Page 43 of Art of the Hunt
“Come on.”
They hurried down the sidewalk.
“I don’t even know how he’s getting to work. His car is at the station.”
“Which television station does he work for?” Nike asked.
“He’s a cop, Nike,” Artemis said impatiently.
“Ooooh. That makes so much more sense.”
“It does?”
“Sure. A weatherman would never dress the way he does. But a cop? I can totally see it.”
Artemis shook her head as she swung her leg over the seat and hopped onto the bike behind her bestie.
“Lead on,” Nike said, twisting the throttle.
They cruised around the nearest blocks, but they didn’t spot Hunter on foot. He must have figured out some other means of getting himself to the police station, so they headed that way.
The last time Artemis had been here, she’d used her magic to convince the guard at the entrance to let her pass without issue. This time, they also walked in without issue, but that was because the metal detector was currently not manned with an officer who would normally have stopped and asked for ID.
“Is this weird?” Artemis asked as they both stepped around the piece of equipment designed to set off alarms if one walked through with, say, a gun. “I feel like there should be someone greeting us at the entrance.”
“Maybe they needed a potty break,” Nike suggested.
“Maybe,” Artemis said, although something about the scenario still didn’t ring true.
Probably due to hanging out and attempting to solve cases with Hunter. She was beginning to doubt and question facts just like him.
“Fascinating,” Nike said, her gaze bouncing everywhere, taking in the people moving about, everyone seemingly in a hurry to get from one place to another.
Some were obviously cops; others were dressed in street clothes, like Hunter, except more fashion-forward, of course. A few were clearly civilians and some were criminals. The guy handcuffed to a bench bolted to the floor, Artemis presumed, was far more than a person of interest.
She led her friend down a wide hall, following a portly man with only a few wispy strands of gray hair on his head. He wore a trench coat, his hands stuffed into the pockets. He turned right; he was heading to the bullpen as well.
As she stepped into the doorway, the man flung open his trench coat, and for a moment she thought he was flashing all the cops in the bullpen. But instead of his wiggling willy, he yanked a shotgun from under his coat and pumped it once, the noise drawing the attention of every human in the vicinity.
“Where is he?” the man shouted, lifting the gun to his shoulder.
Hunter!
Artemis’s heart plummeted to the vicinity of her feet as her gaze shot to his desk.
Which was empty, thank the gods.
She sucked in a fortifying breath that did wonders for steadying the too-rapid palpations in her chest, and then began calculating how many other humans were in the room and in immediate danger.
“Whoa,” Nike whispered near her ear, “is this why you came to Chicago? This is kind of exciting. Do you think he’s going to shoot someone?”
Not Hunter. My heart couldn’t survive that sort of beating.“Given the big gun he’s pointing at all those humans, I’d say this is a sure bet.”
“How’d he get in here with a gun?” someone shouted.
The guy swung to the side, aiming his shotgun at the speaker. The officer immediately threw his arms into the air.
Skip, the detective whose desk was next to Hunter’s, stood and raised his hands. “Hey, buddy, who you looking for?”
