Officer Daniel Miller was behind the front desk because night shift had become part of his bones. Twelve years of it had taught him how to read a silence before a person spoke.
There was the silence after a bar fight, when a man wanted to pretend the blood on his shirt had nothing to do with his own temper.
There was the silence of a runaway teenager who needed food before she needed questions.
There was the silence of a frightened wife who said she had fallen, even while her eyes begged him not to believe her.
Miller had learned to listen to the things people did not know they were saying.
He kept the incident log open, the radio low, and an untouched cup of coffee beside his elbow. The fluorescent lights hummed above him. A printer in the back office clicked once, then stopped.
