Page 16 - Julie Thorley Nine Lives book

The Big Sheep
which makes me nervous. Why would anyone drink something green when there’s decent Joe on hand? She has her back to me, so I take a proper look before she knows I’m there. Even allowing that she is sitting down, she looks short. She isn’t
a child though: maybe mid-twenties. Dressed like an out-of- towner, with more colour than we usually see around here. She’s put her wet coat over the back of the chair next to her. I can see she has a decent gure, but she’s wrapped it in a sweater that looks like it was hand knitted. Makes my skin itch just to think of it. I’m strictly an easy-care synthetics kind of guy.
Sitting in the city in her country threads, this broad ought to be so far out of her comfort zone that it’s just a memory, but if she is she doesn’t show it. I gured any guy’d be crazy to leave her, so this wasn’t going to be a missing person case. No jewellery that I could see, so probably not a robbery. So, what did she want with me?
I take a seat opposite her, but don’t bother to take my coat off. I don’t plan on stopping long.
I say, ‘Miss Peep: I’m Payne. You looking for me?’
She looks at with me with lime eyes that could shatter glass, but her voice is smooth as caramel as she says, ‘Call me, Beau, please. The guy behind the counter – Donny?’
I correct her: ‘Denny.’
She just waves her hand and says, ‘Whatever. He said you’d be along if I waited.’
Yeah, he knows my schedule. I ask her what she needs and she says she lost something very precious.
I say, ‘Money? Diamonds? You’re gonna have to give me more to go on, honey.’
So she explains.
‘You’ll think I’m crazy,’ she says, ‘but I’ve heard you’re the best so I’m going to have trust you.’
It crosses my mind to wonder where this little lady had heard my name, but I let it pass. I’m intrigued.
So I say, ‘Hit me, Miss Peep. What’s the story? It won’t be anything I’ve not heard a hundred times before.’ But I’m wrong.
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