Page 29 of Sticky Fingers

Which, you know, is exactly what I need.

As they wave me over to the laptops on the dining table, I settle into a chair in front of them.

“Brian spent the entire time on that chick’s computer system, and Jim was in charge of video and photo documentation. I went through the apartment thoroughly.”

“Alright, good.” I wave him down. “Just show me what you found. Did you find the painting?”

“Not exactly,” he whispers, scratching his head.

Then, he puts up a few pictures of Sonia’s apartment on the laptop screen; immediately, my eyes are drawn to the walls of her kitchen and living room. There are a few paintings hanging there, all of them tastefully chosen, but there’s no Picasso in sight.

Good—I don’t like having things handed to me that easily.

“Anything suspicious in there?” I ask Drake, and there’s a long pause as the three guys look at each other.

“Depends on your definition of suspicious,” Drake finally says, his fingers hovering on the keyboard. “Aside the fine taste in liquor, art, and décor, this seemed like a pretty normal apartment. Until we stepped inside the bedroom, that is.”

The bedroom? What the fuck is he going on about?

“Well?”

Hesitantly coughing into his hand, he opens another folder and shows me a few pictures of her bedroom. Looks perfectly normal—king-sized bed, abstract painting hanging on the wall, and an expensive lamp on the bedside table. Aside from the fact that the place isn’t a fucking mess, this looks like a regular woman’s bedroom.

“What am I supposed to look for?” I ask, narrowing my eyes and leaning in toward the screen.

“Well, uh…I don’t know if this helps, but we spotted a few interesting things as we started poking around.”

Taping a key, he changes the picture. I lean back as I see the inside of Sonia’s gigantic drawer—tight dresses everywhere, a collection of expensive-looking high-heels, and…

“Is that…?”

“Yeah, looks like it, sir.”

I hold my breath as my eyes wander to the end of the drawer, where a mountain of lingerie has taken up residence.

G-strings, thongs, lace bodysuits, and more than twenty fucking corsets. They’re black, pink, blue, red, and God knows what else. Seems like she was hellbent on collecting all the fucking colors of the rainbow.

Now, I know—there’s nothing weird about a woman owning lingerie. But Sonia has enough of it to open a fucking department store. I’m getting hard thinking about her small, curvy body in those.

Stockings, lace and ribbons seem to spring from everywhere.

Forget about her painting collection; her lingerie is way more interesting.

What fucking asshole do you suppose she bought all those for?

“Any idea why she owns this much, uh, underwear?” Jim asks, and I can already tell that he’s just asking me that to satisfy his personal curiosity.

I could tell him that maybe Sonia is the kind of woman whose body demands that kind of clothing, the kind of woman who knows exactly who she is and isn’t afraid to show it in the bedroom…but, of course, I say nothing like that.

Instead, I merely shrug.

“No idea. What else?”

“We found something that points to her being law enforcement, too,” he continues, running his tongue between his lips.

As he pulls up another picture, my heart skips a beat as I look at a fucking collection of handcuffs.

I shit you not. There are metal handcuffs that you see on police officers.