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Chapter Fourteen

It was four hours later and I was sitting in Detective Sherbet&039;s office Mary Lou,an eye on Anthony

"Is everything okay?" asked Sherbet He was sitting behind his desk and watching me curiously He alatched me curiously

I wanted toSherbet without a donut in his hand, but I just wasn&039;t up to it Instead, I said, "My son&039;s sick"

Sherbet sat forward He was a father who loved his own son A son as as effeminate as Sherbet was masculine And Sherbet was as masculine as they come Thick hair covered his forearray His belly pushed hard against his white dress shirt, putting a lot of pressure on the center buttons In fact, the third button froonna blow, I thought

The ar on Sherbet Really, he was athin His body fraht, and he did so in a sexy way I always figured that if I enty years older I would have a serious crush on the man I must not be the only one, since his oife had to be pretty young to have a child still in ele to Sherbet, was on the fast track to ho my detective friend to open his heart and mind in ways he never had before

"So what do the doctors say?" he asked

I shrugged "Apparently the flu&039;s going around They told me not to worry"

"You&039;re not doing a very good job of it, kiddo"

I shrugged "Mostly, I&039;onna blow and take out my eye"

He looked down at his belly And now that I looked again, I was certain I could see the faint outline of a jelly stain A jelly donut stain

He nodded "Okay, I get it You don&039;t want to talk about it"

"Not really," I said

"And to deflect talk about your son, you choose instead to talk about my belly"

"It&039;s quite a belly"

"I like my belly"

"I never said it was a bad belly"

He druernails were perfectly squared and seemed almost as thick asabout my belly?" he asked "Besides, I don&039;t think cops are supposed to say belly"

"And yet you&039;ve now said it four times"

He shook his head "Don&039;t worry about your boy, Sam He&039;ll be fine"

I nodded and wished I could believe hi anything about his belly I told him about Maddie and what my ex-partner had turned up Sherbet listened quietly, and when I was finished he reached over and typed so, I e-like fingers

"Hanner&039;s working the case," he said

"May I speak with hiot up from behind his desk, and as he did so, one of his knees popped so loudly that I nearly took cover Sherbet looked slightly embarrassed "Don&039;t say a word," he cautioned

"Wouldn&039;t drea woman with perfect ht an overwhel desire to hate her She nodded at h I was secretly relieved Shaking hands always followed a small bit of stress for me

Sherbet asked her to sit and she did so next to me Sherbet next askedit nearly word for word These days, my memory seemed sharper and sharper I had no idea what to attribute that to, but I wasn&039;t co

When I was finished, Hanner nodded once and turned and looked at me Her movements were economical and precise She seemed like a well-oiled - and quite beautiful -a s, and uys probably would have had the hots for her if she didn&039;t project such a fiercely caline that a child kno to block caller ID," she said when I was finished Her voice had a hint of an accent Or lish

"Which is why I figured the phone had the block already programmed in"

She nodded "A reasonable assumption Is your business number a toll free number, Samantha?"

"At the time of the call, no"

"But you have it now?"

"Better Just before co here I added another feature to ," said Sherbet

No surprise there Sherbet was an old-school homicide detective and probably not up to date on soy Conversely, private investigators were ale over our co a freaky sixth sense was a hell of an advantage, too He said, "And what does that do?"

"It&039;s a call forwarding service," I said, "When a blocked call coh, I forward it to Trap Call and their toll-free line The caller&039;s ID shows up on their end, and Trap Call relays the information to me Within seconds"

Sherbet looked at Murphy "This h So ait for the next call, then?" he said

I nodded "If it comes Until then, I would like to assist you on this case"

"Do you have a paying client?" asked Sherbet

"No"

Sherbet looked at Hanner "Could you use the help?"

"More than you know," she answered

He looked back at me "You can help Unofficially, of course"

"Of course"

Sherbet asked Hanner to leave the case file with hied She smiled at me, nodded at Sherbet, and left

The detective touched the file on his desk, and said, "I&039;et some coffee Maybe a donut Okay, definitely a donut I&039;ll be gone for about ten minutes You are not to look at this official police file, and you are most definitely not to copy them on the convenient copy machine in the corner of my office"

"Yes, sir"

He set the file down in front of et his coffee and donut, I quickly made a copy of the file I slipped inal to its folder

When Sherbet returned with his coffee and a fresh jelly stain, he calmly picked up the file and dropped it in the "Out" box at the corner of his desk

"I trust you didn&039;t look at the file," he said

"Wouldn&039;t dream of it, sir"

"So what&039;s your first step?" he asked

"First, I&039; to read a file I oing to do what I do best"

"Drive to soccer games in your minivan?"

"Hey, I only do that twice a week"

"Go on"