Dylan

LATER THAT EVENING, on our official first day of sleuthing, Addison and I formed an epic plan. We studied the pictures laid out on the desk again, and checked the clock for the hundredth time.

“An hour and a half,” Addison said, clapping her hands together. “I wonder if we should just head over there now...in case we hit traffic.”

I grinned, happy to see her so stoked about our first job together. Greg’s office was just across the river—maybe fifteen minutes away in heavy traffic—but neither of us could contain our excitement enough to sit still. Addison was still dressed in the skirt, blouse, and heels she’d interviewed in, but I’d taken one look at the address of Greg’s office and opted for jeans, a T-shirt, and sneakers, knowing I’d fit in better. The new camera was packed and ready, as were our guns, pepper spray, flashlights, snacks, drinks, napkins, ski masks, blankets, folding chairs, headphones, and Kindles. Turns out Addison was no slouch at planning stakeouts, and we were going to be both comfortable and well-entertained. The only things we were missing were personal Porta-Potties, and yeah, we’d looked at them but decided there was no way we could pee in public. When the time came, we’d have to find a restroom.

“Maybe we should go to the bathroom first,” I suggested, already feeling the pressure of my bladder not having immediate access to facilities.

“Good plan,” Addison agreed.

After taking care of business, we forwarded the office phone to Addison’s cell, packed up the pictures, and carried everything down to Addison’s Mercedes. Her car was never more than a year old because her dad upgraded it for her every birthday. This year’s model was iridium-silver metallic with a sunroof and custom rims. In the east Portland industrial district, we’d stand out like cotton candy in a field of kale. It’d be a miracle if someone didn’t steal her tires and leave the car on blocks while we were in it. Still, it was better than taking my hooptie that guzzled oil and backfired like a twenty-gauge every time I started it up.

We loaded up the gear and headed out, pulling into the parking lot of Bridge City Accounting almost an hour before Greg’s shift ended.

“Where should I park?” Addison asked, scanning the lot.

The building had multiple tenants, which would help us not be too conspicuous, but the lot was open, without many options for cover.

“Maybe between that van and SUV,” I suggested, pointing.

Addison parked and got the camera out of the bag. “There’s his car,” she said, pointing at a silver Prius. “What do you suppose she sees in him?”

“Who? The wife or the side piece?”

“Either. Both.” She pulled Greg’s photo out of the file. “Look at him. He’s definitely not all that.”

Greg was thirty-seven, with brown hair, average features (not ugly, but a long way from jaw-dropping hot), and a gym membership he used on the daily. He worked as an accountant and was uninterested in marriage counseling when his wife had suggested it three months ago. “Uh...he’s got a job, he’s in shape, and he’s probably economical.”

Addison rolled her eyes and continued to study the picture. “He must be really great in bed.”

I laughed. “Or there’s that.”

I pulled out my Kindle and read as Addison checked her e-mail. At about ten till five, people started filing out of the office building, so I put away my Kindle and watched. Greg emerged from his office building at exactly 5:12. The parking lot was a happening place, which made it easy for us to blend in with the other vehicles as we followed him out of the driveway. Well, as much as a brand new Mercedes can blend in.

“What are you doing?” I asked when she let a car get between us and Greg.

“You’re supposed to leave a car between you and the perp so they don’t get spooked. You really need to watch more TV.”

Before I moved in with Addison I hadn’t even owned a television, and I had serious doubts about what the murder shows she loved so much were teaching her. “It’s five o’clock traffic. He wouldn’t notice if we were riding his bumper.”

“Fine,” Addison said. She flicked on her turn signal and merged with the next lane, accelerating to get in front of the car between us and Greg. The light ahead of us turned yellow and Greg sped up, barely making it through before it went to red.

“Damn it! Hang on,” Addison said, braking hard.

I gripped the “oh shit” handle and watched the rearview mirror, hoping the guy behind us wouldn’t plow into our bumper. When there was no impact, I grabbed the file and started thumbing through it. “Where do you think he’s headed? Jean’s house?”

“Maybe. We didn’t see her leave, so she might still be at work. Maybe he has to pick up some dirty cheater supplies.”

I didn’t even want to know, but I had to ask. “Dirty cheater supplies?”

“Yeah, like Ho-Guard.”

I choked on a laugh. “Ho-Guard?”

“Yeah, you know”—she went into announcer mode—“when you smell that stank, it must be a skank...Ho-Guard.”

