Page 2

But there I was, after Kevin and I “matched.” With Willow’s guidance, the Angels created a profile for me he’d go for, and I had to admit, with no small amount of disquiet, what we wrote wasn’t far from the truth.
Me and Willow’s ex, Kevin, had been messaging each other for a week.
It was time for a meet.
Let me rewind.
My friends and I were the Avenging Angels. We were vigilantes (of a sort). We investigated crimes on our time off from being servers, baristas and bartenders at a fun, hip spot called The Surf Club.
We had a benefactor: Arthur. He was our Charlie. He seemed to have unlimited means, but none of us had met him, nor did we know who he was.
We also had a Bosley, but her name was Clarice, she was a high-powered, expensive lawyer, and she didn’t like to be referred to as Bosley.
I know this sounds crazy, and maybe to some, it was.
But surprise of surprises, even with zero training, we were really good at this investigating stuff.
It might be dumb luck, but I was an optimist, so I liked to think of it as good intuition.
Since we started doing this, we’d solved the mystery of women going missing, abducted by a human trafficking ring.
We’d then solved the mystery of people from homeless camps also going missing, kidnapped to be forced labor in drug dens.
Now, we were doing this.
It all started when Raye was triggered, because her little sister had been kidnapped and murdered when she was super young, and her entire family had fallen apart. Raye descended onto a path of wreaking justice to injustice and eventually investigating the disappearance of a little girl (who, yeah, you guessed it, Raye found with zero training).
The rest of us got roped in (by “the rest of us,” I mean Jessie, Luna and I).
Recently, we recruited Shanti and Willow, mainly because Arthur picked Shanti, and she was tight with Willow, and Willow was having man problems, so we girls pulled her in because we figured that was what Arthur got us all together to do.
Not to mention, Willow was already a loose member of our crew. She worked with us at SC, we all liked her a whole bunch, she thought our Angel business was cool, so why not?
We had several storage units filled with cars we could use to get around without the danger of discovery of using our own with their pesky traceable license plates. And one unit was all kitted out as our personal Angels Headquarters, and it was rad. In fact, when we first got it, Arthur had put Andy Warhol-like portraits in it of all of us, including Shanti and Willow, so that was how we knew our numbers were going to grow.
We had equipment, and it wasn’t only the ear thingies.
We were totally official (unofficially), and we had Tasers and a laser pointer to prove it.
So, during our surveillance, we’d found that Kevin got his jollies (and his luxury sustenance, not to mention a few stolen wallets, designer purses or cell phones) by hooking up with chicks he’d matched with on the Stung dating app. He’d ask them to dinner at a fancy restaurant, rack up a bill of hundreds of dollars on wine and food that he intimated was on him, then “nip to the bathroom,” only to disappear and leave the chick to foot the bill. Alternatively, she’d nip to the bathroom, and he’d take anything he could grab and vamoose.
In the end, she’d be trying to foot that bill or deal with getting home without her wallet, phone or car keys.
Gross, right?
Oh yeah.
Totally gross.
Listen up girls, at the very least, take all your stuff when you use the bathroom on a first date. Maybe even a second (or third) one.
That wasn’t the only reason Kevin was far from a peach. From what Willow said, he was a total dick as a boyfriend too. He wasn’t a physical abuser, he was an emotional one, and that hurt just the same.
This meant that right then I was wearing a cute date dress that was off-the-shoulder with cap sleeves (that ended in tiny ruffles) and had a twirly, short skirt, all of this in a subtle floral print. I had loose-curled hair, perfect date night makeup, and on my feet were high-heeled pink strappy sandals with poofy flowers at the backs of my ankles.
And my girls were stationed inside and outside Oceans 44 by Scottsdale Fashion Square, one of the hip, trendy, see-and-be-seen, expensive restaurants in that tony locale.
We were going to catch him in the act.