Page 56 of To Catch a Latte Thick as Thieves

“She’s right,” Fisher said. “If our perp is as tied in as we think, he would never believe that she would sell. He’ll know it’s a setup.”

“Damn,” Brian said. “We need to do something to shake him up. Something that will make him fear losing the phoney account.”

“I’m happy to help, but what can I do?” Annie asked.

“Marry me,” Fisher said.

“What?!” she shouted.

“That’s brilliant!” Brian exclaimed. “Then the business will become yours.”

“What?!” Annie shouted again.

“And then I’ll put my name on the bogus account,” Fisher laughed.

“Hey?!” she snapped.

“The perp will be forced to make a move. You’ve still got it, partner,” Brian said with a nod.

“Excuse me!” Annie hollered.

“Yeah, I do, don’t I?” Fisher asked, looking proud of himself.

Exasperated Annie slammed her hands down on her desk and yelled, “Hello! Remember me?”

Both Fisher and Brian turned to gape at her.

“Something wrong, Annie?”

“You bet there’s something wrong. I will not, and I do mean ever in this life, marry you,” she said.

“I think I’ll let you two discuss this amongst yourselves,” Brian said, backing slowly toward the door.

When the door shut behind him, Fisher turned to Annie. “What’s the problem?”

“What’s the problem? What’s the problem? I’ll tell you what the problem is: I am not getting married to anyone ever!”

“Not even me?” Fisher asked, watching her from beneath his lashes.

“No, not even to you,” she said, refusing to believe he could possibly be hurt by this. They’d spent one glorious night together. She wasn’t even sure she could call him her boyfriend yet, never mind marry him.

“Ouch!” Fisher winced, leaning against her desk. “Talk about rejection.”

“It’s not rejection,” she said. “It’s not personal. I promised myself a long time ago that I would never marry.”

“Well, it’s not as if this would be a real marriage,” he reasoned. “It’s merely a ploy to draw the bad guy out.”

“Would it be legal?” she asked.

“Well, yeah. We can’t risk having him check it out and find out it’s phony. Then he’d be on to us.”

“If it’s legal then it’s real. I’m not doing it,” she said. “It goes against everything I believe in.”

“More accurately everything you don’t believe in,” he chided her. “Fine. Then the bad guy wins because without this we won’t be able to catch him.”

“Don’t do that,” she said.

“Do what?” he asked, studying her.