just because she's on a mission...

Chapter 1

Just because she was on a mission, it didn't mean she wasn't allowed to have a little fun.

The wide-eyed girl from Iowa took a long pull from the vodka bottle on the nightstand beside her bed, cuffed her wrist to the bed with a click of cold metal, and turned out the light. Propped halfway up on her pillows, she lay in the dark, wondering whether her target liked to have a little drink before bed, too. She wondered whether her target got that warmth between her legs when she drank enough.

Idle curiosity, she thought. Purely academic. But she wondered. As the low meander of late-night traffic breathed by the window, three stories below, she wondered.

She wondered whether the target's mouth (such a pretty, lush mouth, she thought) tasted like butterscotch candy and amaretto sours. She wondered if the target smelled like the French perfume she'd seen in the drawer of the vanity when she'd gone snooping in her room. She wondered what kind of noises her target made in bed when someone made her feel very, very good.

The wide-eyed girl from Iowa decided she needed to feel very, very good herself. She uncuffed her wrist.

After carefully unscrewing the J-pipe from its fittings underneath the kitchen sink, upsetting the rubber washer, and then running the water for a few seconds to leave a convincing puddle, she moved softly down the carpeted hall to to the target's door.

**

When Peggy heard the knocking on her door, she immediately stiffened. She looked at the wind-up clock beside her bed. 1:27 a.m. She discreetly reached for her piece in the nightstand drawer. "Who is it?" she called sleepily.

"Peg?" came the voice of the innocent, wide-eyed girl from Iowa. "I'm sorry to wake you up, it's Dottie."

As if there was any mistaking her gee-whiz voice, Peggy thought with mild annoyance. "It's quite late, Dottie. Is everything alright?"

"I'm sorry Peg, I got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen and it just started leaking underneath real bad!"

She sounded genuinely distraught. Peggy sighed.

"I'm real sorry, Peg, but I just don't know the first thing about plumbing and I'm just afraid Miriam's gonna give me what-for if I go down there to bug her about it now." Her voice took on a pleading tone. "Please, Peg, I didn't know who else to ask, can you just come look at it? I'm just afraid it's going to get worse if I leave it."

Peggy sighed again. Poor Iowa. At least she'd come to the right place. Peggy knew her way around underneath a sink. She rolled out of bed, threw on a black silk dressing gown over the slip she was sleeping in, and dragged herself over to the door. She opened it to find Dottie standing there, in a thin, white nightie that stopped well above the knee. Her eyes flicked over Dottie's strong, lean shape, and even in her sleepy state, something stirred in her stomach that made the decision for her. She gave a weary half-smile. "Alright, Dottie. I can't promise anything, but I'll see what I can do."

"Gosh, thank you SO much!" Dottie exclaimed.

She followed Dottie back to her room, a few steps behind her, eyes lingering on Dottie's strong-looking calves, the gracefully arched back, and the white silk nightie clinging to her firm backside. Peggy pursed her lips, swallowing a little smile. Dottie's innocent routine could sometimes get a little tiresome, but Peggy couldn't complain about the view. Just because she was on a mission, didn't mean she couldn't have a little fun.

When they got to Dottie's apartment and entered the kitchen, she got down on her hands and knees and peered at the pipes jutting down from above. "OK Dottie," she instructed, "run the water for a moment, I need to see where it's leaking."