Page 49 of Rest In Pink

I charged in and sat down and the woman in the apron—“This is Marianne,” Anemone said, “She’s a really good cook,” Peri said—dropped the plate in front of me and smacked a pitcher of syrup down next to it.

Veronica looked up at me with pleading eyes, remembered who I was, dropped the starving dog act, and waddled over to Peri, who was a much better bet for dropped sausage.

“Thank you,” I said to Marianne, and picked up a fork, still wary.

But come on, it was two women and a kid. I was a combat-hardened Ranger. What could go wrong?

I cut a piece of sausage first and bit into it and savored it. I don’t know where the hell they got that sausage but it was—

“Are you Liz’s boyfriend?” Peri asked, peering at me over her waffles.

I waited for Anemone to tell her it was rude to ask personal questions, but when I looked at her, she was smiling at me, her eyebrows raised as she waited for my answer.

I thought about stonewalling, but I had just crept out of the woman’s bedroom.

“Yes,” I said, and Anemone nodded in satisfaction.

“Are you going to marry her?”

Come on, Anemone, teach the kid some manners,I thought, but Anemone was sipping her tea.

“No,” I said, and cut into the waffles.

Marianne was a really good cook.

“Why not?” Peri said, frowning at me.

“Because she doesn’t want to,” I said, ninety-nine percent sure she didn’t.

“Why doesn’t she?”

“You’ll have to ask her that,” I said, moving through my waffles at the speed of light.

Anemone came through finally. “Peri, don’t ask personal questions at breakfast. People aren’t awake yet.”

Peri nodded as if that made sense. “Have you ever shot anybody?”

I looked at her sternly. “I thought Anemone just said no personal questions at breakfast.”

“That’s not personal, that’s about your job,” Peri said, and I thought about arguing with her about that and decided a simple answer was better.

“I’ve never shot anybody in Burney,” I told her. “I’ve never shot anybody as a policeman.”

“When did you shoot somebody?” she asked.

Kid’s seven years old and picks up on nuance.

“When I was in the army.”

“Were they bad people?”

“I don’t know,” I said, because that was the truth. “They were the people on the other side and they were shooting at me.”

Peri thought about it while I finished my cakes and sausage. Anemone was staring at me in a way that disconcerted me.

“That’s dumb,” she said finally.

“Extremely dumb,” I agreed.

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