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say, and my lungs seem to have done a strange whooshing thing. I clear my throat. “Yeah. Clock shop girl is definitely this woman’s daughter.”
    “Well, Copperhead. I gotta hand it to you, homie. This is the best lead on Sullivan we’ve had in years. Years. ”
    “Uh huh,” I say. I should be gloating now.
    “This goes beyond just bringing him into court. This could have a huge impact on the case, and on the entire investigation into his network.”
    “Sure,” I say. “But I’m no cop. My job is to find the guy, not gather evidence or… get in with his daughter.” Though that’s not entirely true. I’m pretty used to pumping family members for information. It’s almost always the quickest way to bagging a skip. And I’m no stranger to flirting or even fucking on the job.
    This just feels different. I try to shake it off.
    “Sorry Copperhead, but this changes our M.O. If this is really his daughter, we need you to stick close to her. We can pay you. Above and beyond the agreed upon bounty value, we can pay you to keep dating her, get info on her dad, on the organization, on her.”
    That catches my attention. The bounty is more than enough, of course, but there’s no guarantee on that – I don’t get it unless I take him down. This would be money now.
    “Yeah? What kind of budget are we talking for an ongoing investigation? And why not just take over the lead yourself?”
    “You’re already in, and what you’re going to be able to do, capitalizing on this relationship you’ve formed with the perp’s daughter… there’s no way my team can match that. Not through legal channels. You’re our best bet.”
    “I don’t know —”
    He shoves his phone in front of my face again. There’s a number on it. A big one with a dollar sign.
    “That’s up front. You’ll get twice that on completion.”
    Well, shit.
    “Okay, never mind,” I say.
    “Right. So we need you to keep seeing her, gather what you can verbally, wear a wire. Or better yet, just use our wire app on your phone. I’ll show you how. And then we need hard-copy evidence, too. Her paperwork can help us trace Sullivan: her birth, her mother, their business. We might be able to pinpoint his whereabouts. His real name. His history. You know the drill.”
    “Laptop, phone, bank account,” I say. Hacking and tracking each of those will put us in a good position to gather any connection he makes to her.
    “Though, Sullivan must know that. April has a landline in her store, didn’t talk to her dad on her cell. Could we potentially tap the shop phone?”
    “Yep,” Vicente says, “though we’re gonna have to talk about what, if anything, we need to be admissible.”
    “I thought that was the point of having me do it? Doesn’t need to be admissible?”
    “Man, you found Devlin Sullivan’s daughter. This isn’t an under the table bag anymore. This is gonna get messy. I’ll send you intel.” He thumps me on my shoulder, beaming. “Hey man, you tired or something? Perk up. You’ve just landed the mark of the decade!”
    “Yeah,” I say. “But this ain’t exactly what I signed up for.”
    “Well you got lucky,” Vicente shrugs. Then pauses. “You could get lucky,” he amends, and there’s the Vicente feral grin.
    I mirror his smile, though it feels a little strange on my face. Maybe I really am just tired.
    “Alright, boss,” I say. “I gotta see a lady about a clock.”
    Seems like I’ll be visiting April again even sooner than I had expected.
    “Keep me posted,” Vicente says. “I want an after action report on every encounter. I want everything you get, or no deal.”
    Okay. I can do that. I’m not used to being monitored so closely, but I can seduce a lady with an audience.
    “No problem.”

6
    April
    M y shop has never felt so boring before. Normally I love it. But I’m having a hard time concentrating today — my mind keeps flashing back to Liam. His tattoos. His hands. The light peck he gave me at the