No Immunity

do?”
    “Yeah, well...“
    Tchernak slung his arm across the back of her seat and she leaned into it. It felt cozy and warm and the desert reminded her that sometimes friendship can be all you’ve got. At times she had assured herself she was immune from the need for friends, for lovers, for anyone who tied her down. She hadn’t been immune, just wary. People are demanding; they misunderstand; they leave; and sometimes they the. No matter how many cases she worked on, trying to explain a death, the explanation was never enough. It never blotted out death. She felt foolish even thinking about it. But that she wasn’t about to admit, certainly not to Tchernak.
    Her silence hung between them. When she turned and looked at him, he kept his eyes on the road. But his hand tensed on her shoulder.
    She could manage without Tchernak, she told herself; she’d managed before him. She could hire another housekeeper, make arrangements for Ezra. But no one would care enough to badger and fuss like Tchernak. And if he was gone, she’d worry about him working all alone. And, well, she’d miss him.
    “Okay,” she said, “here’s the deal. Get your six thousand hours with me. We’ll negotiate pay. But you’ve still got to cook. And be available to walk Ezra—”
    “Ez? This just saves me kidnapping him. This is terrific,” he said clapping her shoulder. “So I’m going to be a partner.”
    She shook her head. “Tchernak! We haven’t even finalized the verbal deal and already you’re out of control. You’re not going to be a partner. You’re going to be an apprentice.”
    “Oh, right. No problem.” He was grinning. “No problem, boss. I can follow orders.”
    She was smiling, too, but a bit more skeptically than he.

Susan Dunlap is a founding member and former president of Sisters in Crime. She lives with her husband near San Francisco . No Immunity is her seventeenth novel.