"Because you are going out?"
"Right. I have work to do."
"And I can't come?" She sounded like a child asking her mother if she could go grocery shopping with her.
"Not this time," I said.
"Okay." Petulant. She didn't like the idea of me leaving her so soon. I didn't either, but what I had to do tonight she had no business seeing or being a part of.
"Chad is a good man," I said. "You will like him."
She nodded again. "Will you be back tonight?"
"Yes."
She smiled and kicked her feet out again. She was wearing white shorts. Her legs were thin and tan. They were also crisscrossed with scars. I didn't ask her about the scars, but I suspected she had been beaten badly with a belt.
"So how long will you protect me?"
"As long as it takes," I said. Mercifully, she had no children and, apparently, was on extended leave at her baking job, which I discovered was a donut shop. No wonder why Detective Sherbet liked her so much.
There was a knock on my hotel door. Three rapid knocks, a pause, and then a fourth. It was Chad, using the coded knock we had been trained to use.
"That's my ex-partner," I said. I sat forward and patted her knee again. "You're in good hands, I promise."
She smiled and popped her gum. "I believe you," she said.
Chapter Fifteen