Page 11 of Shelter for Morgan

"When you painted your car in the driveway?"

She shook her head before looking at him, confused. "You really want to hear about it?"

"Of course."

"It's a stupid story about painting my car."

"Painting Claude, you mean."

She laughed. "Yes. I painted Claude."

He stepped ahead to open the door with his key and then held the door open.

She walked by and had to turn at an angle to fit through the doorway. "I started painting it while my brother was at work, because if I did it while he was there, I'm sure I would have gotten a lecture, or he would have stood there judging me with his eyes."

Morgan gave him a steady stare as he walked up to the bank of elevators.

"It's a remarkably accurate look."

"I know, right?" She laughed as they waited for an elevator to come down to the lobby level. "Well, I was done with the first color, spraying here and there around the body until I felt like I had a good start, when I heard the loud, uber-distinctive electronic trill that announced there was a black and white behind me."

Rhett managed to smother his smile as the elevator doors opened.

He let go of the suitcase handle to hold his arm out and block the auto-sensor that would have closed the door on them.

Once in the elevator, he punched the button. "What did the officer have to say?"

"The officers," she exaggerated the S, "were ready to cuff and stuff me into the cruiser when our neighbor came running out to stop them."

Rhett was trying not to blurt out any questions, but they were at the tip of his tongue.

"Missus Klein was an elementary school teacher for years and yes, she had been mine. She came running out to ask the officers what they were doing besides bending my arms behind my back like a fancy dressed chicken in the butcher shop window."

He raised an eyebrow at that.

"Yeah, well, she let them know that my brother was on the force, which is when I wanted the ground to open up and drop me into a hole all the way through to China."

Rhett had to bite into the inside of his cheek not to respond, but the doors at his back opened at that moment.

He held the door and followed her as she grudgingly went out first.

"What did the officers do?"

She stopped outside his door and gave him a smile and a roll of her eyes. "They called my brother, of course. And he freaked out. If it wasn't for Missus Klein, I think they would have just taken me right down to Juvenile Hall."

He opened the apartment door and paused, looking at her with a raised brow. "But you were an adult."

"Well, I still looked like a stick back then. I looked fourteen, sixteen tops. That's probably why they thought I was playing hooky from school and painting a car with a drop cloth."

She moved her bags in and set them down in the entry to rub her arms.

"It turns out that Mister Lucas across the street called in to say that I was defacing private property."

His shoulders shook. "Your own private property."

She lifted her hands before wincing. "Missus Klein was in top form. She reminded the officers that it was a good idea to ask questions before rushing to judgement. She told them that I was one of her former students and that she found the idea that I'd be defacing property... laughable."

"Well, as nice as it would be to trust everyone's elementary school teachers as character witnesses, it's probably not police procedure, but-"

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