“Yes.”
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
There was a grumble of disapproval on that, but the old woman was nodding as she closed herself back in. Dev waited a second. Then he went over to her door.
Rapping with his knuckles, he said, “Ma’am? Throw your dead bolt for me. Please.”
There was a pause. And then shuffling.
The door opened and the tiny old thing stuck her forefinger in his face. Okay… his sternum, because that was as far as she could reach.
“You a good boy.”
Then she shut things back up with a clap—and that bolt was engaged with achunk. As he went over to the staircase, he was shaking his head. How the hell had he ended up going out with some blonde for dinner and worrying about some geriatric’s locks. He’d lived here for—
Dev paused with his boot hovering over the first step. This was a really bad idea, he thought.
He could still turn back.
Then again, he could still turn back on his way to the restaurant.
The trip down and out of his building was a solitary one, and he tried to find good luck in that. As he hit the snowy sidewalk, he hung a right, and put his hands into the windbreaker. The gusts coming over from the river were cold and bitter, as if the weather had taken a personal interest in driving the citizenry of Caldwell into their homes and locking them down, and he decided that was another sign this wasn’t as stupid as he thought it was.
Then again, maybe it was a sign he should have stayed home.
Whatever.
While he traced the path he usually took to work, he looked up to the tops of the buildings he passed. No billboards. And he also didn’t run into any other damsels in distress.
Good thing, as he was retired from that line of work. Permanently.
A couple of blocks on, he passed the construction site. The place was lit up like a stadium, and the muffled sounds of machines running made him check his phone. Second shift had just started. The fuckers had four more hours before lunch, and he didn’t envy them.
No doubt Bob had been surprised Dev hadn’t showed, but probably relieved, too. Petey with the mouth was no doubt even more happy, and youhad to wonder if he’d resumed flapping his lips. Or maybe the lesson not to pick on other people had stuck. Either way, none of it was Dev’s problem. He’d tendered resignation through the Wabash business office, and his former foreman would no doubt hear about things on Monday, if not sooner.
The restaurant was another two blocks to the south, and as he came up to the glow of that nightclub’s blue and green sign, he double-checked his gun was in place and entered the alley. There was absolutely no one else out walking, just a couple of cars traveling on the salted roads, and you never knew who you were going to meet.
He was not into complications tonight. He’d had enough already.
As he arrived at the front entrance of the Italian joint, condensation blurred the view of the interior, but there was no mistaking who was sitting at the table in the window.
Like he wouldn’t recognize that fall of blond hair anywhere.
Unfortunately.
Lyric was facing away from him, her profile as if drawn in pastels, all those long, flaxen waves falling down over her shoulders. She was in some kind of a dark blue sweater, and that scarf, the one she’d maintained her dying grandmother had knitted, was around her neck.
“You can still leave,” he said into the icy night.
As his breath drifted off, a waiter approached and she looked up at the man. There was some communication between the two as glasses of water were put down—and then it happened. The man in the white shirt and black apron nodded like he was going to go, except he paused as she resumed staring straight ahead of herself.
The bastard was looking at her, kind of awestruck—
Dev’s body moved before he decided to go inside, and he might have pushed that door open with a little more force than necessary.
And what do you know, the way Lyric’s face lit up as she saw him guaranteed that waiter was going to live to see his next birthday—as did the way the guy took one glance at Dev and backed off quickly.
Fuck, he did not need to start getting possessive over here—
