“No, not yet.” Hayes was holding his hand up, palm forward. His sat up straighter, pulling his legs from the desk and planting them firmly on the ground. “Lunch first, work later.”
I didn’t move, and he chucked me softly on the shoulder. “Come on, I’ll even buy.”
“Such a gentleman,” I said, sliding the files back into my shoulder bag and standing up. “Shouldn’t we get to work right away? Isn’t this kind of pressing though? The case, I mean?”
Hayes headed out the door, and I nearly had to run to keep up with his long, purposeful strides.
“The case is definitely pressing. And lunch is more pressing. Besides”—he patted his trim stomach—“I work best on a full stomach.”
We walked outside into the moist San Francisco air and stood on the curb, waiting for traffic to pass. Hayes had his hands in his pockets, his lips and forehead puckered as he thought.
“So explain to me again how the UDA operates. And what is it, exactly, that the Underworld Detection Agency detects?”
I shrugged. “We detect paranormal activity to some extent. And more or less, we detect who and what is traveling through the Underworld or becoming active in the other world.”
Hayes smiled. “The Overworld?”
I looked both ways and then stepped into the street. “Frankly, this world is rather wrapped up in itself. It doesn’t really recognize the Underworld as actually existing, so it’s pretty much just ‘the world’ up here. As for how we operate …”
Hayes reached out and grabbed my shoulder, his fingers digging into my flesh as he yanked me back and a rusted-out van zoomed past us.
“Whoa,” I said, my heart pounding. “That was close.” I looked at Hayes’s fingers on my shoulders as his grip softened, but he didn’t move his hand. “Thanks,” I said.
Hayes didn’t look at me, but he was smiling. He dropped his hand to his side, leaving a sudden cold spot on my shoulder where his palm had been. “So you were saying …”
“Right. How we operate … well, it’s a little like the Social Security office, I guess. Demons register themselves with us. Once you’re on the UDA radar, you’re entitled to all the perks of the Underworld—unemployment, workers’ comp, protection from labor and personal disputes …”
Hayes steered me toward the double doors of the Fog City Diner and paused. “Demons get workers’ comp? In case what? A vampire breaks a fang on a particularly stubborn artery?”
I rolled my eyes. “Very funny. The UDA just works to keep a sense of order and harmony in the Underworld. We allow demonkind a little protection from a regular world that really disregards them.”
“Until they scoop your eyeballs out.”
I rolled my eyes. “Can we just get something to eat now?”
We walked into the warm diner, and I inhaled the comforting scent of club sandwiches and too-crisp French fries, smiling. “Smells good,” I murmured.
Hayes nodded and held up two fingers to the woman behind the counter. She grabbed two menus and a couple of place settings, then beckoned for us to follow, leading us to an empty table by the window.
We slid into the booth and Hayes handed me a menu. He scanned his while I played with the laminated corner of mine, my stomach churning, my mind going a million miles a minute. Hayes looked up, eyebrows raised.
“What’s wrong? Oh, don’t tell me. You’re vegan or something, right? Fruitarian? Only eat orange things?”
I wagged my head. “No. Nothing like that. What’s a fruitarian?”
“Girl I dated in college …”
I looked up expectantly, but he just shook his head and went back to reading his menu.
“I guess I’m just a little nervous,” I said.
Hayes grinned at me—a wide, lady-killer grin. “Really? I couldn’t tell.” His cobalt eyes traveled to my hand, to the loop of red hair wound absently over one finger. I quickly dropped the lock of hair and sat on my hand.
“Nervous tic,” I said. “I hate it.”
“Actually, I think it’s kind of cute.”
My heartbeat sped up, and I sat on my other hand.
Hayes shrugged, scanning his menu again. “So what’s there to be nervous about? I’d tell you if you had spinach stuck in your teeth or something.”
I blew out a long sigh. “There’s a killer out there. Doesn’t that bother you even a tiny little bit?”
Hayes turned over his coffee cup, and the waitress came by, giving him a nod and sloppily sloshing coffee into his mug.
“Honey, there’s murderers everywhere.” He lined up three sugar packets and dumped them into his cup, clinking his spoon against the mug as he stirred. “It’s just another day at the office.”
“But these are different—and don’t call me honey,” I said, my voice a hissing whisper. “Eyeballs are missing. Blood is missing. People are being torn apart. You can eat when people are being torn apart?”
I looked up to see that the waitress had returned and was working on a piece of Hubba Bubba, blowing large bubbles and then sucking them in.