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“I know hiuarded It didn’tthat we needed to know A lot of people are just naturally suspicious of the police Go figure

“This is Marshal Anita Blake and Marshal Otto Jeffries,” Livingston said,down the table toward us

I said, “Hi, Hazel” I was going to try to be the good cop, because Olaf sure as hell couldn’t do it

She mumbled, “Hi,” before she could stop herself A lot of people will do autoive the where soet such deep lines, she must have frowned a lot more than she smiled

“We just want to ask you a few questions, Hazel,” Livingston said

“I don’t know anything,” she said She hadn’t asked us what it was about, just gone straight to not knowing anything about it Either she did know so, or she’d had a run-in with the police before

“I bet you know lots of things,” I said, s

Hazel frowned harder, looking at ”

She put a lot of eain there was that echo of sullenness that teenage girls seem to specialize in, as if a part of Hazel was stuck at about fifteen or sixteen If you have soet stuck at the age when it happened, and without therapy, you can stay stuck for the rest of your life I was beginning to want to know ure out who done it, I’d leave it alone, but if we needed leverage to get her to talk to us, then I was pretty sure her past would give us a lever to move her or at least to try

“I bet you can figure out the ood tip faster than I can”

She frowned even harder so that the lines in her face looked almost painful, more like scars than lines, as if her unhappiness was a wound that showed on her face

“And I bet you know this menu backward, forward, and sideways”

She gave a half smile that softened the pain in her face “I’ve worked here for over three years, so yeah”

“Please have a seat, Hazel We just want to talk to you,” Livingston said

The smile vanished, and she was back to sullen and wary “I have other tables, Dave Sorry” She actually started to walk away