” “Being talked down to by the Ice Queen?” Alyssa asked, wiping her face into a mask. She didn’t want him to see how stung she was by his word.... She knew her colleagues had every right to think of her as a cold bitch, but hearing someone point it out was something different entirely. Especially when that someone was Nick. “You know about that?” He felt a pang of guilt for having gotten caught up in making fun of her behind her back with his colleagues. It wasn’t even that he disliked Alyssa.. ”I had to admit that he was persuasive. He seemed almost normal.Roy excused himself to go to the restroom. I suspect he wanted to give Laura and me a chance to talk.“What do you think?” I asked.“I like him,” she said.“Does that mean you’d like to try a session?”She looked down at her plate. Then she met my eyes and held my gaze for several minutes.“I guess so,” she said.Her answer was more than a surprise. I’d expected she might say that we could talk about it, but I wouldn’t have been. There were three other doors. One was undoubtfully a bathroom, the other two Angel guessed were bedrooms. It was the typical apartment floor plan. She was still looking around when she heard him putting his keys on the table and take off his jacket. “You can set your bag down wherever you want. Make yourself at home.” She held tight to her bag, not trusting him to not take it if she let go. “Are you hungry? I can make you something to eat.”She shook her head. She wasn’t used to eating so. ”“You have our word, Sheriff,” Wayne said.“I know. You’re Family.”“How are they?” Johnson asked Mead at the hospital. It was nearly four in the morning and both men arrived in unmarked cars. Johnson had stopped long enough on his way from SSG to change into street clothes. From a distance they looked like any other late-night visitors to ER.“Completely silent,” Mead said. “Adam and Julia are taking care of them but the children haven’t said a word. EMTs said they didn’t say anything all the way.