Denise stroked Nick’s arm, while glancing from Nick to Gus. “You guys know how it is. Every kid’s different. Rachel must be pretty far along now. I bet that’s interrupting your lives a bit… if you know what I mean.”
It only then dawned on Nick that Denise was hitting on him. His first thought was he must be slow on the uptake this morning. He saw Gus grinning at him. “We’re doing real well. Thanks for asking. Yeah, Rachel’s pretty excited. Have you and Ray considered a little brother or sister for Lisa?”
“Not happening,” Denise replied with finality, drawing away from Nick. “We can’t afford any more kids. Well… have a good day, guys. I have to go put on my maid uniform, and get the house in order. Bye.”
Nick and Gus returned the parting salutations, but looked at each other with mutual amusement. Jean came over to tug on Nick’s arm, and hand over Deke’s leash. Deke had been petted and stroked into a stupor by the other kids, so he sat next to Nick with only curious glances at his companions.
“I have to go in. I hope you two can stay out of trouble today. The walk to school was the bomb. I’m riding the wave today with my zombie killing expertise. That was great Mom bought my first place pictures for me. I have proof I am now Jean the Assassin. Hey… what did Lisa’s Mom want?”
“Um… wondering how our 7D Experience turned out,” Nick replied.
“Oh… good, because it looked like she was trying to seduce you, Dad.” Jean ran for the school entrance giggling all the way.
“That kid is going to drive me insane when she hits her teens, and we can’t ship her off to military school. The brat’s nine, going on thirty.” Nick grinned over at his partner. “Of course I will be allowed to take over full mode training because she’ll make Rachel so nuts, she’ll dump Jean on me completely. Man, I sure hope us writing together can yank her back from the precipice of this Jean the Assassin persona she’s creating in her head. It would be a hell of a lot better to write Jean the Assassin into a story. I’ll have to coax her into that one. By the way, Jean told me she’s outgrown her Danger Girl nickname.”
Gus was still watching Jean make her way to the entrance with friends tagging along. “I’ll file that away, but I can’t promise to not forget once in a while. I don’t know that you’ll be able to do much other than try and spark an interest in our former Danger Girl. Stupid or not, the concentration and natural skill needed to score firsts in that zombie kill game with nineteen adults was damn impressive. I don’t know how recruits embrace the assassin game in real life, but Jean seems to be working her way into a full out assault on it.”
Nick shrugged. “I’ll train her in writing and the tools which will look harmless to Rachel, but would pave the way to something else if Jean actually wants to go there. She loves guns, and shooting them. Jean loves to write stories though, which may give me my edge in this. I’ve already given up trying to turn her away by intimidation. She knows a bluff in a heartbeat. That’s where Rachel runs into the rocks at. By the way, Denise was high again this morning.”
“Yeah… I know. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice. Ray’s a nice guy after his Halloween attitude adjustment, and Denise is a good woman. She’s fightin’ the demons of suburbia. Denise is at that age where women don’t like anything in their lives, and counting their blessings is impossible. I don’t want you killing her for it.”
Nick yanked gently on Deke’s leash in a return direction to Nick’s house as he led the way back. “I’m not the cops, Gus. I’m not killing Denise. We have enough on our plate, but the former Danger Girl can’t stay with them at any time in the near future until something changes. Denise’s little seduction gambit notwithstanding, I don’t want anything happening to Lisa. She and Jean are still besties. Let’s file that on the watch list, and take care of what we have to deal with now. We’ll do some stalking on the Shalimar, making sure she left dock for her destination. We have Tracy’s reaction to her pursuers’ deaths on our radar when the story hits.”
“Then if we can lift Al Mady off the Shalimar, you’re thinking she’ll put that on you too? I don’t know Nick. You may be giving Tracy a bit more credit than she’s due. You haven’t told me yet how last night’s gig went down at the docks, but her putting together that along with an Al Mady disappearance at sea would practically place Tracy into a clairvoyant category.”
“True. She’s hard line enough to be suspicious of coincidences though. Hell, I don’t want to kill the dumb hooker either, but if Tracy tries pulling off something as stupid as that Al Mady stunt on me, I may have to make an adjustment. I’m not as sloppy as Fahid. If anything, I was sloppy saving her.”