“I met, officially, Abigail Lowery today.”
“Oh, now, this is good. This is sit-down-and-relate-every-detail good.” She settled down at the breakfast counter, patted the next stool. “I’ve been dying to pin that one down. What’s she like?”
“At first I’d’ve said rude, abrupt and downright unfriendly, but with a little more exposure, I have to put it down to socially awkward.”
“Poor thing.”
“The poor thing carries a Glock on her hip to the fancy market.”
“A gun? When are people going to realize that going around armed is just asking for—”
She broke off when he tapped a finger to her lips.
“I know how you feel about guns, gun control and what you see as a perversion of the Second Amendment, Sunshine.”
She huffed, shrugged. “It can never be too often repeated. But go on.”
He told her about the market, going out to her place, the dog, the locks. By the time he got to his digging into her licenses, and the number of registered handguns she owned, Sunny decided the story called for a second beer.
“What’s she afraid of?”
“See that? Exactly. That’s what I want to know. And as chief of police around these parts, that’s what I need to know. But to finish up, then Sylbie came in.”
Once he’d told her the rest, her outrage over the guns had subsided, and her focus shifted. “That just breaks my heart.”
“What?”
“Honey, she’s so alone. Of course she’s socially awkward when she’s got herself barricaded up by herself, and against God knows what. She’s not sounding like one of those survivalists or those crazies thinking they’ve gotta load up on the guns and locks for the revolution or the Rapture. You said she does programming, and security business. Maybe she found something or invented something. Now the government’s after her.”
“Why is it always the government, Ma?”
“Because I find it often is, that’s why. She could’ve been a cyber spy or something like that.”
“I love you.”
She slitted her eyes, kicked him lightly in the shin. “Nowyou’re using those fine words to be amused and patronizing.”
He couldn’t quite disguise the smirk. “Let’s just say she didn’t strike me as the espionage type.”
“Well, they’re not supposed to, are they? They’re supposed to blend.”
“In that case, she’s a crappy spy, because she doesn’t blend.”
“All right, maybe she’s on the run from an abusive boyfriend.”
“I didn’t find anything in her record about filing charges.”
“Some women don’t go to the police. Some just run.”
He thought of Missy and her latest black eye. “And some stay. One thing I know, the way she’s loaded up and barricaded, whatever she’s hiding from—if that is the case—it’s bad. And if the bad finds her, it finds her here. I’m responsible for here, and whether she likes it or not, for her.”
“I love you.”
“Was that amusement and patronizing?”
“No.” She cupped his face. “That’s just fact.”
9
