Chapter 8: Walk-Out

I stood up.

My chair scraped on the stone floor, loud as a dropped tray.

"Six weeks," I said. "That's about right. I've known you six weeks too."

"Trixie. Sit down."

"I don't take orders at dinner. I take them on the floor, for tips."

Lexie stood up beside me without a word.

She folded her napkin and set it next to her plate, the way her mom taught her.

"Where are you going?" Cillian said.

"Where she goes," Lexie said. "Term three."

Ciro got up too.

"It's midnight. Somebody shot at you four days ago."

"And you're sitting next to the man I'd bet paid for it."

Rino spread his hands.

"Sweetheart. I'm an old man eating veal."

"You're an old man wearing a car."

Ciro came around the table.

He didn't touch me. He stopped one step away with his hands at his sides.

"Don't do this," he said quietly. "Not tonight. Let me fix it tomorrow."

"You had a chance to fix it ten seconds ago."

I walked out of the dining room.

Lexie walked out with me.

We packed in ten minutes flat.

Neither man stopped us at the door.

Cillian walked us down to the gate and stood there, huge and silent in the dark.

"I'll drive you," he said.

"We'll get a cab," Lexie said.

"Then I'll follow the cab."

"That's stalking."

"It's driving."

The cab smelled like pine air freshener. Cillian's headlights stayed behind us all the way down the cliff road.

The old woman had replaced the window over the sink.

There was a strip of blue tape across the new glass, and a plate of almond croissants on the table.

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