Page 1 of Charmed Forces

Chapter One

“We need to stalk someone right now,” I said as I tilted my sunglasses so I could peer over the rims and observe my prey.

“I’ll be right there!” yelled my best friend, Lily, in a pitch so excited and loud that I had to move the phone away from my ear. Of course, that was my fault. I shouldn’t have started the conversation with such a lurid statement. I could have started with a simplehelloor ahow are ya, but no, I suggestedstalking. Of course, that kind ofwasmy job as a private investigator. Only I didn’t do it for fun. I got paid to do it. Fun was merely an unintentional perk.

“You’re not going to ask me whom we’re stalking?” I inquired.

Lily barely considered the question. “Uh... no.”

“Or where we need to go?” I persisted. “Maybe, why?”

“I figured you were going to tell me that.”

“True. I was.”

“So...?”

“Whom, where or why?”

“Where, then? I don’t carewhom.I’m on the fence aboutwhy.I’m just down for stalking. Where should I meet you?”

“You’re the best! I’ll text you the address.” I tossed my phone onto the passenger seat, pushed my sunglasses on top of my head, and lifted my camera, pointing it at my targets as they headed into a coffee shop. The woman carried two shopping bags with her, a summer dress in one, two paperbacks in the other. The man had a canvas satchel, which he wore on his hip, half slung towards his back. I’d been following the couple all day and they’d done nothing at all. No, that wasn’t quite correct. They’d done plenty of things — errands, a little shopping, a movie — but all of them were as boring as hell to observe and I would definitely have to see the movie again so I could fully watch the screen. Yet our client was convinced they were corporate spies, passing on the big, bad secrets of the real estate world. I just hoped his business was more solid than his theory.

While I followed them, never more than a hundred or so feet away, even when we were in our vehicles, I’d thought about all the spies I knew from film and TV.James Bond. Hot.Jason Bourne. Somebody definitely thought he was hot but I wasn’t sure who.Ethan WhatshisnamefromMission: Impossible. Pretty hot. Although he’d be a lot hotter if I understood any of the plots to that film series.

Then there was Adam Maddox, my ex-boyfriend, turned fabulous friend, but technically, he’d been an undercover detective when I met him so I scrubbed his name off the list.

Where were all the female spies?

It was a question I was still pondering when Lily wrenched open the car door and sprang inside. “You really do need to start locking your doors, Lexi,” she said. “I could have been an ax murderer.”

“I thought I did lock them and you don’t have an ax,” I said as I lowered my camera and laid it across my lap.

“Maybe it’s a little one hidden in my purse.”

“A little ax doesn’t strike me as too dangerous.”

“It will if I chop you into teeny tiny pieces with it,” said Lily as she mimed chopping.

I grimaced. “Hey, do you know any female spies?”

“Do you count?”

“I’m not a spy.”

“Then no.”

“Oh!Covert Affairs!” How many times had I wished I were Piper Perabo’s Annie Walker back when I was a temp and had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. Annie made everything seem adventurous and exciting, albeit dangerous.

“You know Piper Perabo? Oh, my gosh! Is she a client?” Lily waited eagerly, her eyes bugging out. I hated to disappoint her but she should have been used to it by now.

“No and no.”

“Shame. Great series. Premature ending.”

“I know, right?”

“The way she ran in those heeled boots!”

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