"I’m a police officer. Move along please,” the gruff voice demanded.

“Bastard,” August mumbled under her breath. She didn’t care who he thought he was. They were all bastards; every single one of them as far as she was concerned.

“Excuse me, miss. Are you hard of hearing?” he persisted.

Letting out a long, deep breath, she looked up into his deep, brown, penetrating eyes. For just a second she was caught off guard.

“I am just doing my job, constable,” she announced, reaching for her handbag to produce her credentials.

“So am I, miss, and I need you to move along. You can’t sit here. You are impeding the traffic.”

Casting a curious eye around, she took in her surrounds and scoffed. “Am not.”

“Please, miss…”

“I’m allowed to park here, there is no traffic. If you don’t like it, fine me.” She shook her head in exasperation.

Cops were by far the worst. Always thinking they were better than the next person. Too much power; that was the problem. Give a man a badge, and he felt he could talk to a woman however he wanted. Female members weren't much better, although they were often easier to talk to. At least they seemed to have an ounce of compassion. Then again, she found women easier to talk to in general, if she had to speak to anyone. She’d much rather be left alone to do her job.

“I won’t be fining you today, miss. But please move along. Let’s not cause a scene, yeah?”

“Indeed, Constable…” She shielded her eyes from the blazing sun to focus on the name emblazoned on his blue starched shirt, “Tucker.” She laughed to herself wondering how many of his victims interchanged the T in his name with an F. “You won’t be fining me today because I am not doing anything illegal,” she stated firmly.

“If I have to tell you again, miss, I am sure I will be able to find something to book you for.” The edge of his top lip curled up slightly in a sneer.

“You know, you would almost be handsome if you weren’t such an asshole,” August retorted, before turning the key in the ignition. She had all she needed for today anyway, she would move along, but not because he had told her to.

The policeman gave her a smile and a nod.

“Conceited too, geez, I’d bet you’d be a catch,” she sneered as she pulled away, not allowing him time to move from the side of her vehicle.

Watching in her rear-view mirror, she chuckled to herself. She was glad she was single. That was the way she intended to stay too. As a private investigator, working with Blue Belles Investigations, she saw more than her fair share of cheating asshole men and the devastation they caused.

Not that the women were much better, in fact, they were often worse. Only more often than not it was the women who came to the agency crying when they suspected their men of playing up. Tragically, their suspicions were almost always correct. It was just a matter of catching them in the act- so to speak. Gathering the evidence to prove the woman’s case. Cheating and lying went hand in hand. Most cheaters weren’t about to fess up, without proof.

Slinging her satchel over the chair, she sunk back into her plush office chair and reached for the USB cable to plug her camera in.

“Davina,” she called to the receptionist. “Have you swiped my USB cord? Again?”

A slip of a girl appeared in her doorway, a pink flush staining her cheeks. “Sorry, Auggie. I thought you’d be out for the rest of the day.” She took a step forward and pushed the missing cord toward her.

“How many times do I have to tell you to stop messing with my stuff?” she snapped. She already knew the answer. At least twice a week she would find the girl ferreting around in her office. She made no secret of it.

“I just wanted to charge my phone,” Davina argued.

“You could be using it to contact the queen for all I care,” she huffed in disgust. “Buy your own damn cord and leave my stuff alone.”

The younger woman hung her head and turned to leave the room before August remembered something. “Oh and Davina? Stop calling me Auggie. I hate that.”

The colour in Davina’s face deepened as she turned back. “Yes, Auggie…ust.”

August snatched the cord Davina had left on her desk and poked it into the slot on her camera. Why did people have to be so annoying? It seemed everyone was hell-bent on pissing her off today.

Using the zoom on her photography app, she shook her head. “Damn it!” She knew her target was there, she almost had him. She thought she’d snapped him, it was that stupid cop’s fault.

“Aug,” called her boss, and she looked up to find the woman standing in the doorway. Mercy was one of the few people August liked. She was solid, down-to-earth. Was never one to pussy-foot around, unlike Davina and the other stupid women who worked there.

“Come in,” she smiled, nodding toward the vacant chair on the opposite side of her desk. That was another thing she liked about Mercy; if she wanted something, she was happy to go to her workers, rather than expect them to go running to her.

“How are you going with that Anderson case?” Mercy asked as she sat down, leaning her elbow on August’s desk.

“Not so good, I’m afraid.” She shook her head and turned her computer monitor to show Mercy. “I’m pissed off, I had him. The slimey bastard was looking out of the window, and I went to snap him when the cops came along and told me to move along.” She was still fuming. “I got these of his car, but you can’t really make out where it is, there are too few distinguishing features. I’ll get him, but he’s getting more and more blatant.”

