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usually have a lot of interest in assault cases?”
    “We agreed it’s strange you and Anne are still buddies. You got to admit, it’s kind of weird.” He jutted his chin toward the guest house. “But it’s true. You two still spend a lot of time together.”
    Nice deflection. Whatever reason he was here visiting me, it wasn’t official and he wasn’t going to tell me what it was.  
    “Anne self-medicated last night. She’s sleeping it off.”  
    “Did she get hurt?”
    I shook my head.
    “I’d like to talk to her after she wakes up. What about you?”
    “I don’t have a hangover. Well, Vicodin gives me a minor headache, but if I keep taking it the headache goes away, plus my mood improves.”
    “Drusilla. Tell me what happened yesterday.”
    “And then we’re even?”
    He nodded.  
    “If anyone ever asks, you and I never spoke. Particularly if the person asking is my lawyer, all right? If anyone asks why you were here at eight a.m., it wasn’t about work.”  
    He smiled. “I can do that.”  
    I bet he could.  
    I gave him the background of going to the interview with Anne. Gruen hadn’t heard of Girls Becoming Stars either. Honestly, was he trying to be my Mr. Perfect?
    “Why did she ask you to go with her?”
    “The bloke she’d been dealing with setting up the interview made her nervous. For good reason, it turned out. She thought if things went badly, I could help.”  
    He nodded. He had seen some of my handiwork with aggressive types. He’d stopped me from killing someone with my bare hands. It would have been self-defense that time, too, I might add. I try to avoid conflicts, but I can hold my own. “How did the fight start?” he asked.
    “While Anne talked to Courtney, I chatted with Sabo. He offered me drugs, I said no.”
    “You sure about that?”
    “That he offered me drugs or that I said no? I’m quite certain of both. He didn’t make a great salesperson for his own product.”
    “You thought he was high?”
    “I had no doubts about him being high. He was twitchy and abusive and I told Anne we needed to leave. Roger pushed up against me, I pushed back, we started fighting, Courtney tried to get in the middle of it, and he tossed her across the room like a used tissue. Then he and I fought some more.”  
    “I saw the pictures. You’re good.”  
    I wasn’t going to deny it. I am good. “Anne said she saw he had a gun. However, I didn’t see it. So that I can’t confirm or deny or tell you what kind it was.”  
    Gruen rubbed his forehead for a moment. “Did you see the drugs?”  
    I shook my head. “But he was high. Tough to fake that level of twitch.”
    He tapped his fingers on the table in a regular rhythm. Made me wonder if he’d been a drummer.
    Gruen wasn’t interested in the assault or what I’d done. His curiosity was about Sabo. To find out what he was up to. Why would he be so interested in a lowlife like Sabo? Obviously Sabo had been around the criminal block once or twice, but Gruen didn’t work Narcotics. And it would be comforting to think that if Sabo were doing bad things all the time, he would have been arrested. That he hadn’t been told me two things: he was either an exceptionally talented criminal, or he was valuable to the police. A confidential informant, perhaps?
    Whatever he was, it was important enough to get Gruen to knock on my front door.
    “Did you know Sabo’s filing assault charges against Anne and me?”
    Gruen swore. He hadn’t been expecting that. Sabo was definitely important to the PD somehow.  
    “Which is further evidence he was high, because it wasn’t my fault. I was fine with leaving.” I lifted the edge of the t-shirt I was wearing to show him the bandage over the knife wound. “Roger Sabo had other ideas.”  
    His gaze flicked down to my stomach. He reached out and then drew his hand back before making contact.  
    The anticipation of feeling his skin against mine completely upset my thought