By one that afternoon I have made considerable progress on the
serendipitously acquired bottles of Samuel Adams and have come up with a
new drinking game I’m convinced is a winner for dwellers of cheap motel
rooms at least; I get to take a drink every time there is a rolling burp of
static up the screen which is guaranteed to occur at least once every
ninety seconds or so. Needless to say, I’m shortly rather inebriated and
running low on brew.

And nearly faint when there’s a knock on the door.

I’m leaning over with my head in the fridge and jerk upright so fast I
whack the back of it on the little freezer tray.

“Shit,” I hiss, grabbing for my head and the little .22 at the same time, a
physical feat I don’t quite have the coordination to pull off and which
puts me on my ass briefly.

There’s a second knock and I’m just about to yell in Spanish that I don’t
need housekeeping when a familiar voice on the other side drawls,” C’mon,
Cowboy. I know you’re in there, I heard you say sheeeee-yit before you fell
down.”

I open the door and Avery grins at me lazily.

“I did not fall,” I inform her. “I just sat down a little unexpectedly.”

“Uh, huh,” she says, brushing past me into the room. “Here. Poppy sent this.”

She extends a foil covered plate to me and I take it, then lift a corner to
sniff.

Its pot roast, with potatoes, carrots and onions, smothered in gravy, a
respectfully Southern looking biscuit anchoring the whole thing down on one
side.

I start to say I’m not hungry but my stomach decides to intervene and
growls audibly. Avery cocks her head to one side and slaps a second package
of foil into my hand.

“Silverware,” she tells me grinning. “Although it sounds like you might
could just inhale it.”

“I take it Maylene never showed up,” I say, plopping back on the edge of
the bed and peeling the foil off the plate. “Hey,” I gesture at the door
with the fork. “Lock it back up for me?”

“Nope. No Maylene.” She slides the deadbolts home and then lifts an eyebrow
at them and the little fortress of chest and bedding in the corner.

“Love your decorating ideas, Cowboy. You get that out of Paranoid
Housekeeping or what?”

I grunt and decide to ignore her.

“She do that often? Not come home at all?”

“She does that all the time and I don’t think any of us really consider our
place her home.”

“But the kids live there, right?”

“Yep.”

“Y’all should think about getting custody of~~”

“Way ahead of you. Poppy has custody of them, all three.”

I look up at her, chewing and wave a hand at the bottle of beer I’d left
unopened on the top of the fridge. She hands it to me and I lean and grab
the bottle opener which is handily attached to my key ring right next to my
hot pink plastic “Drunk Driving is Dumb!” tag.

“Nice touch,” Avery says, shaking her head.

“This is an old Texas tradition, I’ll have you know and anyway~~ you see me
driving anything?” I demand, before switching the topic back to Maylene.
“So that’s good then. You don’t have to even let her in.”

The bed jumps as she plops down on it and leans back on her elbows, gazing
at me, shaking her head disapprovingly.

“Girl, what kind of family did you get hatched to anyway?”

“Do what?”

“Maylene’s the mother of my brother’s children. She’s family. You don’t
turn family out. You may not like them, you may not always be happy to see
them, but they’re still family.”

I shrug. “If you say so.”

“I do,” she responds and I shrug again and decide to leave it alone.

“So, how’d you know which room I was in?” I ask her, trying to keep the
question from sounding as paranoid as I feel.

I glance up and see she’s smirking at me, not fooled in the least.

“I looked for the one with the flashing neon light over it, reading
‘Paranoid Cop Inside’.”

“Ha, ha. How?”

“I sat out in my car for half an hour. There’s only ten rooms and they
change hands pretty quick. Nobody went in or out of this one and the
curtains never moved. And, you know, the lack of marijuana and crank smoke
drifting out narrowed it down. If you really want to be anonymous and hide
out in a place like this you should consider cooking up some kind of drugs.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

“So, you going to tell me what you’re doing?”

Her voice is casual and she stretches out on the bed and props her head in
her hand.

“Nope.”

“Ooooh. Top secret cop stuff?”

I ignore the question and wave a vague hand in the direction of the parking
lot.

“You got a car, right? That what you said?”

