“She didn’t bite, huh?” Dan leaned on my dark, tiled counter, sipping a beer.

“Nah,” I said with a shrug. “Did you really expect her to?”

“Sure,” Dan said, scrunching his thick eyebrows together. “Little girl like that needs a big, strong man to take care of her.”

“I think that attitude is exactly why she shot me down,” I said, pointing at him with my beer bottle. “She accused me of taking orders from some Jude character.”

“Her manager,” Dan said, nodding sagely.

I squinted at him. “Since when do you know things?”

“Since always,” Dan said cockily. “I’ve been doing some looking into our Little Miss Celebrity. How do you think I got her number?”

“I don’t know, phone book?”

“It’s unlisted, numbskull.”

“Oh.” I frowned into my beer, then at Dan. “So how did you get it?”

“Poked around, impersonated some people. You call around at four-thirty, nobody wants to take the time to check your credentials.” Dan flashed me a shark-like grin then downed half his beer in a single gulp. “I don’t have her address yet, but I know how to get it.”

“Whatever,” I scoffed. “She’s not going to let that out anywhere.”

“She doesn’t have to,” Dan shrugged. “Other people know where she is. People who don’t have to give a crap about her.”

I stood, stretching, and paced a circle around my living room. Fighting had bought me a decent life. Soft carpet, big TV, game systems; anything a guy like me could want. I had learned to be choosy about my things after a while. Learning to live on the streets doesn’t translate well to running a house, and I had squandered a lot of the money I had made on collectible crap. I kept the stuff as a reminder that I had the ability to do it, I did it, and now I have nothing to prove.

“You thinking realtors, cable guys, someone like that?”

“Yep,” Dan said with a grin. “Friend of a friend runs cable out in the snooty boonies. Bet you ten bucks he knows exactly where she is.”

My stomach clenched slightly when he said that. It wasn’t like I was doing anything wrong. Locating a specific person wasn’t wrong. Offering my services wasn’t wrong—it was almost noble. This rationale pushed the guilt down deeply enough that I couldn’t feel it anymore. Good enough, I decided.

“So, get in touch with your friend of a friend,” I told him. “What are you waiting for?”

“Just those words,” Dan said as he pulled out his phone. “You looked like you were getting ready to bail on the plan.”

“Nah,” I lied. “Just looking for my way in.”

Dan grinned as he put the phone to his ear. “Hunter! Buddy! It’s Dan. Yeah, from the bar. What’s good?” Dan nodded and grunted intermittently for a few minutes. Hunter was a talker, apparently.

“That’s great man, that’s great. Hey, I’m trying to settle a bet. I bet my friend here fifty bucks that Paisley Abbott has her own private cable guys. I think she’s too stuck up to have a regular schmo hook her up, but my friend seems to think she’s human. What do you think? No way! Nah, man, I don’t believe you. Where?”

Dan started scribbling on the back of one of my bills.

“No, really? Roman statues? God, does she have gold toilets too?” Dan laughed uproariously, trading in blue-collar snobbery. “How the heck do you even run cable that far out? Oh, really, right on the corner there, huh? Dang. That’s pretty smart. Gotta run it uphill though, that’s gotta be tough. Oh? Down by the river! Doesn’t that place flood every year?”

Dan laughed again, wheezing through years of tobacco smoke. They chatted some more, but I had already tuned them out. Dan had the address, or at least a description that would get me close enough to figure it out. Thinking on my feet was what I did best, by necessity.

“All right, buddy. Well, I guess I lost fifty bucks. Thanks a lot. Oh no, never again, ha-ha! This guy’s one heck of an instigator. Gotta be careful or he’ll bleed me dry. Yeah. Yup. Yeah, you have a good night, Hunter. Take a shot for me, huh?”

Dan hung the phone up with a predatory grin. I raised my brows, feeling somehow defensive, and finished my beer.

“Got it?” I asked.

“Close enough,” Dan grinned. “Last mansion on the river side of Wood Duck Road. Roman fountains around the driveway, three stories. No golden toilets.”

“Aw, how the hell am I gonna find it without golden toilets?” I asked sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

Dan tapped his scrubby chin with a finger. “Once you do find it, what’s your plan?”

“I don’t know,” I said, rubbing a hand across the back of my neck. “Figure I’ll knock on her door tomorrow morning, and… What?”

Dan was shaking his head with a disappointed look on his face.

“Look, kid. She already shot you down once when you went head-on into it. Now you gotta dance. Come in sideways. That surprise one-one-two, you know what I’m saying?”

“Literally, sure. If you were telling me what to do in the ring, I’d be all over it. You’re being all metaphorical. I don’t do metaphor.” I leaned against the stupid little half-wall which separated the living room from the dining room. Why did I even have a dining room?

Realizing that I was suddenly uncomfortable with my entire life because of Dan’s stupid smirk, I glared at him impatiently.

“Sure you do,” Dan said, coming around the counter to lean heavily against it. “You can’t just ask her. Just like you can’t just ask her if she’ll screw you so you can cash out. You have to convince her that she needs you first.”

“You got any suggestions? She wasn’t real open to being convinced.” I crossed my arms, taking a defensive stance for a reason I still couldn’t identify.

“Sure do,” Dan said. “But you aren’t going to like it.”

“Try me.”

“Before I say any more, tell me what you’re going to do with your cut of the cash.” He flashed his grin at me again, and I tightened my arms. I didn’t like being played, and I could smell the manipulation on his beer-soaked breath.

“Whatever I feel like,” I said with a shrug. “Maybe buy me a boat and sail to Ibiza.”

Dan laughed. “Man, I wish I was young as you again! Get me some girls, some booze, forget half my life in the arms of some exotic beauty somewhere.” He sighed, his eyes glittering. “You best take me with you when you go.”

“Sure, Dan,” I said, knowing it wasn’t going to happen. “I’ll make sure the boat’s got an extra bunk.”

“Extra bunk? Son, you’re gonna have a whole wad of cash. Get a big boat! You need enough bedrooms for all those ladies.” He winked, licking his brown tooth.

“Nah, gonna keep it small,” I said dismissively. “Just ’cause I got it don’t mean I gotta spend it.”

Dan paced for a minute, rubbing a finger over his mustache. Pausing, he turned to me. “This about Billy?”

I was quiet for a minute, then decided to answer honestly. “Yeah. It is. He’s still in intensive care. They said he’s stable, but…” I trailed off with a shrug. “I don’t know. They had to drill the pressure off his brain. I went and saw Jeanne. She’s holding it together, sort of. Wishes he would have walked away when the kids were born, but doesn’t blame him. Or me, either. I don’t think she knows how to blame people.”

“Gonna have to let that whole thing go, man,” Dan said, shaking his head. “You gotta focus on the big picture, here. Cash. Money.”

“Priorities,” I muttered bitterly. “How to convince Ms. Paisley Abbott that she needs a bodyguard without any arguing. All right, lay it on me. What are you thinking?”