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Sullivan looked towards Kahn. “This is why she hired you? Why you guys are asking the other Phases questions about her?”
“You’re asking other people questions about me?” Randa gasped in outrage. “Who? Where?”
Kahn hesitated, knowing he was in trouble. “Julius went to the Elemental realm and…”
Randa didn’t let him finish. “Damn it, Kahn! You have no business digging into my life!”
“I didn’t! I’ve been with you the whole time. It was Julius.”
Julius opened his mouth to protest. Then he sighed and closed it again, taking one for the team.
“I’m sure you were all in on it.” Randa hissed at Kahn, while gesturing towards the other suddenly guilty-faced Light Phases.
Kahn didn’t answer that, probably because he knew it would only make the situation worse. “Randa thinks Saxon, of the Air House is stalking her.” He informed Sullivan, instead. “We’re going to stop him, because he’s a dangerous, amoral asshole.”
“Yeah, I picked up on that when the guy tried to kill me.” Now, Sullivan was pissed. He scowled over at Randa. “You should’ve told me that bastard was threatening you. How does Ben fit in?”
“He doesn’t. Kahn just wants it to be Ben, so he’d be proven right. He wants everything to go his own way.”
“What has gone my way lately? If things were going my way, you wouldn’t be cooking dinner for Isaacs!”
“If they were going my way, you wouldn’t be poking your nose into my past!”
“I’m trying to protect you from dangerous stalkers, like Isaacs and Ben!”
Randa threw up her hands in aggravation.
“I still don’t get who this ‘Ben’ person is.” Daven whispered to Mannus.
“He is Ben Foster, our nefarious human enemy. We’re going to kill him directly after we kill Saxon and then steal his pink boat.”
“Sax has a pink boat?”
Randa’s furious eyes stayed on Kahn, color high on her cheeks. “Ben is not stalking me! I never even met the man before last night. Why in the world would…?”
The door to the police station slammed open with a violent jostling of the little bell, cutting off Randa’s angry words.
Steve, the kid who worked at the florist, dashed in wearing a worried expression. “Chief, I think you’d better come down to the flower shop, as fast as you can.”
“This boy again? You see how he shows up everywhere you are?” Kahn asked Randa, because somehow he thought it was a genius idea to start yet another argument. “He could be the stalker.”
She made a clenching motion with her hands, like she was imagining wringing the Light Phase’s neck.
It was so unexpected that Sullivan nearly laughed. He’d never seen his ladylike secretary so worked up. Honest to God, if Kahn wasn’t already so arrogant, Sullivan would thank him for dragging Randa out of her quiet shell.
He got to his feet, forcing himself to focus on Steve. Kahn’s suspicions aside, the kid was not a criminal mastermind. His T-shirt had SpongeBob on the front. “What happened to your parents’ shop, Steven?”
“Somebody wrecked the place!”
“Vandalism?”
“No, it was like payback, I think.” Steve reported in dire, excited tones. Any crime in Mayport was big news, and he was at the center of it. “We put up a sign in the window that said that we wouldn’t deliver anymore flowers, without the sender providing ID. ‘Cause of what Miss Randa’s,” he shot Kahn a wary look, “friend said about not wanting any more mysterious bouquets going to her.”
Kahn grunted, pleased that his orders were being followed.
Steve hurriedly went back to recounting his morning. “Anyway, I got to work, and everything seemed normal.” He told Sullivan with great importance. “But then I went into the back room, and there’s this big crash! I ran out to see what happened, and the window is busted. The same one that had the paper on it, about no more deliveries from any secret admirers.” He nodded, pleased to have reached the crescendo of his harrowing tale. “Someone threw a brick right through it.”
“I had a secret admirer once.” Tallulah Jayne announced, because she always needed to be the center of attention. “I’m pretty sure it was Timothée Chalamet.”
