1. SARA

I wake up to the sound of an air horn blaring in my ear, and the taste of used cat litter in my mouth.

I vaguely remember being at the Toad & Turtle with Grace. Shots. Cosmos. Dancing with some guy with a man-bun. His hand roaming around under my shirt.

My clumsy, hung-over attempt to grab the iPhone from my bedside table sends it crashing to the floor, where it lands on the hardwood with a sickening clack. The initial stab of panic subsides when I remember the screen was already cracked to shit anyway.

The thing lies teasingly close to my fingertips as I reach for it from the bed. Fuck. My throbbing head is telling me I really don’t want to lift it from the pillow unless this is a life-or-death emergency that can’t be ignored. Why the hell did I make an air horn my ringtone?

Oh yeah: because every call I get could be a life or death emergency that can’t be ignored.

My fingers finally close around the mobile and carry it up to the ear that’s not muffled by my pillow. Somehow my thumb finds the answer button.

“Sara Bishop,” I mutter. “This better be good.”

“No, Ms. Bishop,” says the man on the other end of the line. “You better be good, or you won’t be getting a six-figure paycheck for a month’s work. Is that clear?”

Suddenly my eyes are wide open. Did he just say six figures? For a month’s work?

I lurch forward in my bed, prompting a wave of protest from both my head and my stomach, and cover the phone with my hand as I clear last night’s bottle of Stolichnaya from my throat.

“I’m very sorry,” I say in my most professional tone. Thank God he can’t actually see me right now. “I thought you were one of my employees. They have strict instructions not to disturb me while I’m on a case.”

In reality, I don’t have any employees. The only “associate” in Bishop & Associates is my sister, Grace, and she was just as blitzed as I was last night.

“Well, you’re going to drop that case,” says the voice, “because my driver will be meeting you in the lobby of your building in about thirty minutes. Got it?”

I glance at my watch – it’s 7:00 a.m. Who the fuck does this guy think he is, phoning me up in the middle of the night and giving me orders?

“Pardon me,” I say with a touch of coldness. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”

“My name is Quentin Pearce, and if you don’t tell me who I am in the next ten seconds, I’m hanging up and moving on to the next name in the phone directory.”

A jolt of adrenaline runs through me, and with it comes a throb in my poor head. Anyone who doesn’t know the name Quentin Pearce must be completely unplugged from the business world: he’s the financial rock star who came out of nowhere and built Wall Street’s largest private equity firm out of the ashes of the 2008 market meltdown.

Suddenly, the six-figure offer becomes all too real – Pearce probably spends more than that on shoes in a year. And he’s not known for his patience.

“You’re the head of Empire Group,” I say quickly. “Obviously, I can be available immediately for such a high-profile client.”

“Right answer,” he says. “I’ll see you at 7:30.”

He hangs up before I can say anything. Perfect – I’ve got thirty minutes to shake this hangover, get showered and dressed, and run the three blocks from my apartment to the building where my office is located.

Piece of cake. Groan.

It’s a good thing Pearce is too busy to come to the office itself, or he’d see it’s actually just a couple hundred square feet that I sublet from a law firm that owes me a favor. Grace and I do almost all of our business by phone and at various locations around Chicago, but the prestigious downtown address helps attract the right kind of client.

I hit Grace’s number in my phone as I yank an outfit out of my closet, then put it on speaker as I pull off last night’s clothes and crank the shower to hot. She finally picks up after the fifth ring, by which point I’m already in the process of washing the stank out of my armpits.

“Leave me alone,” she groans. “Let me die in peace.”

I give my nether regions a good once-over with the body wash before rinsing off and hopping out onto the raggedy bath mat. I may feel like shit, but at least I’ll smell like cranberries.

“Listen up,” I say. “Quentin Pearce wants to pay us six figures for a month’s work. I’m meeting him in twenty-five minutes”

The line is quiet for a full ten seconds as I lather up my toothbrush.

“Ihd ooh heah me?” I say through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Why did you wake me up just to tell me a stupid lie? You really need help, you know that?”

I rinse and spit. “It’s the real thing,” I say. “A year’s worth of income for a month of work.”

“Are you sure you didn’t just dream this?”

I might wonder that myself if the act of buttoning my blouse didn’t cause my eyes to cross and my hands to shake. This hangover is anything but a dream.

“Trust me,” I say. “I recognized the voice from TV.”

I shrug into my suit jacket and slide on my shoes before realizing my skirt is still in the closet. I drop my phone into the crook of my shoulder and retrieve the skirt to finish getting dressed.

“That’s crazy,” says Grace, finally sounding awake. “What does he want us to do for the money? And why us?”

I grab my keys and purse as I dash through the door into the hallway and toward the stairs. There isn’t time to wait for the elevator to get to the sixth floor.

“I don’t know,” I say, my heels echoing through the concrete stairwell. “And to be honest, for six figures, I don’t really give a shit.”