How a department the size of theirs, in a county of only twenty-thousand people, continued to generate this much paperwork, Xander would never know. But for once he was glad of the distraction. He was staying away from Kennedy for the moment, both because he couldn’t think of a reasonable excuse for just popping in again and because he knew that, with Maggie and Athena leaving soon, she really would be busy. Plus, he wanted to see what she’d do. That hadn’t stopped him from thinking about her the past three days, so he’d buried himself in paperwork, something he usually avoided on pain of death.
“Do you have that file on the Pearson case?”
Without looking up, Xander shoved the relevant folder to the edge of his desk. Leanne picked it up but didn’t move.
“Something else you needed?” he a
