Page 9 of She Gives Love a Bad Name

I chuckle as the door slams behind her. Even if she weren’t a hooker looking for her next client, I’m not interested in picking anyone up. Especially at my brother’s bar. I’m notthatmasochistic.

Claude shoots me a look from the opposite side of the room. I lift my shoulder in response. He shakes his head and returns to his conversation with the vet.

It’s sad. The only people I can trust are my brother, Claude, and my friends, Rob and Arthur. One’s been with me nearly my whole life and the other two are like family. It’s not often you have friendships like that. Especially in my line of work.

Is it lonely? Yes, more so than I care to admit. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The waitress sets my burger down.

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, honey. Anything else I can get ya?”

“No, I’m good.”

With an embellished pout, she turns and heads back into the kitchen.

Claude better keep an eye on his employees. Something tells me they can get into a lot of trouble with very little effort.

I tuck in and savor the crisp bite of bacon and greasy cheeseburger. I need something to fortify me through the night. Whoever’s out there killing people isn’t going to take a night off just because I’m exhausted.

I need to find that loose thread and pull it before this whole case unravels around me.

Chapter Four

Quinn

Another uneventfulnight cleaning a rich asshole’s home. It’s getting harder to come to work every day andnotsteal something. There have been at least a dozen opportunities.

But I’ve behaved, just barely reining myself in before I pocket his wife’s gaudy gems or his gold cufflinks.

They’d immediately know it was me. Especially if I disappeared into the night with a pocketful of loot. Fuck.

It’s so much easier when there’s nothing to tie me to a location. That’s how I did it before I tried to walk the straight and narrow. I never hit the same neighborhood twice. I always moved boroughs afterward. I cased the place for a week or two to learn who had the most predictable schedule and to find the quickest access. Middle or upper class.

Never kids. That was my limit. The last thing I needed was kids in the mix when I was trying to sneak in and out. Kids didn’t need that kind of trauma. Not that it’s anything like the shit I had to deal with, but still. Kids deserve to be kids. So I never hit a place where there was a chance I’d be caught or seen by a child. They deserve the opportunities I didn’t have growing up.

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