“Allow me,” he said courteously.
Biting back her irritation, CJ muttered, “Thank you,” and hurried inside, very aware that he was directly on her heels.
The reception area was just as empty now as it had been when she’d arrived earlier. This time, however, no one stuck their head through the back door to greet them.
“Charlotte Jean?” Mac said suddenly.
CJ turned to frown at the man with confusion. “Who’s Charlotte Jean?”
“Not you apparently,” he said with a faint smile, and then tried, “Christine Joan?”
Realizing he was trying to guess what her initials stood for, CJ turned abruptly, moved around the reception counter, and through the door Captain Dupree had poked his head out of earlier. She wasn’t surprised to find herself in a large bullpen office with four desks set up in each corner, leaving a small aisle running up the middle.
“Catrina Jacqueline?” Mac tried again, pausing beside her.
CJ ignored him to glance around the large open office space, noting the filing cabinets and cupboards running the length of all four walls, absent only where doors were. There were seven doors: the one she and Mac had just come through, three in the wall to their left, two on the right, and one in the back. Both doors in the right wall were open. Through one she could see a large table with several chairs around it that she guessed would be a conference room or the morning meeting room where the captain addressed his men. The other open door on that side led into a large, well-appointed office that had to be the captain’s. It was empty now.
“Cherry Juice?” Mac guessed next, and CJ finally turned to look at him.
“Cherry Juice?” she echoed with disbelief.
“It’s possible,” he said defensively. “I met a girl once with that name.”
“I’m going to take a wild guess here and say she was a stripper,” CJ suggested dryly.
“No,” he said at once, and then frowned, and reluctantly admitted, “Actually, I could not say. We merely shared an elevator in a hotel I stayed in once. She was quite chatty, but did not mention what she did for a living and I never asked.”
“With a name like that she was probably a prostitute,” CJ muttered, and turned to glance to the doors in the wall on their left. Two of them were open, the first and last, while the door in the middle was closed. The open doors revealed small rooms with a single table and two chairs in each. She recognized right away that they were interview rooms, which meant that the middle room between them was probably fitted with two-way mirrors and a sound system where interviews could be observed and recorded. They were as empty as the bullpen and the other two rooms, and CJ frowned at the deserted state of the place.
“I really think if you are going to be guarding me that I should at least know your name.”
“Trust me. I will not be guarding you,” CJ assured him grimly. She started toward the door in the back wall when it suddenly opened and a short, middle-aged woman in a loose, rumpled pink velour jogging suit entered. The woman was staring blearily down at the cup of coffee she was stirring as she walked.
CJ stopped abruptly at the sight of her. The lady had bedhead, her salt-and-pepper hair standing up in all directions. Her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and she was wearing absolutely no makeup. She looked like someone who had just been rumbled from her bed in the middle of the night and dressed quickly.
“Oh!” the woman gasped, and paused when she lifted her head and saw she had company. For a moment, she looked as if she wasn’t sure whether they were friend or foe, or what to do, but then Officer Simpson entered behind them, and the woman relaxed with relief. “Michael! Thank goodness!”
Simpson came to a halt next to CJ and Mac, surprise covering his expression as he stared at the little woman. “Mrs. Dupree! What are you doing here?”
“Oh, Charles asked me to come in and cover for a bit,” the woman said wearily.
“Cover?” Simpson glanced around at the empty bullpen with a frown. “Where is everyone?”
“Charles and Steve are at the hospital,” she explained anxiously, her gaze sliding to CJ and then away. “And everyone else is out on calls.”
“Everyone?” Simpson asked with amazement, moving to the nearest desk on the left and setting the evidence kit down before turning to concentrate on Mrs. Dupree.
Mrs. Dupree nodded. “I don’t know what’s going on tonight. Maybe it’s a full moon, but Dandridge is handling a break-and-enter at the pharmacy, Owens is at the scene of a pretty bad car accident, and Brown and Jamieson are at a domestic dispute. Brown went on that call alone originally, but I guess there was trouble and he called in for backup. Jamieson was the only one here so Charles called and asked me to come man the phones so Jamieson could go help Brown.” Her eyes skittered to CJ and away again before she added, “And, of course, you were covering the fire with the lady from the SIU.”
“Ah, yes.” Simpson glanced to CJ with an apologetic smile. “Ms. Cummings, this is Captain Dupree’s wife, Audrey Dupree. Mrs. Dupree, this is CJ Cummings from the SIU.”
“Ma’am,” CJ murmured politely, offering a pleasant smile and nod.
“And this is Mr. Argeneau,” Simpson added quickly when Audrey Dupree’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly on CJ. When that didn’t draw the woman’s angry glare away from CJ, he added, “It was his house that was set on fire tonight. He nearly died.”
That did manage to get the woman’s attention off of CJ. Blinking in surprise, Audrey Dupree turned to Mac with amazement, her gaze sliding over him in his now dry pajama bottoms and T-shirt as she set her coffee on the nearest desk and rushed forward to take his hands. “Oh, my goodness, Mr. Argeneau. Are you all right? Should you be up and about? Charles said you were trapped in the house and they didn’t expect you to live, but you look fine. What—?”
“Yes, I was trapped in the house, but the firemen got me out in time and I am fine,” Mac assured her soothingly, interrupting her torrent of words, and then, smiling wryly, he managed to retrieve his hands and gestured to himself. “Not well dressed at the moment, but alive and well.”
“Well, you come sit down and I’ll fetch you a sweater or something,” Mrs. Dupree said at once, tugging him toward a chair. “I can’t imagine how frightening it must have been to be trapped in a fire like that.”
“Did the captain tell you when he expected to be back from the hospital?” Simpson asked as Mrs. Dupree tried to steer Mac toward the nearest desk chair. “I need to get this evidence logged, but I want to call him and tell him that Mr. Argeneau is alive and ask what to do about protection for him.”
“Protection?” Mrs. Dupree asked with surprise.
“Well, someone tried to kill him tonight,” Simpson pointed out gently. “He was in the house and—”
“Oh, good Lord, yes!” Mrs. Dupree said with dismay, and then turned a pitying look on Mac before saying, “I’ll call Charles after I get Mr. Argeneau a sweater. I want to talk to him anyway and see what’s happening at the hospital. You go log your evidence.”
“There’s really no need to fetch me a sweater,” Mac protested, resisting the older woman’s efforts to get him to sit down. “Really, I am fine, Mrs. Dupree.”