White - Code of Conduct

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, rants, facts, contrivances, and incidents are either the product of the authors questionable imagination or are used factitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or undead, events, locales is entirely coincidental if not somewhat disturbing/concerning.

Copyright 2019 by Smartypants Romance; All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, photographed, instagrammed, tweeted, twittered, twatted, tumbled, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without explicit written permission from the author.

Made in the United States of America

eBook Edition

If you think theyre cheating, they probably are. Or you are, and youre just trying to wipe your conscience. Shane, P.I.

I intimidate people. Its one of my superpowers.

I learned the benefits of intimidation early. When I was thirteen, I was five feet-nine inches tall and could wield a well-timed glare like a weapon. Now in my late twenties and six-one, I had bravado, athletic ability, and superior survival skills to add to my arsenal of intimidating glares.

I also had a pretty badass array of prosthetic legs with cool functions and Swiss Army-type gadgets at my disposal, but most of my clients didnt realize they were getting Black Widow with an Iron Man leg when they hired me. And monogamy-impaired Chicagoans certainly had no idea who was coming for them.

Another superpower, my private investigators license, added a little extra steel to my spine, which also helped disguise the limp that no amount of carefully-weighted titanium could erase.

The limp and the height were the reasons Id arrived early to the little, out-of-the-way north side restaurant for my eharmony date with Chicago businessman Dane Quimby.

I say date because thats what he thought it was. To me it was a job with a high probability of being mostly unpleasant, but also served with a side dish of smug satisfaction.

I use the Black Widow analogy because of my Iron Man leg, but I grew up on a steady diet of Charlies Angels reruns. Even though Id been compared to Jaclyn Smith, the glamorous P.I., I was way more Kate Jackson, the athletic one. My own P.I. license had taken six thousand hours and a test to earn, and as far as I was concerned, the fact that it was only legal in California, where Id lived until the previous year, was a technicality. To get a license in Illinois required a twenty-hour training course and forty hours of firearms training, neither of which Id done. I wasnt a fan of guns, and I didnt really want my fingerprints on file with the State of Illinois, because reasons.

So, there I was, waiting for a married guy to buy me dinner before he tried to get into my pants. They happened to be my favorite skinny jeans, with enough Lycra to make sitting possible without blood-flow constriction, and they were tucked into my super-favorite tall riding boots. The boots were flat and therefore comfortable. They also did a great job of hiding my prosthetic lower leg from casual judgment and stale notions of handicaps. Someone would have to get me naked to know I was a below-the-knee amputee, and no one but my dog ever saw me naked.

Dane chose the location for our date, which was notable for its lack of pretension, a curvy waitress, and a cheap menu. I had nothing but respect for large-busted women, since I could only imagine the back pain and underwire bras they endured. I was just as happy with the two-dimes-and-a-piece-of-tape version of lingerie which kept my nipples from becoming a distraction that diminished my powers of intimidation.

The waitress greeted Dane with an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek when he came in, and I smirked at the difference between his internet dating profile picture and the truth of him.

My date for the evening was somewhat vertically challenged and sported blond from a bottle. He had the athletic build of a man who did his treadmill miles with the Nasdaq scrolling under his news, and the smile of a shark who negotiated deals for a living.

His eyes found me with just the slightest double-take, and I watched him take stock of all my visible body parts with a vertical visual sweep as he approached the table.

Sophie? he asked, wearing his attempt at a rakish grin. I didnt bother to point out the bit of something green stuck in his teeth. Sophie wasnt my real name, of course. I am far too paranoid to use verifiable information on the internet, and a name came with a degree of identifiability that was outside my comfort zone my comfort zone encompassing all four U.S. time zones.

I held my hand out to shake his. Hello, Dane. Its nice to finally meet you. Dane was obviously not paranoid enough, or just exceptionally cocky, as that actually was his real name. His wife hired me to discover if hed been cheating on her, and it had only taken three internet searches and fifteen minutes to determine that he was on four dating websites and was practically a platinum member of Tinder.

He sat down across from me and shook his head with a chuckle. You look exactly like your picture. I guess that means everything else in your profile is true?

It had taken me twenty minutes to hack into the website and data-mine his search histories, and another ten to build a profile to match his wish list. Yes, I really am a tantric yoga instructor. Doesnt everyone tell the truth online? I said with nary a blink.

He licked his lips, and I felt queasy. I cant really talk about my time in Special Forces, so I guess you could say my profile is true-ish.

It had taken thirty minutes of background checks using mostly public databases to determine hed left the military in disgrace. Oh, wow. Were you, like, a spy or something?

He chuckled. Youre from California, arent you?

Smile. Blink. I basically grew up on the beach. Id grown up backpacking in the Sierras, but I threw the guy a bone and added a bikini to his mental image of me.

I always thought I should live in Cali, he said. Id work out on the strand like those guys in Venice Beach, and be friends with movie stars.

The effort not to laugh out loud was costing me. Ive seen those guys in Venice. Youd fit right in, I simpered. My first job as an insurance investigator had been in Venice, and Id had to navigate sneering gangbangers and strung-out homeless guys every day. Also, no one in California ever called it Cali.

He held up a finger and did the Ill have what shes having thing to order a drink like mine. I smirked at the waitresss raised eyebrow. Wouldnt he be surprised when he got sparkling water with lime instead of the vodka tonic he thought I had?

You must wonder what attracted me to you, Dane said with a knowing smile.

Actually, I was mentally calculating my billable hours and hoping to be done here in less than thirty minutes because round numbers. You read my mind, I said with a low, breathy voice. To my own ears I sounded asthmatic, but experience had taught me that horny guys dug breathless women.

Dane set his cell phone on the table next to him, screen up, so Id see how very important he was when he got all those calls and texts he was expecting. A call from a number I recognized as his wifes flashed on the screen as the phone buzzed, and he quickly declined it.