Gum

Anderson picked at the gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe.

Great. This investigation was going swimmingly so far. It was bad enough she had dropped a glass in the sink and had to pick the pieces out this morning, bad enough that she hit every red light on the way to the office. Bad enough this client came in demanding results as if all she had to do was google them. This day was cursed. It had to be.

She gave up on the gum and sighed with exasperation as she felt the uncomfortable bump at the bottom of her shoe, her stance now slightly misaligned. She tried once more at dragging the bottom of her shoe across the pavement to yet again no avail.

“My pooch does that sometimes, but usually with his butt,” came a musical female voice. Anderson blushed at having been caught and looked up to see a woman with big glasses framing her big brown eyes and her hair in bantu knots.

God, she’s cute. All the more unfortunate for Anderson. She did her best to compose herself, straighten up, and put on the air of respectability and authority she’d honed over the past two years as a private investigator.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where D. Eisenhower is, would you?”

The woman smiled. “The dead president?”

Goddamit. Did her client prank her? Did she really fall for that shit? D. Eisenhower was supposed to be a hacker friend of her client’s, but now that seemed such a dumb lead. The woman must have noticed how Anderson’s face fell because she chimed in again, extending her hand.

“Diana Eisenhower, though I do usually just go by the first letter. You the PI Garth hired?”

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