“Holy crap.” I burst out laughing. I definitely shouldn’t have asked. Needing to get Addison back on track, I pulled myself together. “Do we double back and try to follow Jean?”

“Let’s go a little further. How far could he have gotten in this traffic? Just keep an eye out for his car.”

“Uh...how about that silver Prius?” I asked, pointing at the car a half block ahead of us turning into a Whole Foods parking lot.

Colorful language flew from Addison’s lips as she crossed two lanes of traffic and almost missed the driveway. We parked in time to watch Greg walk into the building.

“Now what?” I asked. “Maybe he’s meeting up with Jean or some other girl in there.”

“Yeah.” Addison unfastened her seat belt. “We’ve gotta get in there and check this out. Here, take the camera. I’ve got a plan.”

Dread crept up my spine. Addison’s plans...though entertaining...weren’t always that great. “I’m not about to end up in jail again, am I?”

“No, silly. It’s nothing like that,” she said, fluffing up her ta-tas. “I’m gonna dangle my girly bait in front of little Mr. Greg and see if he bites.”

Her words conjured up way too much imagery. I shook my head. “Wait, what?”

“Just be ready to take a picture,” she said.

Out of morbid curiosity and the desire to pay my car insurance this month, I followed my best friend into the grocery store with our small surveillance camera in hand.

Addison grabbed a basket and walked toward the wine aisle. She unbuttoned her top button, slowing her pace and giving her hips a little more oomph as she strolled toward her target. She settled the basket into the crook of her elbow, shook out her hair, and grabbed a bottle of wine.

My stomach roiled. Crap. She was really going to do this. Well I sure as hell wasn’t going to waste her effort. I shoved the expensive SLR into my bag and grabbed my cell phone, setting the camera to record since it was much less conspicuous than the two-thousand-dollar camera Addison insisted on buying.

It took three-point-two seconds for Greg to lock onto Addison. He shifted his attention to the wine and walked past her, bumping into her. “Whoa, sorry. I didn’t realize your hips took up that much room,” he said. “I thought I could get by.”

My jaw dropped and I had to force it closed. The little sparks igniting in Addison’s blue eyes told me Greg was one insult from being incinerated by the fiery death she was about to spew forth. Addison was not fat. Not at all. She was curvy in a way that made men stop what they were doing and watch her cross the street, but her rail-thin mom had made her feel self-conscious about her weight since she was in diapers. And hearing some thirty-something cheating douchebag add to her body anxiety made me want to use a bottle of wine as a bat on his baseball of a head.

I must have been inching forward to do just that, because Addison gave me a back-off-I’m-okay look and forced a giggle like Greg was funny.

“What’s this?” Greg asked, taking the wine bottle from her hand. “This is swill. I thought pretty girls had better taste in wine.”

I nearly puked. I shook off my nausea and pretended to peruse wine as I kept my phone focused on Addison and Greg.

“Excuse me?” she said. “You mean my big hips don’t turn you off?”

He openly ogled her, and then shrugged. “I can work with them.”

My blood started to boil. I wondered how many more times we’d allow him to open his mouth before we permanently shut it for him.

Addison’s chest rose and fell with a deep breath. I knew she was probably counting to ten, but Greg didn’t take his eyes off her boobs. The whole thing was so ridiculous, I kept waiting for cameramen to jump out and tell us we were on some practical joke show. I refused to believe men this predatory still existed. Sure, my ex-boss had hit on me before the knife in his chest had cured him of that little habit, but at least he hadn’t insulted me first. Who the hell did Greg think he was? No way could he be cheating on his wife, because no woman would be dumb enough to fall for his pick-up antics. At least, I hoped not.

“Yeah, I don’t really know anything about wine,” Addison lied. “I’m just getting a bottle for a friend’s housewarming party.”

“Well this won’t make your friend’s house feel warm,” Greg replied, chuckling at his own stupid joke.

I snorted. They both spun around to look at me. I dropped my arm to hide my phone and kept my attention on the wine bottle I was pretending to study.

“Can you help me find something more suitable?” Addison asked. “I would be seriously in your debt. She’s a long-time friend who likes red wine, but that’s all I really know.”

“Sure, I can help,” Greg said. “What’s your budget?”

While the two of them discussed the wine selection I set my phone on the shelf, pointed toward them, and wandered down the aisle.

“That’s a...great pin.” Addison said. “Very unusual. Where did you get it?”

