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and that you like me and all….”
    Steve wagged his head, his milky eyes big. “No, Steve doesn’t like Sophie.” His pointed tongue darted across thin, charcoal-colored lips. “Steve loves Sophie. Steve thinks that Sophie just may be Steve’s soul mate.”
    I sighed. “Thank you. But you know you really can’t be popping up everywhere I am, Steve.” I looked both ways, sidestepping Lorraine, the witch/accounts receivable head, as she came barreling down the hall. “UDA has strict policies.”
    Steve grinned again, tapping his chest. “That’s why Steve has an exclusive contract with UDA.” He made his hands into fists and rammed them onto his hips proudly.
    I swallowed. “A contract? With UDA?”
    “We’re furniture movers.”
    I looked skeptically at Steve, his half-bald head barely clearing the top of my thigh. “Furniture movers, huh?”
    Steve nodded, then inclined his head toward me. “So Steve can be close to Sophie all day long.”
    I stepped back, working to avoid the moldy scent that wafted each time Steve moved. “Wow. Well, Steve. Good luck with that.” I patted my shoulder bag. “I’ve got some important business to take care of, somewhere that’s … not here. But I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around.”
    He raised one caterpillar eyebrow hopefully. “Perhaps for lunch?”
    “No.”
    His other eyebrow went up. “Perhaps for a little wink wink, nudge nudge in the supply closet?”
    “Good-bye, Steve.”
    “Steve will be waiting for you, Sophie! Steve will always be here waiting for Sophie.”
    I spun on my heel, trying my best to forget about Steve, standing three feet tall in the UDA hallway behind me, grinning salaciously, gray troll eyes staring me down.
    I kept my head down, shrugged my bag over my shoulder, and hopped into the elevator with a hobgoblin and two pixies. We rode up in silence, three sets of eyes all fixed on the digital readout going backward. When the doors opened at the police station we shuffled out, exchanging positions with two female cops on their way to the garage. The dark-haired woman jostled against one of the pixies. I sucked in my breath as the pink-haired pixie flushed angrily and narrowed her eyes, but she stepped out without making a scene. As the doors slid closed, I heard the cop murmur, “I never know what to call them. Midgets? Little people?”
    “I don’t know,” said the other. “Anyone under three feet tall gives me the creeps. My kids included. Do you want to get a latte?”

Chapter Four
     
    The San Francisco Police Department was housed in a cavernous room with desks every ten feet and uniformed officers threading their way past the occasional plainclothed employee carrying stacks of manila file folders. There was always a phone ringing or a radio squawking, and whether or not there was an actual crime spree going on, the officers were always ready to move. I sucked my breath in as a uniformed officer shimmied by me, his head cocked as he listened to the radio cradled on his shoulder, the butt of his gun brushing up against my hip.
    “Excuse me,” I muttered, jumping out of the way. “Sorry.”
    My heart thumped as two officers pushed through the heavy glass doors and led a sullen-looking woman in, her hands in cuffs behind her back, her hair matted, eyes looking caged-animal wild and rimmed with smudged black liner.
    “I swear,” she was saying as the officers led her past me, “I’m telling you exactly what I saw. It was flying. It was a person and he just flew away.”
    “Just like last week,” one of the officers answered back, his boredom obvious. “What was it then? A dog the size of a couch, jumping over a car? You and Superman, lady.”
    The woman fought against the officer clutching her arm, and I heard her handcuffs rattle. She stopped in front of me, her eyes wide, intense, and terrified.
    “You believe me,” she said, sniffing, moving her flushed face just inches from my own. “I know you do.”
    I stepped