Page 18 of Sinner's Secret

“You ever get kicked by someone wearing cowboy or steel-toed boots?” Baz asked with a half grin. “It hurts like a bitch.”

Joe laughed. “And works as armor, too.” He shook his head and walked back around the bar. “You need any help?”

“I think we’ll be all right. She was shaken up, but she insisted on going to work tonight.” He glanced at his phone. “I told her I would be there to take her home.”

“What time?”

“In forty-five minutes.” He looked at his phone again. “Fuck it. I’m going over there.” He stood and threw a few dollars on the bar. Not that he’d drank or eaten anything, but he had taken up a chair. “See you tomorrow night.”

“Let me know if you need backup,” Joe said. “Wouldn’t want any other parts of your wardrobe to suddenly develop air conditioning holes.”

“Thanks.” Baz waved and left the bar.

The chances of him asking Joe to help were less than zero. He wasn’t putting the man or any of the half-drunk regulars at his bar in danger.

The result would be a literal comedy of errors.

The drive over to the diner was uneventful. He parked a few stalls down from the building and noticed another yellow cab parked closer. That was...weird. He walked past it and noted that the driver was sitting in the car.

Baz went inside the diner and sat at a table.

Nika came over to him. “Want a menu?”

“No, just a coffee, black.” He lowered his voice a little. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Is that your car?” she asked glancing out the window.

“Nope, a driver is in it, but no one I know.”

“Oh.”

“How long has he been there?”

“About fifteen minutes. Hasn’t moved since he got here. I thought he was you.”

“Interesting.” Baz realized he’d been wrong, there was a way Joe could help. “Let’s test a theory.”

He called Joe and asked him to request a cab. When he complained that no one needed a cab right then, Baz told him he’d give someone a free ride tomorrow night in exchange for a regular ending their night early tonight.

Five minutes later dispatch called his cell phone. Baz told the guy he was off duty, but there was a cab sitting in front of the diner idling. The dispatcher told Baz the driver of that cab was off duty too.

Interesting.

After he hung up, Nika came over again and topped off his full cup of coffee. “And?”

“Something hinky going on with the other cab.” Baz pretended to take a sip. “Tell your people to have a car close by just in case.”

“You think someone is going to try something when we leave?”

“I don’t know, but the skin between my shoulder blades is really itchy all of a sudden.”

Nika nodded, then shuffled her way into the kitchen, her shoulders hunched and head down. She might as well have been wearing a sign that said victim, victim for a hat.

She returned to the front of the diner a couple of minutes later with the coffee pot in her hand. She topped up everyone else’s cups before ending her round of the restaurant at his table.

“We’re covered,” she said in a low tone. Her hand was wrapped so tight around the nearly empty pot her knuckles were white.

He studied her face. Her jaw was clenched tight, her lips pressed together, and though he only saw her eyes for a moment, her gaze was...hard.

---