Free Killing The Rat (An Organized Crime Thriller) by Dani Amore Page A

made. It was a little weird being there, and she was scared, but afterward, she knew she could do it. She had always been good at turning her mind off things. About categorizing, and blocking and filing emotions away when she needed to. There had been times at the dinner table growing up when she’d wanted to strangle her father but instead had smiled sweetly at him. It was a good tool to have.
     She had financed her education that way, dancing and the occasional hooking job. She tried to keep the hooking to a minimum, once or twice a month. But it all depended on how good the dancing gigs were and how short of money she was.
    It had turned out to be enough, though. She’d gotten her degree and taken some pre-law courses, hoping one day to be a lawyer. But law school had intimidated her. So she decided to take additional courses to get a job as a legal secretary, and then work her way into a paralegal job before going back to law school. Law school had been too intimidating back then. Holding down dancing jobs and raising a son.
    Besides, she had become disgusted with herself for hooking. The dancing wasn’t bad. A bunch of desperate men who half the time didn’t even pay attention to the girl’s dancing. Most of them were torn between the pretty young thing grabbing her ankles on stage, and ESPN’s Sports Center on the television behind the bar.
    So she’d graduated, gotten a job at Ryson, Butters & Mahoney, and become a helluva legal secretary. Enough so that she’d been able to get the little house in Warren.
    Her taste in men, though, hadn’t improved. She went out with an attorney or two and found most of them were too busy checking themselves out in mirrors or trying to impress her with their Porsches. So many of them were blatantly insulting to her. The dimwit little secretary they expected to be so impressed with their money that she would immediately sleep with them.
    The fact was, most of the men she’d turned tricks for had shown her more respect than the lawyers she dated.

19.
     
    The Ann Arbor exit on Highway 14 came up suddenly and Loreli steered the Camry into the sharp curve. The little car’s wheels squealed slightly and the body shuddered at the forces running through it.
    She made the curve and straightened the Camry out, then accelerated through the green light at the base of the small bluff overlooking the southern end of Ann Arbor.
    Loreli had been here once before. She and Liam had needed a change of pace so they’d come here. Found a nice park with a good play structure. Loreli had chased Liam around the park and then they’d gone out for cheeseburgers and malts.
    It had been almost a year ago, but that was recent enough for Loreli to remember how to get to the downtown area of Ann Arbor. She took Reynolds Boulevard until it ran into Division Street, then took that to State Street. There, she followed the signs that alerted drivers to the direction of the University of Michigan campus.
    Loreli checked the address on the slip of paper and looked for Harper Street. She passed coffee shops and bookstores, antique shops and furniture stores. It was early on Friday morning. Most of the streets were empty, people at work, students in class.
     She found Harper and three blocks later cruised slowly past the Prescott Hotel.
    She parked a block away and shut off the Camry. The silence fell over her and she glanced into the rearview mirror. Loreli dreaded what she was about to do. Cursed her own stupidity for ever getting involved with deadbeat men. The only guys she ever dated, if she ever dated again period, would have to be goddamned Eagle Scouts, or priests. Or former Eagle Scouts turned priests.
    Loreli looked at herself in the mirror again. Well, she thought, that wouldn’t do. The expression on her face was murderous. She’d scare the john so badly he wouldn’t want to touch her.
    She forced herself to relax. To put on her game face. She had a job to do and by God she was going to do it