Page 15 of Kiss Her Goodbye

Up ahead to the left, I see another apartment with yellow crime scene tape strung out front.Hmm, now I have two possibilities to check out.

Daryl parks the car, engine still idling.He twists around and gives me a disappointed expression.“You quittin’?Just like that?”

“No, meeting someone.Though now that you mention it, never hurts to consider other options.”

“This is no place for a single female.”

And yet a family with small children, like the ones still regarding us with hunched shoulders, the woman clutching the youngest closer?

“What do you think rent goes for in a place like this?”I ask him.

“Five, six hundred a month.”

“Better than what I was seeing in the paper,” I murmur.

“No first and last month rent required.Just first month plus security deposit.Big difference.”

“You ever live in a place like this?”I ask curiously, given he seems so knowledgeable.

“Somewhere similar.”

“When?”

“Six years ago.When I first got out of prison.”He eyes me expectantly.

I merely shrug.“I’ve never been to prison, but I have been to jail.Little problem with alcohol.”

“Drugs.”

“Been sober eleven years.”

“Eight.”

“I gotta keep moving.”

“I gotta keep dancing.”

I nod again, his words making perfect sense.I also better understand his loyalty to Bart.Few would hire a convict recently released from prison.Fewer still would entrust him with their six-figure luxury sedan.

The door to the eviction-notice unit opens.A woman appears, young, white, and with a mess of curly blond hair gathered high in a ponytail.She’s dressed in jeans and a pink T-shirt, with a blue bandana tied around her neck and yellow dishwashing gloves on both hands.

She glances over at the idling car, does a double take at the obvious wealth.I pop open the door and step out.

“Ashley Cantrell?”I call out.

She raises a gloved hand in tentative acknowledgment.I smile broadly, then duck my head back in the sedan long enough to declare, “I’m gonna need an hour.Maybe two if there’s still a lot of cleaning to be done.”

“Not a good idea,” Daryl states.

“Most of mine aren’t,” I remind him.

“Get yourself killed,” he warns, “and Petunia will be pissed off.”

I shudder slightly at the reminder.“Don’t worry, I doubt the housing coordinator of a resettlement agency is much of a threat.”

“Sure you know what you’re doing?”

“Never.”