Page 21 of Pucker Factor

“Technically, I didn’t steal it. I would have returned it.”

“You took it from me,” I argued.

“Yes, but how do you know that it didn’t just end up in my bag? We were a little preoccupied that night.”

“She’s right,” Kavanaugh said as he walked over eating a yogurt. “You can’t say for sure that she took it.”

“Did you take it?” I asked her point blank.

“Yes.”

Kavanaugh nodded. “Well…there you go. At least she’s an honest thief.”

“I’m not a thief. It just happened.”

I scoffed, sitting down across from her. “Yeah, I always just happen to take other people’s things.”

“See?” she beamed, clearly not understanding my sarcasm.

Choosing to ignore that, I moved on. “Do you have a description of the bomber?”

“Tall, dark…his name was Simon. Oh, he wore contacts.”

“How could you tell?”

“Because he told me. Can you believe his boss won’t let him wear glasses because he thinks they’re not menacing enough?” she snorted. “He favored a knife. He kept flicking it open, which I found weird because there are definitely scarier things than a pocket knife.”

“It was probably all he could get through security,” I grunted. “When did you have this in-depth discussion about his glasses?”

“Oh, right after he strapped the bomb to me. Yeah, he felt really bad about the whole thing. And he wanted answers about the papers. That’s when I told him that I went back to the hotel and met you. Let’s just say he wasn’t exactly enthusiastic that you didn’t get my number.”

“You left me,” I said accusingly.

She nodded. “Oh, believe me, I told him. I think that’ll endear you to him if you ever meet.”

I stood, angry now that she was so worried about his guy. “I don’t want to endear myself to this guy. He’s crazy. He tried to blow you up!”

She stood right alongside me, raising her arms as if to calm me down. “Yes, but it was on someone else’s orders. He really did feel bad about the whole thing.”

I was about to lose my shit, which Red saw and came to take over. “Did you see how he left? Was he one of the men we took out?”

She huffed out a laugh. “No, of course not. He still had a job to do. I didn’t want him to get in trouble, so I helped him escape.”

“You—” Even Red was speechless at this point. “Why?”

“He was really very nice.”

“You know, I think you have this whole reaction thing all wrong. You’re not supposed to help the person who tried to murder you.”

“Maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome,” Kavanaugh said from across the room.

“After five minutes?” I argued.

“Look, I wasn’t under the influence of his power or anything like that. Sometimes people make the wrong choices in life and you have to help them out. That’s all I was doing.”

“But by letting him go, you ruined a very good lead! We could have figured out what your boss wanted and had this whole thing wrapped up. We don’t even have anything to go on other than he’s tall, dark, and his name is Simon!”

“And he wears contacts,” she chirped. “But I also have his wallet.”

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