“That’s good,” Mercy nodded in agreement. “His poor wife, she knows he’s up to no good but just won’t rest until she has something.”

“I don’t know what she sees in him, to be honest. Nor his girlfriend. It’s ridiculous.”

“I know, Aug, but he has a lot of money. Money is power.”

August knew this, that was often the scenario. A man with money and power, cheating on his wife. The wife too scared to leave him, for fear of losing her lavish lifestyle. With Australia’s no-fault divorce legislation, the best she could hope for was to sue her husband’s sorry ass. If there were children, she could at least claim child support, but with no such thing as alimony in Australia. If she wanted what she felt she was rightfully deserving of, even though some weren’t, her best bet would be to employ a lawyer. Those came with exorbitant price tags. Evidence was power. It was August’s role to produce that evidence, that was what she was paid to do. When the likes of Constable Fucker got in the way, it really screwed with her mojo.

“I have complete faith in you. I know you can get him. It’s a matter of time.”

“He’s wasting my time, but Merc,” August leaned back in her chair and rolled her eyes to the ceiling, “this case is starting to do my head in. I just want to wrap it up.”

Mercy lifted a manila folder and waved it in front of her face, before dropping it in front of her. “This might make you happy.”

The small stack of papers inside appeared to look like any other case intake notes. These she was familiar with. It was the profile photos attached that made her stop dead in her tracks.

“You can’t be serious, Mercy. You know how I feel about the police. What the hell?”

“I know, August,” Mercy implored, “but you are the best I’ve got. It’s not like I can march in there, is it?” Mercy had worked for many years with the police before moving into private investigations. She had left in sour terms after a huge bust-up with the Senior Sergeant, who also happened to be her boyfriend. The only problem was, her ‘boyfriend,’ as it turned out, also had a wife that Mercy had no idea about. Poor Mercy found out afterward that many of the staff knew he was married, but no one felt it necessary to inform her of that until it was too late. August had a sneaking suspicion that had been the driving force behind her opening Blue Belles Investigations and specialising in infidelity.

August’s issue with the authorities while also of a personal note, had little to do with love. More like hate. Her stepfather had been a policeman, and he was a hard, cruel man. His idea of discipline had involved locking August and her younger sister outside the house for many hours, for any real or imagined misdemeanour. If their mother dared challenge him, he would threaten to have the children taken away, and her declared unfit, so she generally kept her mouth shut. Why her mother never left him, August would never understand. Her distaste for the authorities stemmed from what she knew, and she made it her life’s work to avoid them.

After finishing school, she had spent many years working for an insurance company, training in their fraud department, and she soon developed a taste for investigations. Meeting Mercy at an education event several years earlier had been a stroke of luck. She had started working for her soon after and had never looked back. August’s biggest regret was not going into P.I. work earlier.

Flipping through the pages of Mercy’s intake interview, she shook her head. It was not much different to most. The wife was almost certain the husband was cheating on her but wanted proof before confronting him. Most suspicious partners had already done a bit of snooping on their own before approaching a private investigator. As far as August was concerned, anyone with even a sneaking suspicion would be mad not to follow-up. More people needed to learn to trust their gut instinct.

At the ripe old age of thirty-four, August had seen many people devastated by their partner’s lying, cheating, and selfish ways. She was determined never to find herself in such a position.

“So you want me to infiltrate the force now, huh?” she laughed, looking up from the pages in her hand.

Mercy appeared nervous, as she sat on the edge of her seat; that wasn’t like her employer and friend at all.

“Mercy,” August offered her a stern look. “What’s going on? What are you not telling me?”

Mercy looked sheepishly around the room, suddenly finding a spot on the wall extremely interesting.

“Mercy!” August demanded.

“Well, I happen to know of an event coming up soon, and I have a friend.” Mercy blinked rapidly. “I could call in a favour. Get you inside.”

“So why don’t you ask your friend for the intel?” She knew the answer, of course, it went against their code of conduct, but she wasn’t sure that she liked where this was heading either.

Mercy shot her a look that told her she knew she was being ridiculous, before going on. “Well, I have already spoken to my friend, and I’ve set you up on a blind date.”

“Oh for fucks-sake, Merc. You can’t be serious?”

“It’s perfect, Aug. It’s an invite-only event. You will have access to Sergeant Scumbag.”

