Page 74 of How To Plot a Payback

I squint at the dog park, more than two blocks away.

“I believe you are supposed to be back there,” I call back without slowing, “falling for a heartrending story about a man with poor judgment in girlfriends who takes in tiny French dogs.”

She laughs.

“I’m finding I’m more of a sucker for the big dogs, myself. Can you slow down?”

I grind my teeth.

It’s a tricky thing, wanting to be rude to Lavender Rhodes when you are also working with her. One can only be so rude before it’s obvious, and when it’s obvious, she might get upset and lay blame. And if the star of the show lays blame, then, well, I know which one of us Goodwin would trust.

I stop.

“You might want to tell your detail you have fans,” I say, watching a pair of teenage boys tripping along the sidewalk behind her.

She casts a glance back at the duo. “I have no bodyguard,” she replies, and as she reaches me, she turns back with a smile, saying, “Hi, guys. I’m just going to take a quiet walk, okay?” And then she gives them a little wink that apparently translates to “So let’s just keep this between us.”

Sure enough, they give overenthusiastic nods and pocket their phones.

I roll my eyes.

At the light, we stop.

I consider not talking. Wonder how long it will take her to wander off if I go silent.

We’re both silent as people and cars pass.

I blink first. “You need a bodyguard.”

“Obviously,” she says, bright and proud, gesturing at the boys, “I do not.”

“Just because two sixteen-year-olds think they’re in your best-friends club doesn’t mean you don’t need a bodyguard. Surely the network has talked to you about this.”

Lavender draws herself up. “I don’t care what the network has or hasn’t said. I don’t need a bodyguard. I can have a perfectly normal morning walking through a perfectly normal park on my own, thank you.”

“Even Sonya has a bodyguard,” I say, nodding with a squint at the man in the Boy Scouts cap who is now very seriously taking pictures of a palm tree five feet from where Chris has handed Sonya his phone. She is tapping something down. “Who looks like she’s been suckered into a date, by the way.”

“That’s her cousin, actually. What you’re watching is yet another one of her side hustles,” she says.

I frown. “She’s started a bodyguard business?”

Lavender shrugs. “She’s in the city for it with the contacts for it, and she is the most aggressively type A person you’ll ever meet, so . . . I’m not sure why you’re surprised. Sonya’s big on family. Always gets her family to play a role in the things she takes on. So. Yes.” She looks back at the cousin, who has just tripped on a backpack on the ground while trying to get closer to the pair.

I watch him face-plant. “And they agree to it?”

“What?”

I wave a hand vaguely in their direction. “Recklessly participating in questionable business plans?”

“Her friends do too.”

“Which explains why she doesn’t have many,” I say.

She pauses and adds, “You should’ve seen me when I was a dog walker for her.”

At this, I stop pretending to be captivated by passing traffic and give in. Look her way. “You were not.”

“Sure I was.” She looks up at me as though I couldn’t possibly not believe her.