest knew the only thing we could do now was go back and start picking up scraps.

Thankfully, I'd been in this business long enough to know not to get too de-motivated by this. You never knew what interesting things you might pick up from people you wouldn't have suspected to be useful.

"We've already interviewed the key people," commented Chad. A brass lighter had appeared from his pocket and he was flipping it casually from one hand to the other. He didn't smoke much – I knew he just liked to keep his hands busy when he was frustrated. All the same, I wished he could have chosen something other than a lighter to play with. "Do you really think we'll get much out of interviewing them again?"

"I wasn't planning on us interviewing the same people twice," L replied. "I think we should try and find other sources we can question."

"Like who exactly?" asked Chad. He'd now started flicking the lid of the lighter open and then closed again.

"We haven't questioned anybody from either of the victims' places of work yet," Kenichi pointed out.

The guys started to throw ideas back and forth. I wasn't even listening anymore. I was too focused on the lighter Chad was playing with. "Chad, will you cut it out!" I said suddenly, interrupting their conversation.

I saw Watari turn his head in my direction curiously, but I looked away. L didn't seem at all interested by my interruption. Gibson and Kenichi both knew better than to say anything and Chad looked slightly abashed. Let's just say I've had a bad experience with fire in the past. It's tended to make me a little edgy about it.

"Sorry, Gee," Chad apologised, putting the lighter back in his pocket.

"Maybe we could try interviewing some of Carter's past girlfriends," I suggested quickly, eager to return the conversation back and take the emphasis off myself.

I seemed to have chosen a good suggestion. "Interesting," said L. "Do you think that could be useful?"

"Well, I still think there's a possibility that Carter's affair could be relevant to the case." Yeah, yeah, I know I kept coming back to that. But it was the only piece of evidence I'd managed to find that nobody else had – of course I was going to hang onto it. "Obviously, we don't know who he was having an affair with... But maybe one of his exes might know something useful."

"It's worth a try," agreed Gibson. "It's not like we have any other ideas right now."

"Then we'll have to contact his family so we can find ways of getting in touch with them," said L.

That made me think of Melissa Burnham. "We could ask his sister. Apparently they were really close and she was quite helpful when I spoke to her."

"Did you tell her you were a police officer?" Gibson asked pointedly.

"Maybe..." I mumbled. I knew Gibson wouldn't be happy that I still used my old badge to get me credit.

"Then of course she wanted to help you," said Gibson. "You know she wouldn't have been as inclined to trust you if she knew you were freelance."

"Either way..." I said loudly, ignoring him. He still wasn't going to let go of the fact that I'd been investigating behind his back, even if it had helped out. "I think she'll be our best bet for finding Carter's ex girlfriends."

"Do I get to interview someone?" asked Chad hopefully. Trust him to want the job that definitely involved women. Couldn't he just be professional for once?

Either Gibson was oblivious to his motives or he didn't see it as a problem. "We'll see how many people we need to interview first and we'll split them amongst us. We're a team, remember. We all get a share in this."

And what a damn weird-ass team we made.

"I'm sure with the four of you dividing this amongst yourselves, you won't need me to do any interviewing," L pointed out. "Though if any of the interviews are going to be recorded, I would very much like to have a look at them myself."

Did this guy have a fear of people or something? Frowning, I forced myself to look at him. I realised I'd been looking anywhere but at L. Honestly? He'd kinda been creeping me out. He just seemed too unusual to be one hundred percent human. I must have been spending too much energy on being hungover yesterday to have noticed.

"So what are you gonna be doing while we do all the work?" I couldn't help asking.

Gibson gave a very audible groan and Chad chortled quietly to himself. Kenichi shot me a look that I couldn't quite make out, whilst Watari simply looked pleasantly amused. I didn't care about any of their reactions. L was starting to annoy me again already – I felt that gave me reason enough to speak my mind.

Annoyingly, L wasn't at all perturbed by my accusatory tone. "I'll continue to monitor the case from my own distance," he said cryptically.

I wanted to ask how that was going to help and why we needed somebody 'monitoring' the case, but Gibson was now giving me a very warning look – one that clearly said 'shut the hell up and stop causing trouble'. I realised that was what Kenichi was doing too. Well, hell, now they were all ganging up on me. Surely I couldn't be the only one who was annoyed by this.

Regardless, I did what they wanted and kept my mouth shut. Gibson took the opportunity to take over. "If any of them are willing to come into the police station to be interviewed, then we'll ask their permission to record the sessions. If not, we'll make sure we compile extensive notes for you to review afterwards," he told L.

L nodded. "I appreciate that." He then climbed down from his chair. "Seeing as we've now become better acquainted and we have our next step planned out, I should be on my way."

I noticed the guys all exchange surprised glances. I didn't blame them. It had taken us ages to get L here and now he was making his escape already. Man, he really didn't like to hang around. Though I guess it didn't take a genius to see that he wasn't one for small talk.

Hats off to Gibson though – his professional manner didn't slip in the slightest. "Right. Thank you for meeting with us today. Hopefully, the case will run more smoothly from now."

"Yes. It's been a pleasure to meet all of you. You know how to contact me if you have anything to update." L turned towards Kenichi. "Mr. Takano... Thank you also for the help you gave us in Karuizawa last year."

Kenichi nodded politely. "My pleasure."

L then turned to me. Oh god, now what did he want? "Gee Shidou?"

Urgh. I wished he'd stop addressing me by my whole name – he didn't do that to any of the others. Though at least he knew better than to call me Georgia now.

"Yeah?" I said warily. I'd decided I didn't trust him one bit. My previous respect for him was old news. His methods of working were completely unreasonable and I hated how Gibson was just letting him get away with it. He probably knew it too. As always, I was more than happy to speak my mind. "If you're going to gloat over how you're in charge of this case, I'll shoot you in the leg."

"Gee!" exclaimed Gibson, exasperated. Hey, I thought I was being quite generous. I could have said I'd shoot him in the head.

"Actually, I was going to say you'll have to unlock the door so that Watari and I can get out," said L, completely unfazed by my threat.

My face burned. Oh, well done, Gee, you just made a complete and utter fool out of yourself. I managed to pull my keys out of my pocket and fumbled with them in the lock. It was a lot harder to do knowing that everybody was watching and no doubt wanting to laugh.

I managed to get it unlocked and flung the door open rather ungainly. "Well... bye," I said shortly.

L didn't seem at all bothered by my sudden rudeness. He didn't comment on my now very red face either. "Contact me if there's anything new," he simply repeated as he left. Watari gave me a half bow before following L out the door.

I shut it after them, maybe a little too hard. If the situation had been any different, I would have been interested in knowing how L had gotten here. I couldn't quite imagine him and Watari walking companionably along the street. But I definitely wasn't going to stand and peek through the blinds when I still had an office full of cops. I reluctantly turned to face them.

Oh, great, now they all looked amused. Even Kenichi did. I'd always thought it would be easier to steal an egg from a velociraptor than it was to derive humour from Kenichi.

I gave them my best sulky look. "If I hear a word from any of you, I'm not giving you a ride back to the station."