The Patrol Van raced down the road, and, as always, the phone rang at the worst possible moment.
Li Jie glanced at it. An unfamiliar number. He tossed it aside and ignored it, but the ringing persisted until he impatiently snatched it up and answered.
"Hello!"
"Sheriff! It's Kara!"
Huh? Kara? It took him a moment to place her. "Who?"
"Kara. Kara Danvers."
Kara... holy shit! He suddenly remembered. "I'm taking a critically injured patient to the hospital. I'll call you back!"
Li Jie hung up and floored the accelerator, heading straight for the hospital. The emergency doctors and nurses were already waiting outside. As soon as he stopped, they hurried the female college student into the resuscitation room. Only then did he station Owen and Emma at the door and find a pay phone to call her back.
"Hey, Kara. What happened?"
"Nothing. Just... just... a very, very tiny little thing." Kara sounded apologetic, and a little guilty. "Sheriff, are you okay? How's the patient?"
"They just took her into resuscitation. I'm..." He looked down at his uniform, which was smeared with green liquid. "I'm fine. My clothes, not so much. Go on. What's wrong?"
"Uh... um... Sheriff, do you remember taking a picture with me?"
A picture?
That immediately reminded Li Jie of a high school girl perched on his balcony railing in the middle of the night. "Ha, I remember. You said you wanted to show it to..."
"Right. I showed the picture to my classmates, and at first... they were all pretty jealous..."
"At first?" Li Jie asked, puzzled. "So they all found police superintendents to date just to outdo you?"
"No," Kara said, sounding rather helpless. "But you never called me or emailed me, so they gradually started getting suspicious, and..."
"So now I have