A Bodyguard to Remember Read Online Free PDF Page A

published.” Okay, more than a few.
    He gave me a speculative look, eyes now narrowed to slits. I returned his gaze, trying to convey through telepathy or at least a pained expression, how important this was to me. He looked over at Merrick. I followed his gaze. Merrick shrugged.
    “Do what you can,” he said.
    Zeke asked for the flash drive and I provided it. It was on a key chain with my external network router. Truth be told, my old laptop was a dinosaur.
    “Well, you won’t need that with this,” he said, holding up the latter gizmo. “You have a router, Bluetooth, and a cellular modem built in. I’ll get you a replacement flash drive, but in the meantime, I can transfer your data to the laptop—which has more than enough room to store ten times the data on this. I just have to check the directory for any piggybacked data . . . hey, why don’t you guys go ahead to dinner. This might take a while since I don’t want to transfer anything that isn’t supposed to be there. I’ll catch up when I’m done.”
    Merrick agreed and we left Zeke to his machinations.
    We took my car and went downtown for Chinese food. There were closer restaurants, but our favourite place was downtown and we needed a familiar treat.
    Sergeant Merrick barely fit in my little car, but he was good-natured about it. Maybe he understood that driving gave me some illusion of control. That’s one of the reasons I drove a standard. These days, most people haven’t got a clue what to do with a clutch. Seth never learned. More importantly, my mother was strictly automatic everything. Before she accepted that her eyesight was going, she insisted that she could still drive. Once her jelly-bean-red Neon was sold and my metallic green Echo was in the driveway, she couldn’t sneak out risking vehicular homicide.
    One of the other nice things about driving standard is that you have to focus more on what you’re doing, especially when you’re driving on a main artery at the tail end of rush hour and hitting every other light. I didn’t have enough attention to fret about the turmoil in my life. What brain-power wasn’t used gearing up and down as I wove through traffic, I spent listening to Merrick as he broke the ice with my kids.
    “Call me Sarge,” he told them, still sounding like the impassive Vulcan, even when he added, “we don’t need to be formal. We’ll be seeing quite a bit of each other for a few days. Also, if you have any questions about what’s going on, I’ll do my best to answer them.”
    Hope had a hundred questions ranging from whether he had ever killed anyone (no) to uniform dress rules, as in when he might wear his red uniform (ceremonial occasions only) to asking for a suspect list in the murder case.
    “That is a matter of national security,” Merrick said. “If I told you . . .”
    “You’d have to kill me?” Hope finished.
    Then Boone made a rather embarrassing comment about me having a thing for men in uniform, prompting Merrick to apologise for being a plainclothes detective.
    “That’s okay,” Boone said. “Cop uniforms aren’t her favourite anyway. She likes Starfleet uniforms best.”
    “Don’t be rude,” Hope said, punctuating her order with a punch from the sound of it. She was only a few minutes older than her brother, but she acted like a big sister. “You’re not supposed to call cops ‘cop’ to their face.”
    I darted a look at Merrick. His Vulcan-like reserve was cracking.
    “Not a problem,” he said, managing to keep his voice steady. “Cop is just short for Constable On Patrol. Now, if you call a police officer a ‘pig’ that’s rude . . . and stupid.”
    “So I can call you a cop?” Boone asked.
    “I don’t really mind, but I’m a detective sergeant, not a constable. Why don’t you stick with Sarge?”
    “Yeah, doofus,” said Hope.
    Fortunately, for the sake of peace in the backseat, we were just a parking space away from arrival. Once they were out of the car, Hope