“And if the wife is going?” she asked, a small whine evident in her voice. She hated blind dates. Why was it when someone was single, people seemed to think they wanted to be set up on dates? She would have thought of all people, her boss would know better. Under the guise of it being work or not, it was still a date, and it was still stupid.

“She’s not, I have already checked that. C’mon, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“Do you ever think maybe we are just too jaded by this business, Merc?” she asked lolling her head back on the tall chair.

“Of course.” Mercy sighed. “But I haven’t completely given up hope just yet. My mum married a good man. They are out there.”

August almost snorted. “Yeah, they are very few and far between. I like to think my father was a good man too. It’s a shame he died before I had a chance to find out. Or maybe that was for the best. Otherwise, I might have found out he wasn’t, and my image of him would be eternally shattered.”

Mercy slipped her another smaller piece of paper, and August immediately recognised it as a leaf torn from the jotter pad Mercy kept next to the telephone on her desk. Glancing down at the page, she saw a ten-digit phone number and a small flower underneath, one of Mercy’s trademark doodles.

“Call him. He’s a good guy.”

* * *

Tossing her coat over the couch, August checked the clock on the wall. She should start trying to get home from work at a decent time. Not that it mattered, she didn’t have anyone to go home to.

“How are you doing, Oscar?” she asked her boggle-eyed goldfish who looked back at her and opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Are you hungry, mate? Yeah, me too.”

Opening the tube of fish food, she sprinkled a handful of flakes into his water. Is this what her life had become? Talking to her goldfish at the end of the day?

Heading to the fridge, she looked at the soggy lettuce that she had bought last week. She’d had every intention of eating it when she bought it, and the celery, picking that up, she watched as it drooped in her hand. Even her vegetables seemed to be rejecting her. Pressing her foot to the pedal on the rubbish bin, she flipped the lid up and tossed the greens in.

Opening the freezer, she snatched yet another frozen pizza box and dragged it out. “Looks like it’s pizza night again.”

The fact was, it had been pizza night every night for the last week. What a thrilling life she lived. Maybe going out for dinner occasionally could be something she should consider. How long had it been?

Her hand dropped to the pocket of her jeans. Fishing in between the tight folds of denim, she pulled out the piece of paper that Mercy had given her earlier.

A blind date. With her luck, he probably would be blind. At least then she wouldn’t have to be concerned with him leering down her top half the entire night. A positive to every negative.

“The things I do for my job,” she huffed. Tugging her mobile phone out of her other pocket, she began typing in the numbers.

With the numbers typed in, her thumb hovered over the call button. Mercy hadn’t even told her this dude’s name, just that it was a “friend.” Awkward. Maybe she’d be better off sending him a text instead.

Placing the pizza into the microwave and setting it for the allotted time, she set about tapping out a message to her mysterious date.

Hi, I’m August… I believe we have a mutual friend

“Nah, that’s stupid.” She shook her head and deleted what she’d written.

Again, she tapped at the phone; Mercy told me to contact you in regards to

“To what August?” she admonished. “To take me out on a date? To take me to his work do? God, I sound so desperate and pathetic.”

Hi, Mercy gave me your number. I believe you need a date.

“No, that will never work either.” This was a professional date. It wasn’t as if she were hoping to meet the love of her life. She needed to keep it professional.

Thank you for the offer of taking me to your work event this coming Friday night. Please advise a time and place. A

“There… that ought to cover it. Curt and professional.” Satisfied, she dumped her phone on the table and watched as her pizza spun on the turntable.

The aim of this date was to garner Intel. Hopefully, snap a covert photo or two and close the case. If she just so happened to get a decent meal, bonus. If her date just so happened to be hot, that wouldn’t be horrible either... well, a girl could dream.

Within minutes her phone was vibrating against the wooden table. Prompt. She liked that. Flicking the message open she read;

7pm. Corner of First and Main. It’s a black-tie event.

Looking forward to meeting you.

Reese

“Reese, huh? Black tie.” It had been ages since she’d actually dressed up for an event. She was pretty confident she had something stashed away in the back of her closet. Actually, who was she kidding? She had at least four dresses that had been screaming to be worn since she bought them. Just not the occasion.

See you then. A

She responded. That hadn’t been awkward. They both knew this was a favour for Mercy. Reese was probably sixty years old and ready for retirement. It was one evening. It was a job, not a job interview. Why had she worked herself up about it?

“So what’s on the box tonight, Os?” she asked the mute goldfish as she flopped down onto her couch. Microwaved pizza in hand. Who said this life was crap? She got to eat pizza whenever she wanted. Had no one to answer to, no one to pick up after. She wouldn’t want it any other way.