She gave me his Tinder username, and I looked him up on my laptop.
“That’s him,” she said as she peeked over my shoulder. “Can you catfish him or something?”
I stiffened at the memory of Ken telling me I was too old for honey traps. Of course, he now had a child bride, so what did he know?
“Eh, I’ve done the honeypot thing in the past,” I said with a shrug, “but it’s not my favorite. Besides, I’m behind with my homework and don’t have time for an elaborate sting operation. Let me see if I can figure out his password instead. What were the ones he used in the past?”
From there, we spent fifteen minutes doing an impromptu interview. First, she told me the old passwords—variations of pets’ and children’s names, mostly—and what passwords she’d tried. Then she told me his favorite color, favorite food, and favorite sports team. When we got to his favorite television show, inspiration struck.
“Oh. I may have an idea,” I said. “May I?”
She passed over her phone, and I typed in a password made famous by an episode ofThe Office, a show I’d watched all the way through more than once because Ken was obsessed with it.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
I returned her phone. Her lips trembled as she looked through his now-unlocked account. She glanced up at me. “It’s not all in my head! It’s all right here. Oh, thank you!”
She jumped up and threw her arms around me, slapping my back with the huge purse she still had on her arm. When she withdrew, she sniffed a bit, blinking back tears. “Wait. What’s the password. Just in case it logs me off.”
I hesitated, but we’d come this far. “It’s from an episode ofThe Office: ‘big boobs’ with az. All one word.”
She froze but then laughed out loud. “Oh, he wishes.”
She placed a fifty under her mostly full wineglass and hurried from Finnegan’s. I put the hundred in my back pocket, shaking my head andchuckling. When I looked up, Havisham was studying me in a rather speculative manner.
“What?”
“Did you just make a hundred dollars in less than thirty minutes?”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Yep.”
“Impressive.”
“Well, good thing I did, because I fell behind in my student loan payments, and I have fees and payments and rent, oh my.”
She opened her mouth to say something but was interrupted by a loud, familiar voice saying, “Stella Stark, I know you’re in here.”
The Douchecanoe had found me.
Chapter 5
I couldn’t help but compare how Ken wore a suit to how my neighbor did, and the comparison wasn’t kind to Ken. First, his suit was definitely off the rack. Second, it hung too loosely on his shoulders but strained over his waist. Third, it had a patina of gold glitter, and a tiny golden dong clung just behind the pocket square.
“Of all the lowdown things you could’ve done, ruining my wedding day has to be worst.”
“I didn’t—”
“Oh, but I know you did. You are the pettiest woman I have ever known—”
“Obviously, you don’t know a lot of women,” Salcedo muttered under her breath. “Or that men can be ten times as petty as any woman ever thought of being.”
I shot her a look that said,You’re not wrong, but you’re also not helping.
She held up her hands in surrender.
“—a regular Little Miss Petty. Always sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong because you think you can be the arbiter of justice. What do you have to say for yourself?” Ken asked, his face now dangerously red.
“Well—”
