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No pressure, then.
“Done.” The word slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it.
“Needless to say, Ms. Fox, even with immunity, I expect you to cease your work immediately.”
I nodded in agreement. It was still a pay cut, but it was enough to live on and this gave me enough time to find a job. Even if I only had two weeks…
In the short-term, it got me out of the thing I was trying to escape, so there was that.
“Excellent. Detective Potter, can you arrange everything with Ms. Fox? I have to get back to work.”
Just like that, we were dismissed.
Adrian led me out of the room and back through the building to his office. There, he shut the door and locked it behind him. He whipped a form out from one of the drawers on his side and handed it to me.
“Fill that out,” he said, sitting down. “You’ll be needed tonight, so if you need to, call a sitter.”
“Tonight?” I blinked. “How quickly do you think I can get a sitter?”
“Family?” he said. “Her dad? A friend? How you usually do it. Make it regular.” He moved his belt over, clinking the cuffs that were attached to it.
Deliberate or not, it worked.
I filled out the form, and with a promise to meet him here at six-thirty, left, armed with a mission to find a sitter.
Chapter Five
Perrie
It didn’t happen often, but life was kind to me. My regular sitter somehow was free, apparently under the assumption she’d be minding Lola as normal tonight anyway.
I’d obviously forgotten to cancel her after I’d been arrested and ‘quit.’
I didn’t want to say it was a coincidence, but it was definitely a nice surprise.
The butterflies that fluttered through my stomach weren’t unlike the ones from earlier. They were rampant and heavy, wild and sickly, making the nerves that came with them feel like they were ten times worse than they were.
How was I going to get away with this without a disguise? I hadn’t had time to come up with one. I wasn’t exactly unrecognizable. There were places in this city I wasn’t allowed to go, places I was banned from because of what my job was.
Had been.
What it had been.
I wasn’t that person anymore. With any luck, I never would have to be again.
Those were points I’d have to bring up with Adrian when I saw him. How was I supposed to pretend to be someone I wasn’t? How would he get me into these places I’d been banned from?
I sighed heavily as I walked into the police station. Luce was gone, and after quickly showing my new ID card to the guy behind the counter, I punched in the code for the door and slipped through.
I was so out of place here. Everyone around me was wearing suits or uniforms, and here I was, tentatively making my way through the building wearing jeans, a fancy shirt, and heels. All I was told was to show up looking like I was meant to be in a casino.
Awkward signs directed me to the briefing room I was supposed to be in.
All right, I asked for help. I had assumed Adrian or somebody would meet me and show me where to go, but I’d been wrong.
He was, however, waiting outside the briefing room for me.
“Feeling okay?” he asked, his blue-green eyes searching mine as I stopped in front of him.
“Uh, not really.”
“Great—you have to say a few words tonight on how to spot a hooker.”
“Sounds like a weird, slumber party game,” I muttered.
He laughed, running his hand through his hair. “You’re not wrong. Do you think you can do that?”
Not. At. All.
“If I really have to. Will they know who I am?” I fidgeted on the spot.
“Well…” He hesitated. “We used some artistic license. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a former prostitute who has agreed to help us clean up the city’s tourist hotspots.”
“Technically speaking, that’s correct.”
“There you go, then. Let’s get started.” He shoved open the door to the briefing room before I had a chance to eke out my disagreement with this entire situation. “Gentlemen, I’d like to introduce you to Perrie. She’s a former sex worker who has graciously dedicated her evenings to us to help us identify our targets.”
Adrian shot me a look that told me to move my ass, so I shuffled into the room. At least a dozen pairs of eyes pinned themselves on me, and I froze halfway to where Adrian was standing.
Thankfully, Adrian obviously recognized this, because he walked toward me and touched a hand to my upper back.
“Perrie will be undercover with me every night. She’ll be working both as an insider and as a potential client for male prostitutes, since we’re short on female associates for this case.”
I was?
“Her expertise will be available to us all, and she’s going to give us all a few insider tips on the things we should be looking out for when identifying our targets.” Adrian tapped a finger against my shoulderblade, and it took all my strength not to turn to him and look at him as if he’d lost his mind.
