Good Girl, Logic approved.
Ugh.
With no choice, I set all of that aside and got out of bed.
At five ’til five, all gussied up and ready to make some muffins, and later, some tips, but still dragging (I could seriously not wait until Sunday), I parked my little blue Mitsubishi Mirage in the parking lot behind The Surf Club.
I got out of my car, closed the door, locked it, started toward the back door to SC, and instantly understood I’d learned a life lesson that I was both grateful for, and wished I’d never endured.
Apparently, a girl’s instincts ramped up after she’d been kidnapped (thanks, Trev!).
This was why I pulled my always-charged Taser out of my bag, whipped around and aimed it at the man who was loitering in the parking lot.
I kept it aimed even as I saw illuminated by Tito’s solar-powered lot lights that I knew the guy.
It was Mr. Shithead, one of our informants who was not a friend. He was skeevy and crotchety, and he liked us about as much as we liked him.
That was to say, not at all.
Though he did like my cupcakes, and so far, that was his only positive.
I was a newer Angel in the group, not as new as Joey and Gemma, but not one of the OGs, like Raye, Luna, Harlow and Jess. I hadn’t had as much experience as they did with this guy.
But I’d been around him and the girls talked.
As far as I knew, they’d never seen him away from his post as the nighttime clerk in reception at a skanky hotel in a not-so-awesome part of town.
And this begged the question, what was he doing here?
He put his hands up in front of him. “Listen, don’t shoot. I just want to talk to you.”
“Great. Awesome. How about doing that not in a deserted parking lot at five in the morning? Say, come back during visiting hours,” I suggested, keeping my Taser at the ready.
“I don’t have a lot of choices,” he told me. “They can’t see me coming to you women.”
Uh-oh.
“Who can’t see you?” I asked.
He took a step toward me.
I lifted the Taser a smidge and warned, “Stay where you are.”
He stopped.
My bag vibrated with a call.
I ignored it.
“Okay, I need you guys’ help,” he stated.
Really?
“Why?” I asked.
“There’s like, one person who’s, like, decent to me,” he said.
And that was it.
