Whiplash

I'm married to him. He and I have a little boy, younger than you. His name is Sean. Unlike you, Sean can't dance."
    If there was any ice that needed breaking, that broke it. Erin stood back, watching the four of them. Bowie looked over, met her eyes.
    "Sorry I didn't give you any warning about Krissy, but I wasn't expecting her back for another couple of days. We've been dating when she's in town, but she's never taken care of Georgie before, and when she asked me where Georgie was, I didn't think, I just told her. I've told her Georgie needs to stay with you this time."
    "Krissy was really steamed at Erin," Georgie said, sounding very pleased, which made Bowie frown. "She was at school when Erin came to pick me up. She gave me a big hug and told me I would stay with her soon. I could tell she really wasn't happy when we left. She gave Erin the evil eye."
    Erin said, "Everyone come to the table. I'll get the wine and warm up the Chinese."
    "Krissy said she was going to talk with you again, Daddy. She said she was going to be in town for three days before she has to fly back to London."
    Bowie said carefully, "Did you tell Krissy you wanted to stay with her?"
    Georgie shook her head. "I told Krissy Erin was my ballet teacher and I want to get on her good side." She turned and gave Erin a huge smile. "I told her Erin even ironed my clothes for me."
    "I did not iron your clothes, just a light press. You're a brat, and a player-and you're only seven years and six months old."
    "Okay," Bowie said. "I'll call Krissy, tell her again it's best if you stay where you are, to sweet-talk your teacher."
    Married FBI agents, Erin thought, looking across the table at the dark tough-looking man and the sweet-as-a-daisy woman with her vivid red hair and beautiful blue eyes. She imagined their little boy Sean, if he looked at all like them, would be a heartbreaker some-day. She knew she'd have to be on her toes, really careful how she wormed information out of them. It was going to be difficult to even get a word in edgewise since they were already telling Georgie stories about Sean and his best friend Marty, a little girl who could shoot more free throws than Sean could. Then Georgie told them a story about that jerky boy Aaron at school who tried to steal her lunch. Georgie said, "Today I had to eat the peanut butter and banana sandwich Erin made me really fast, because Aaron sniffed it out from six feet away." She followed that with ballet class stories where Erin was featured prominently-stuff she'd said, stuff she'd done. The kid remembered everything. It was scary.
    ". . . and then Erin told Molly Heckler to get her sucker out of her sneaker and stand it up against the window."
    As the adults looked over at her, Erin said, "It wasn't a totally happy ending since I was the one who had to clean sucker-sticky off the window. You didn't tell them that, Georgie. You want another moo shu pork pancake?"
    "Daddy calls them moo burritos. Can I fill it myself, Erin?"
    Sherlock watched the easy camaraderie between the woman and Bowie's little girl. She said, "You guys have known each other for a very long time, right?"
    "Just about forever," Georgie said. "Erin's been teaching me since I was a little kid, not even five. But she just met my daddy yesterday."
    Interesting, Sherlock thought. "I've never met a ballet teacher before."
    "I'm from a long line of dancers and teachers," Erin said as she handed Georgie the bowl of moo shu pork. "Both my grandmother and my mother are beautiful dancers, both of them still teach ballet, my grandmother in St. Petersburg, Florida, and my mom in Grand Haven, Michigan."
    Sherlock rolled up a moo shoo pancake. "Is your father also in the arts?"
    "No, Dad died of cancer three years ago. He couldn't dance a step even after a dozen Arthur Murray dance lessons with Mom. She finally gave up. He was a Navy SEAL." And he could pick locks and strategize how to break into places where you shouldn't be. He taught me everything he knew - "Well, that's enough about me, isn't it?"
    Bowie bit into an egg roll. "Erin's primarily a private investigator."
    "Whoa," Savich said. "That seems an odd combination. How did you pick investigation as a field, Erin?"
    "I'm good at finding out things," she said, "always have been. As a kid, my friends would ask me to help them find missing candy bars, video games, schoolbooks, whatever. I got better and better at it. Dad was always giving me hints on how to track things down.