She blinks at me without answering and I stand and move to the window and
pull the curtains aside slightly to look out. I’m about to ask her which
one but there’s only one in the parking lot it possibly can be going by the
child seat in the rear and the big yellow Garfield on suction cups clinging
to the inside of one window.

“You work?” I ask and add, “I mean, you know, other than your non-profit
vigilante crap.”

“Just got fired again, actually,” she says easily. “Had to call in and miss
a shift to stay home with Travis. He had some kind of stomach bug,
throwing up.”

She picks at a loose thread in the spread eyeing me.

“Why? You going to tell me about programs for aunts of boys that throw up?”

I snort laughter; she might be annoying as hell but she’s also pretty funny.

“No. I was going to see if you’d be interested in carting me around a
couple of places. I’ll pay you.”

“You have money and you’re staying here?”

“I’m staying here because no one white, blonde, in law enforcement and in
their right mind would even think about spending the night in this place. “

“Uh, huh. And I’m sure you think that made sense.”

“You want to do it or not?”

“Cart you around where?”

I shrug. “Just around. Not far. I need to go to an ATM, for one thing, I
might need a ride to meet up with another cop. Stuff like that.”

She sits up as the laptop chimes announcing new mail and I murmur an excuse
me as I crawl past her on the bed and then sink down on the floor and open
my mail program.

She leans over boosting her hands on the floor and gazes at the computer
curiously and I turn it slightly and frown at her.

“Do you mind?”

“Ooooh. Is it a love letter from the very protective, very jealous dark
haired cop?”

I can feel the blush crawling painfully slow up from my collar.

“No,” I say and wonder if the word sounded as heavy and disappointed to her
ears as it did to mine.

It is instead from the enigmatic Inspector De Lorenzo and is of course
brief, terse and to the point.

“I am heading up the investigation into the charges relating to the vehicle
crash only. I understand your Department is sending a representative to
begin proceedings relative to the assault on Massey. I need to meet with
you as soon as possible; I’ll see you two o’clock tomorrow afternoon at the
Division.”

“You look sick,” Avery comments, frowning down at me, chin in her hand.

I feel sick. The Department is sending a representative to begin
proceedings; that could mean anything from formal immediate termination to
possible criminal charges.

“Hey,” Avery says, thumping me on the shoulder nearest her. “Talk to me.
What’s wrong?”

“You name it,” I sigh and open the second email glancing to make sure
Norton and S’Phear’s Hack Shield program are both running since I don’t
recognize the email address.

It makes De Lorenzo’s email look positively effusive.

“Jinny needs to see you. And I need a partner that’s slept more than an hour and can do something complicated like buy coffee and bagels without
assistance.

She’s staying at my place tonight. I don’t want her alone with Sylvie out.
She’ll be there after 10. I could probably deal with you for half an hour
if it would mean Jinny would get some sleep.”

There’s a house number and street at the bottom of the email; I read it off
and ask Avery if she knows where it’s at.

“Yeah. It’s in the Mission even, although up in the nicer part, not down
here in the Barrio.”

“So you decide if you’re hiring on as my chauffer?” I ask, then pause
blinking as I realize I’d moved the curtains to look out at her car and now
the alignment is wrong for me to see the motel office in my mirror. I go up
on my knees and adjust it carefully, glancing back and forth between the
window and the mirror; then freeze with my hands in mid-air, realizing
she’s watching and I have forgotten.

I feel as if I have been caught in some terribly intimate act. I turn my
head slowly, hands still on the drapery and look at her over my shoulder.

Her expression is unreadable; she’s sitting as frozen as I am, almond
shaped eyes wide, the slope of her posture making muscles stand out in her
neck and arms as if she is poised for flight.

I sink back onto my heels and clear my throat uneasily, waiting to see what
she’ll ask, not having any idea what I’ll reply to whatever it is.

“The people after you… You think they’re dangerous?” She waves a slim mocha
finger back and forth between me and the window, brows lifted.

Well, that’s easy.

“I know they are. They’ve already killed one kid. Who they happened to send
after me with a baseball bat and a knife.”

“Uh, huh,” she nods. “So, driving you around…I’d be getting hazardous duty
pay, right?”


END OF 53

{Crossroads ~ Next Chapter}