I’d been there before, only a few times, but my visits had been brief. Mainly dropping something off or picking something up and always I was with Kitty Sue or Ally.

And always, Lee was there.

Now, Lee was not.

“This is not a good idea,” I said to Ally.

Ally and I were the same height, both at five foot nine. Ally weighed twenty pounds less than me, was a jeans size smaller because she had much less ass and one cup-size smaller because she had much less boobage. She had whisky-brown eyes like Hank and thick, dark brown hair like all the Nightingales, hair that she kept rock ‘n’ roll crazy long, just like me.

Right now she was wearing a denim mini-skirt with a ragged, cut-off hem, a bright yellow tank top with “Sugar” written across the chest in glitter and flip flops.

We’re both thirty years old, with Ally two weeks younger than me. We’d be eighty and wearing denim mini-skirts and I’m-with-the-band t-shirts, I foresaw this for our future and even though I thought it was cool, it also kinda scared me.

Ally was talking. “Lee’s out of town. He’s not due back for ages. Definitely not tonight. And anyway, no one’s crazy enough to break into Lee’s condo.”

I considered her words as I looked at Rosie.

Rosie was having a “talented-artist-in-a-crisis” moment. His eyes were wild and he looked about to bolt.

Rosie wasn’t my favorite person at that particular time. Rosie nearly got me shot but it wasn’t entirely his fault, he didn’t shoot at me and he didn’t mouth off to the bad guys.

I’d always had trouble with my mouth.

Anyway, he was my friend and I had to keep him safe. That’s what friends do. They don’t drink so they can drive you home when you’re drunk. They like your boyfriends when you’re with them and then trash them after you’ve broken up. And they find you a safe house when people are shooting at you.

And Ally was right, only someone with a death wish would break into Lee’s condo. Even I was having heart palpitations at daring to enter Lee’s lair, worried he’d go all commando if he found us there.

Not only that, it was a secure building and Lee lived on the fourteenth floor (with an unobstructed view of the Front Range, by the way).

Ally looked between Rosie and me. “What’s this about?”

“Don’t tell her!” Rosie shouted.

“I’m not gonna tell her!” I shouted back, beginning to lose patience with Rosie. I forgave myself for losing patience. I figured that happened when you got shot at. I’d never been shot at but I was always a quick learner.

Ally lifted her brows at me and I gave her my “later” look.

“I need caffeine,” Rosie whined and walked to Lee’s couch. It was soft, rich leather and faced an enormous LCD TV. Rosie threw himself on it and rubbed his temples with his fingers trying to find his Zen nirvana without a stainless steel pitcher filled with frothing milk in his hand

“You don’t need caffeine, you need Valium,” I said.

“I’ve got Valium,” Ally put in.

Ally could generally find all different kinds of pharmaceuticals either in her personal medicine cabinet or through her network of contacts.

“I don’t want Valium. I want to get the bag back from Duke as soon as possible and go to San Salvador,” Rosie said, grabbing the remote and being a bit dramatic.

“He’s an artist with an artistic temperament,” I explained as I walked Ally to the door.

“He makes coffee,” Ally replied.

I ignored that. Ally didn’t understand the beauty of coffee. She preferred tequila.

“You sure Lee isn’t gonna come back?”

I didn’t want to be caught in Lee’s condo when Lee didn’t know I was here. I hadn’t been somewhat successfully avoiding him for ten years to be found in his condo in the middle of the night harboring a possible felon who had bad people after him. There was a good possibility Lee would frown on that.

“He’s in DC,” Ally replied. “I think you should take his bed.” Her eyes got big and happy when she said this and I sighed and rested my shoulder against the wall.

“Maybe you should call him,” I suggested.

“He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s out-of-town on business. Only in emergencies.”

“This might be considered an emergency,” I explained unnecessarily as I’d called her only twenty minutes ago, hyperventilating, and telling her someone had shot at me and Rosie and we needed a safe house. Such things didn’t happen every day, in fact, they never happened, at least not to me.

Ally looked through the open plan kitchen to Rosie, who’d turned on the TV and was watching the Food Network.

“What bag is he talking about?” Ally whispered.

“I’ll explain it later. Just call Lee and warn him that we’re here, just in case.”

Ally swung her eyes back to me. “Was a time when you’d live for that kind of ‘just in case’?”

“I’ve told you, that time’s long gone.”

Ally studied me. She’d heard this for ten years and still didn’t believe it, the silly, stubborn bimbo.

“Right. I’ll call him. Still, I think if he was gonna come home, he’d rather come home to find you in his bed than Rosie.”

“I’ll sleep in the guest room.”

“Girl,” Ally smiled, “Lee doesn’t have a guest room. That second bedroom is locked up tight and no one gets into that room. Hank and I call it the Command Center but no one knows what’s in there.”

I turned to look at the three closed doors that opened off the hall and when I turned back Ally had the front door open.

“Later.” Then she was gone.

I grabbed the door and watched her sashay down the hall.

“Call him!” I shouted.

She gave me the peace sign and got on the elevator.

“She’s not gonna call him,” I said to the empty hallway.

* * * * *

Ally was right.

I did a wee bit of snooping (as you do).Two doors in Lee’s hall opened, one to the bathroom and one to Lee’s bedroom. The other one was locked up tight. I even walked along the wraparound balcony to check if I could see in but the French doors to the second bedroom had curtains and those curtains were firmly closed.

After what seemed like a lifetime of Food Network, I found Rosie a pillow and blanket and crawled, bleary-eyed and still a little scared (not only at the night’s events but at our accommodation) into Lee’s big bed.