“Well, that sounds like a good plan.” Ellie had already put pen to paper and wrote down the numbers as far as his salary and benefits. “I’ll pay you thirty dollars per hour, plus health insurance. It’s thirty-seven hours. You can pay Mateo from your salary. Would you be amenable to that?” Ellie slid the page over to him.

“Eleven hundred a week?” Nathan eyes widened.

“That’s what I was paying you when you were at the farm.”

“Yes, but this is a much easier gig.”

“Wait until Chuck E. Cheese Thursday.” Ellie cackled.

“Ellie Stillwell, it will be a pleasure doing business with you again.” Nathan leaned back in his chair. “So what type of uniform do you want me to wear?”

“Go to Seigel’s or Howard. They have very nice dress uniforms. Single- and double-breasted.”

“You have done your homework, haven’t you? Why am I not surprised?” Nathan gave her a big grin.

“You know me well. You can have a badge embroidered, or something to pin on. I’ll leave the authoritative visual aspects to you.”

“Roger that.”

“Which reminds me. Everyone has a walkie-talkie. We had an incident early on, and I wanted to be sure my people had easy access for communication.”

“Is there anything you haven’t thought of?” Nathan kept grinning.

“I guess I’ll find out if and when the occasion arises.” Ellie let out a huge sigh of relief. “I am so very happy you are willing to do this for me.”

“Like I’ve said so many times, anything for you.”

Ellie reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “Come, I’ll show you around the place.”

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Wednesday

Tori awoke with a sense of anticipation. She crawled out of bed so as not to wake her husband. She planned to fix something for him to eat later. Her mission was to keep him in a good mood for as long as she could.

The week before, she had frozen some beef stew, so she pulled it out to defrost. She boiled up some noodles that he could reheat. A big chunk of bread was wrapped in aluminum foil, which he could also warm. Satisfied that he would be satisfied, she started on her usual fare of toast with a little butter. She decided to trade off her coffee for herbal tea. Not that she was a fan of herbal tea, but she didn’t think she needed the caffeine that morning. She was already juiced up. She had no idea if she would find the woman, nor did she know if the woman would spend any time with her. But it was worth taking the chance.