I paused and glanced at them. Greg wore khakis and a baby-blue button-up shirt under a jacket. The gaudiest pin I’d ever seen was attached to the front of it. I swear it looked like it was made by someone’s blind grandma for a holiday craft fair.

He ducked, and I got the feeling the poser was trying to pretend he was embarrassed. “Oh, I forgot I had that on. My elderly neighbor gave it to me. I do her yard work for her and help her around the house with some maintenance and she’s always giving me these gifts. I put it on so her feelings wouldn’t get hurt.”

“That’s very sweet of you,” Addison replied.

“What can I say? I’m a nice guy.”

I about gagged.

“And as a nice guy, I’m gonna be honest and tell you nothing here is all that great,” Greg said, sounding disgusted. “You know, I have just the thing back at my place. I’d be willing to sell it to you at cost. I special order my vino and get discounts for buying it in bulk.”

Apparently he sold B.S. in bulk too.

“You would do that for me?” Addison asked. “But you don’t even know me. And I don’t know you.”

“Sounds like we need to get acquainted first. I’m an excellent cook. Why don’t you come on over and let me make you dinner? It’ll even be low-fat so...” He glanced at her hips again. “Well, you know.”

Wine bottle clutched in hand, I was ready to turn back around and go for home on the sleaze bucket’s head, but Addison’s giggle stopped me midturn. I had to trust that she knew what she was doing and could handle the situation. We were recording gold here, and it would help get Mary out of this messed up relationship. Addison just needed a few more minutes, then Mary could slap Greg with a divorce settlement that would hurt him way more than any bottle of wine could. Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to release my grip on the wine bottle, setting it gently into my basket, and turned the corner. I perused the next aisle, listening to their conversation.

“You make it sound like I disgust you,” Addison said, sounding pouty and hurt. “Why would you want to help me?”

“You don’t disgust me at all. You’re sexy as hell, just a little...hippy. I’m a personal trainer, though, so I could help you with that. Show you some exercises to target that area. Your body is like an eight and a half, but trust me...I could take you to a ten.”

“You’re a personal trainer? That is so hot. But...a low-fat dinner and a workout? What are you trying to do here? Date me or get me in shape?”

He grinned. “Can’t I do both?”

“You’re not attached?” She sounded shocked. “Surely a stud like you has a girlfriend...or maybe a wife?”

He laughed, and I had to use the shelf to hold myself up. She really just called him a stud, and he was conceited enough to believe she was serious. “No attachments. I’m a free agent.”

“Dinner tonight?” Addison asked.

He chuckled. “Oh, no, not tonight. I’ve already got plans for tonight. Here, let me give you my address and phone number, and we can set something up for the day after tomorrow. Sound good?”

A few seconds passed, and then Addison said, “Perfect. I’m free.”

“Great. Give me your name and number and I’ll text you the address.”

“Lynda,” Addison lied, once again evoking the use of her fake name. She rattled off the digits of the phone number she’d set up to deal with asshats like Greg, and then they set up the date. I waited until they were both gone before heading back to retrieve my cell phone.

I scrolled through the video on my way to Addison’s car.

“Please tell me you got that!” she demanded as soon as I opened the passenger’s side door.

I grinned. “I got it. All of it.”

“Oh, thank God,” she said, and started the car. “I’d need a shower...or three if I had to spend one more second with that sleaze.” She shuddered. “I can’t believe he gets laid. I don’t even care how good he is in bed, there is no excuse for any woman to stoop to that level.”

“Right? What the hell was with the insults?”

Addison laughed and backed out of the parking spot. “Oh, buddy, he fancies himself a pick-up artist.”

“A what now?”

She sighed. “You need to get out more.”

“Um, nope. You’re not the boss of me.”

“Remember that night I went out with my sorority girls...the night you played sick?”

“I was sick.”

“You weren’t sick,” she countered.

“The thought of going out with your bitchy sorority sisters made me sick.”

Addison snorted. “My friends are nice.”

“They are not nice.”

“You don’t know, Dylan, because you won’t go out with them.”

Well, she had me there. “Okay, but they’re scary. You have to admit that.”

“Chicken,” she said, and pulled onto Lovejoy. “Anyway, Alana and I were getting our groove on at the Brass Frog, and one guy after another came up to us and half-heartedly insulted us, while their wingmen, who were super nerdy—”

“Nerdy, as in Silicon Valley nerdy? Or nerdy, as in between dice rolls of Dungeons and Dragons nerdy?”

