“All’s fair in love, war, and fiction,” I said. “Come on. It can be a novella. I don’t care. All you have to do is write me in as a character in a new story.”
“You want me to write Rainy March into a Duke of Chicago book? That’s it?”
“Yes, that’s it. Oh, and can you write in Mrs. Turner? I think she really misses being the housekeeper to a fictional detective.”
“Anything else?” she asked. “And do I need my notebook for this?”
“Now that you mention it, I was thinking I could secretly be a rich, powerful socialite who’s going undercover as Duke’s secretary. And then we fall in love. And maybe on the last page, there’s an epilogue where we get married or at least engaged? Oh, and Duke said he wants to finally take down Al Capone.”
“That’s more of a thriller plot than a mystery.”
“That’s fine. Duke looks very sexy when he’s running for his life. You know, like Cary Grant inNorth by Northwest?”
She laughed. “Very well. Least I could do for a fellow Ducky. And for Agatha.” She scratched her new cat under the chin.
“Thank you, Medda. You’re saving my love life.”
“I was getting bored being retired. And I love anything that keeps me from having to clean. Come on, Agatha. You can help me. Time for one last hurrah.” She paused, tilted her head. “One last hurrah…I like the sound of that.”
Without even saying goodbye, she turned and walked back into her house.
And before I knew it…
Book Six
THRILLER
Chapter Thirty-Five
Ten girls had come and gone. Smart girls. Clever girls. Sweet girls. Bold and brassy and beautiful girls who fell in love with him before he’d even offered to take their coats. Girls that knew shorthand better than they knew longhand and could type a hundred words a minute with one hand while they answered the phone with the other.
But the minute the Duke told them what the job was all about, all ten of them headed for the hills like they’d heard there was real gold on the Gold Coast.
What a waste of a two-dollar advertisement in the paper.
The Duke sat at his desk and opened a drawer, pulled out a bottle of whiskey and a single shot glass. Awful stuff. More punishment than pleasure. He unscrewed the cap and lifted the bottle, but between the pour and the swallow, someone knocked on the door.
“This is why I need a secretary!” the Duke called out to God, the universe, and whoever had knocked. “So I don’t have to answer my own bloody door!”
“Hire me then, and you won’t have to.”
A woman’s voice. Calm, steady, sure of herself.
“You don’t want the job,” he called back. “Trust me. No one does.”
“Why not?” the mystery woman replied.
“Two words,” the Duke shot back. “Al Capone.”
“Two words…Rainy March.”
The Duke got out of his chair—reluctantly—walked to the door—hesitantly—and turned the knob—wearily.
“That the weather report or your name?” he asked, his voice trailing off at the sight of her. She had the sort of face that made a man straighten his tie, balance his checkbook, and see that his affairs were in order, because he’d either marry her or die trying.
“Both,” the woman said with moxie by the acre. She had dark hair and storm-cloud eyes. Her skirt was tight as a miser’s fist and she was showing just enough skin to make him want to see more before lunch.
“You’re here for the secretary position?”
