"How is it possible that you have real fur growing on your arm?" Rebecca asked.
"I wish I knew," replied the Chief.
"Are you sure it's real?"
"Yes, Ms. Williams, I am certain!" Chief Vick was quiet for a long moment as she collected whatever was left of her fleeing veneer of calm. "I am certain. I rubbed it and tugged at it and even plucked a hair out and trust me, I feel all of it. I don't know how this is possible or why it's happening now, but I am growing real animal fur on my arm."
"It looks like tiger fur."
"I thought so, too."
"You said you plucked one out? A hair, I mean?"
Chief Vick nodded. "I did. It was just like pulling out any other one of my arm hairs."
"Do you want me to ask Woody to analyze it?"
The Chief gasped in horror at Rebecca's suggestion. "No! If Dr. Strode got wind of this, the whole station would know by lunch! I'd be the laughingstock of the department, worse than Mr. Spencer!"
"I won't tell him. I can give him an excuse, or not tell him anything at all. I'll tell him I'm doing a project at school or something. That way, he won't ask any questions."
Chief Vick contemplated the idea for a moment. "That's a surprisingly good idea, Ms. Williams. Take it to Dr. Strode, then." She retrieved from her drawer a plastic baggie that contained a single orange-white hair.
"I'll take care of it, Chief," Rebecca said, and smiled over her shoulder as she left the office.
"Such a nice girl," Chief Vick thought as she rolled down her sleeve to cover the strip of fur. "Surprising that she didn't ask any more questions. But now it's time to pull yourself together, Karen. We'll see what Strode comes up with. Give it time. Just a little time."
Lassiter was feeling knocked-out, torn-down, beat-up dog tired when he dragged himself into the tiny Japanese restaurant across from the Ryokan Hiei. He hadn't even gone into the hotel yet, and he didn't plan to set foot in the place until Spencer was passed out and no longer able to irritate Lassiter with the various tales of the vengeful spirit haunting the ryokan.
The restaurant, which was clearly designed to capitalize on the visiting tourists, had seen better days. Every inch of the wood floor was scuffed, the five tables were stained and cracked in places, and the vinyl on most of the seats was torn. Japanese pop art in bold colors covered the red-painted walls. In the back of the restaurant, next to the doors to the kitchen, there was a wooden counter that stretched almost across the room. Assuming that the counter was the bar, Lassiter sat down on the bench closest to the exit and waited for someone to appear from the kitchen. There were only four other people in the restaurant, and only one of them sat at the bar. Lassiter scanned the room on autopilot. Middle-aged couple near the window, one man in his late twenties carrying a guitar, and one young woman, probably in her early twenties. Early Twenties was the one at the bar, sitting three seats down from Lassiter. He would've preferred to be alone, but no one there was a threat.
He turned his gaze back to the space behind the counter when an older man dressed in chef white emerged from the kitchen door.
"Can I get you a drink?" said the man, in heavily accented but fluent English. The place was without a doubt a tourist trap.
"Uh, yeah," Lassiter replied. "Just give me..." Lassiter paused and racked his brain, trying to think of what a Japanese restaurant might serve in the way of alcohol. All he could think of was sake. What was sake, anyway? "Give me whatever she's having," he said at last, gesturing to Early Twenties, who was focused on something she was drawing on a notepad and seemed to be at ease.
"Sure, sure," said the employee.
"Make it a double."
The man nodded, went into the kitchen, and returned a moment later with two glasses of some sort of alcohol. Lassiter paid for his drinks and gulped them down, more for the purpose of saying that he'd done something while he was out than any actual desire to drink.
A flicker of movement in his peripheral vision turned his head toward Early Twenties, who was getting up from her stool. She dropped her notepad and made a little noise of exasperation. Lassiter sighed. That little noise was so familiar to him; it sounded so much like the noises Rebecca made. He didn't care to admit to himself how much he missed her. Early Twenties stuffed the notepad in her little pink purse and Lassiter suddenly realized that he needed to stop staring, but right as he turned his head, Early Twenties happened to look up.
Her face made Lassiter do a double take. He started at the bottom and worked his way back up: pink flip-flops, pink shorts, black tank top with some sort of Japanese cartoon cat drawn on it, and that face. That face, that face that Lassiter would know anywhere, that face whose contours Lassiter had run his eyes over a thousand times, those eyes whose tears Lassiter had caressed away, that thick brown hair that Lassiter had brushed out of the way so many times.
The name belonging to the face popped out of Lassiter's mouth before he even realized it.
"Williams?"
Author's Chapter Notes:
In case you missed the Public Service Announcement on my other current story, I am posting the new chapter a little early because my schedule is going to be a little wonky for the next couple of weeks and I wanted to make sure I got the new chapter out while I still have time. Please enjoy! :-)
Chapter End Notes:
A cookie if you can tell me what fandom the Ryokan Hiei is from. ;-)
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