“The second one. And can I tell you how disturbing it is that thanks to you I now understand the distinction? As I was saying...after an idiot insulted us, his wingman would gallantly sally forth to defend our honor. It was bizarre. Half of them weren’t even able to look me in the eye, while the other half seemed to look me in the eye way too long. You know what I mean?”

I laughed. “I totally know what you mean. Mostly because it happens everywhere.”

“Whatever. I can’t believe I haven’t told you this story! Alana and I thought maybe they were doing some sort of nerdy role-playing thing, so we researched it and found out that some journalist had written a book on ‘how losers can pick up chicks,’ and it became a best-seller.”

“Hey, losers need love too,” I felt inclined to point out.

Addison rolled her eyes. “By getting women to feel insecure enough about themselves to date them? No. This book is like a cross between the Farmers’ Almanac and the Kama Sutra for these so-called pick-up artists.”

“Well, that’s...um...well, something I could have gone my entire life without knowing.”

“Sorry, but if I gotta suffer through knowledge like that, you have to, too.”

“You’re such a giver.”

Addison giggled. “I totally am.”

I stared out the passenger window as my mind tried to process everything that had just gone down. We’d done it. We’d nailed our first cheater.

“What’s up?” Addison asked. “You just went quiet. Is everything okay?”

As much as I would never admit it, a little tiny bit of me had expected us to fail. And it felt so good that we hadn’t. I forced back the smile tugging at my lips and tried to look as somber as possible. “Oh, you know, just thinking about how we totally made that first PI gig our bitch.”

We broke into giggles.

“I know, and it felt so good!” Addison replied. “One sleaze-ball down with many more to go.”

“Indeed. Okay, when we get home, I’ll cook while you send the video file to Ethan. If he approves it, then we can send him our bill and move on to the next case. Oh, and PS, that was less than three hours. We killed it.”

“Yeah we did. Date night with Jake tomorrow. I think he’s going to pick me up from the office.” She smiled. “We’re going to his place, so I want to be ready.”

“Are you staying overnight?”

“That’s the plan,” she said. “I’m also going to find out once and for all if he’s blackballing us.”

“We have a job, Addie. You don’t need to pick a fight with him.”

“I do if he’s stopping us from getting more,” she countered. “You should invite Asher to stay with you...you know, so you don’t get scared.”

I groaned. “I’d be more afraid of him coming over for an entire night.”

Addison smiled. “We’ll get you over that, buddy.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

She giggled and we headed home.

* * *

Addison

Later that night, I was sitting by the fire reading when Dylan walked into the living room. She looked gorgeous. She’d fluffed out her hair and put a little makeup on. “Wow, lady, Asher’s going to marry you on the spot.”

“Put the book away, Addie. It’s warping your mind. Asher’s just popping by for a little bit. No big deal.”

“I know.” I grinned. “He texted to warn me. I promised I’d make myself scarce.”

“You don’t have to, Addie.”

“Um, yes I do. I’m not typically entertained by my brother making out with my best friend, but thanks.”

Dylan smiled and flopped onto the sofa. “What’s wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“You haven’t made any snarky comments in”—she glanced at her watch—“about forty-seven minutes. It’s unlike you.”

I rolled my eyes. “Jake can’t get it up.”

Dylan choked on a laugh. “I’m sorry?”

“It’s been, like, a week since Jake and I did the nasty.”

“So?”

“So? My vagina needs some attention.”

“Isn’t he working on a big case? Not to mention, finishing the remodel on his house?”

“That’s what he said.”

“You don’t believe him?” she asked.

I shrugged. “He’s never gone an entire week without taking care of my—”

“Nope!” Dylan raised a hand and shook her head. “Don’t want to know, especially if it has anything to do with one of your body parts.”

“Vagina,” I finished.

“Oh my god, Addie. You’re insane.”

“Well, what else could it be?” I threw my hands up in the air. “He’s either lost interest or can’t get it up...which, I guess, if he’s lost interest would probably make him impotent, so...”

“Or, it could be that he’s busy and maybe working on something really intense and he doesn’t want to burden you with it.”

“Stop being logical!”

Dylan grinned and rose to her feet. “How about you don’t borrow trouble and wait until you two can talk.” I scowled at her, but she only laughed. “Vanilla or Pecan Praline?”

“Vodka,” I quipped.

“Well, duh, but with which ice cream?”

“Pecan,” I grumbled.

“As I suspected.”

Dylan waltzed into the kitchen and prepared us our evening dessert and, when Asher arrived, I headed to my bedroom to get lost in my motorcycle romance.