Page 16 of For Love or Money
Lesley waited until the following morning to contact Al and tell him she’d accept the job.
He called around in the afternoon to discuss the details.
‘So, I’ll take the case,’ she told him as soon as they were sitting down. She’d already agreed to do it, but she’d always wanted to say that, and she might never get another opportunity.
‘Good. Excellent.’
They were once more seated at the kitchen table. This time Lesley had brought out the good coffee in advance, and she’d bought some pastries from the local bakery, having decided she couldn’t serve Bradshaw Biscuits to Al.
‘I’ve already opened a file,’ she said, tapping the manila folder in front of her. ‘I’ve decided to call it “The Adventure of the Adventuress”.’ She pointed to the title written on the front of the file in black sharpie.
‘Oh, is that usual – to name your cases like that?’
‘Well, I’ve never done this before, but I thought it would be nice. What do you think?’
‘Of the title?’
‘Yes. I considered something with “mystery” in it, but this case doesn’t seem all that mysterious, does it? It has more of a caper vibe, what with the whole undercover girlfriend thing, so “adventure” seemed appropriate.’
‘You’ve given this a lot of thought.’
‘Well, it’s my first case, and – I’ll be honest with you, Al – I’m very excited about it. But you’re the client. If you don’t like it, we can change it. Or it can have no title at all, if you’d prefer.’
‘No, I like it. It’s catchy.’
‘It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?’
‘The Adventure of the Adventuress it is.’
‘Great! Now,’ she said, pulling a notebook from the folder and opening it, ‘tell me everything you know about this woman.’ She picked up her pen to take notes.
‘Well, there’s really very little,’ Al said. ‘Her name’s Stella Daniels. She’s a make-up artist. Peter met her on the set of his latest film. She’s Irish. Um ...’ He drummed his fingers on the table. ‘She’s twenty-six ...’ He trailed off.
Lesley looked at her meagre notes. ‘There’s not much to go on. I suppose we’ll have to wait until Stella gets here and we can find out more about her.’ She took a Danish pastry and started pulling it apart. ‘In the meantime, why don’t we get started on our back story. I mean, if I’m going to be your girlfriend, I should know more about you.’
‘Okay. What do you want to know?’
Lesley narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What happened to your last girlfriend?’ she asked.
‘Nothing! You make it sound like you think I did away with her or something.’
‘Did you?’
‘Of course not. Why would you think that?’
‘You’re the one who brought it up.’
‘Well, I didn’t “off her”, as you’d put it.’
‘But you did piss her off.’
‘What makes you think it was my fault?’
‘It usually is the man’s fault, I find.’
‘Well, it wasn’t. We just split up.’
‘But why? There must have been a reason.’
