She sucked down half of her glass.When she set it down, she sighed.“You can just call me Bridget now.”
Kat shot a question at me.
“Not agent, or special agent?”I asked.
“I’ve been terminated.They told me to go home.”
A likely story.One crafted to get me to sympathize with her.But I wasn’t going to.“Where’s home?”My words were a little too sharp.
To answer, she pulled out her wallet and flashed her ID and the contents at me.“I can tell you won’t believe me, so I’ll show you.I came here from Boston.I haven’t even gotten my license updated.And see, no badge.Are you satisfied now?”
“Boston.Funny, I never pegged your accent,” Kat interjected.
“I spent most of my childhood in finishing schools.They wiped that shit right out the first semester.”She tucked the wallet back into her purse.“They took my badge and gun this morning.”
“What did you do?”Kat asked.
Bridget gave her a side-eye.“It’s whatwouldn’tdo.That’s the problem.And don’t ask.”She stared at her glass and sighed.“Fucking politics.”
Even though she scared the hell out of me, and even though this could be a trap, I was angry on her behalf if she was telling the truth.I leaned in and divulged one secret.“In the Blarney Zone, you’re free to embellish the shit out of your life.”
“Ellie’s an expert on that.”
I glared at Kat.
“What?Like your lying is a secret?”
Bridget Perkins followed the conversation with curiosity.More than I was comfortable with.
“Heck, it’s almost as notorious as your bad taste in men.”
“Here now.Let’s not, and say we did.”She was treading on dangerous ground.
Kat, however, didn’t listen.Instead, she looped Perkins in on the conversation we had earlier.“Bridget, a hypothetical for you, if your best friend was dating a?—”
“Careful.”I poured myself another shot because this was not going to go well.Maybe after five or more of these I’d have just enough alcohol in my system to kick her ass.
“—someone who’s bad for her.Okay?”She shot me a look before continuing.“And they know this fact, buttheydon’t want to hear it.How would you spill the beans?”
Perkins blinked.“Up until thirty minutes ago, I would have run a full background check on him and handed off the results.But now?Jesus.”She stared off into space.The musing went on for only a few seconds, then her attention snapped to me.“Johnny Porciello?”
Fuck the kindergarten booze.I needed fortification.I tugged down the Jameson and filled my shot glass to the brim.Kat noticed and bit her lip.
“I guess that’s no secret,” Perkins continued, oblivious.“I ran him, his friends, and you and your family.Sorry.”
I slammed the shot.It went down with a roar and kept fighting when it hit my guts.I breathed through the battle until I won.“You wouldn’t be the first agent digging into my life.”
“Nor the last, I’m sure of that.”
Kat wasnotbeing helpful.
Perkins frowned.“Did you know your sister’s file is only this thick?”She held up her fingers barely two millimeters apart.“And yours?”She laughed.
I mixed her another drink and waited for the fallout.
Her hands set somewhere between two and three inches apart.“You kept the department busy for alongtime.”She sobered.“Not so much in the past four years until six months ago.”
This time her gaze was clear when she stared at me.
