Free Hallow Point by Ari Marmell

bill later on.
    “They’re good guys. More professional’n me, frankly. You’ll be taken care of.”
    She glared, sharp enough to shave with, and I kinda wanted to crawl under the desk and bang my head on the underside ’til I forgot this whole damn day. Upset as I mighta been, though, she wasn’t pulling anything over on me. I could taste her uncertainty and, yeah, worry beneath the ice queen “I am accustomed to obedience!” routine.
    ’Sides, I’d mastered that routine, and a thousand like it, before I’d ever even thought about ditching the Court.
    I’d call it a clash of wills, but there was no clash to speak of. She might have me all tied up, turned around, and off my game, but she still had no real chance at staring
me
down.
    “I want
you
,” she said finally, and I pretended I didn’t near trip over my own feet at her choice of phrasing. (Yeah, I
was
sittin’ down at the time. So what?) “It was your name I was given. I don’t trust anyone else.”
    “I’m right here, doll. Still for hire and everything.”
    “But…”
    Ramona looked down at her purse, her fingers, and up again. That little quirk of a smile was back.
    “All right, Mr. Oberon. You are
truly
odd, but you have a deal. It may take me a short while to dig something up that I’m prepared to part with, though. My relationship with my parents was, ah, complex.”
    Yeah, I coulda guessed
that
based on her relationships with everyone
else
. Figured that wasn’t the most politic point to make, though.
    “Mick,” I said instead. “If you wanna be ‘Ramona,’ I gotta be ‘Mick.’”
    “All right… Mick.” She scribbled something, stood—a move so effortlessly sinuous that she
had
to have practiced it—and passed me a check. “Five days’ expenses in advance. Is that fair?”
    “That’ll do me just fine.” I slipped the paper into a desk drawer. And pretty much forgot all about it, frankly. “When you get home, it’d be real helpful if you could gather anything either of these cats mighta left behind, no matter how unimportant it…” Why was she looking at me that way?
    “Why’re you looking at me that way?”
    “I thought… Aren’t you coming with me?”
    It took putting spurs to my brain a couple times for me figure out what she meant, especially since I had a few preferences of my own.
    “Miss—I mean, Ramona—I’m a gumshoe, not a bodyguard. I can’t watch over you twenty-four seven. I got leads I hafta follow, I got other clients and responsibilities.…”
    “Keeping me safe was part of the deal,” she insisted, knuckles whitening on her purse.
    “Yeah, but I
do
that by
finding
…” I hadda sigh, there, even though it’s a habit I picked up from you mugs. Like a bad virus. “Tell you what. You got a friend you can visit with for a few hours?”
    “I do.”
    “All right. Gimme your address. Lemme spend the day digging up what I can—”
and what the police have
“—on your boys. I’ll call on you this evening, with whatever evidence I’ve gathered, give the place a thorough up-’n-down, and set up shop for the night.
    “In a different room, of course,” I added—kinda sorrowfully, I gotta confess. “You got no cause to worry over my behavior, but whatever anyone thinks if they spot me there, that’s on you to deal with.”
    When she nodded at that, I went on. “Once I got a sense of how things are over there, what your situation is, we’ll talk about what’s necessary to keep you safe and sound. If it looks to me like you
do
need somebody, I’ll stick around as much as I can, and I got pals can keep an eye on you when I can’t.”
    Another nod, slower this time. “That… will do for now, I think,” she agreed.
    “Swell.” I put a hand just behind her shoulders, guiding her toward the door. “Don’t you fret, doll. I’ll figure this out, and you’ll be fine.”
    She’d put one toe through the doorway when she turned, gripping my forearm nice’n tight.
    “Mr. Ob—Mick,