Page 9 of King’s Ransom

Some of it was downright strange: pretty girls would give me their phone numbers or—even more strangely—send nude pictures of themselves to me via the office email account.

(At first, Heidi thought this was appalling, but then she started admiring their physiques. As for me, being skinny and with thick glasses, for my whole life, I have not been the recipient of unprompted female attention, so I found it very odd.

Besides, I have a girlfriend now, so I just sent all those emails to the trash folder. I think Heidi kept some.)

And, yes, you heard that right: I have a girlfriend!

Special Agent Audrey Mills of the FBI. We met during the Southern case and began dating soon after it concluded, and we are, I’m proud to say, still dating.

I’m 38 and Audrey is my first ever girlfriend, so I’m eager not to mess it up.

Audrey is 36, very smart, very attractive—curly blonde hair, blue eyes, cappuccino complexion—very fit and very devoted to her career at the Bureau.

She’s a catch by any definition and according to Heidi, ‘so far out of your league, little man, I’m starting to think you did a deal with the Devil to nab her.’

Being intelligent, good-looking, athletic and capable, Audrey has never been short of male attention and she was even married once, but that was for a very brief time to another FBI agent. He was from a rich family and went to Yale.

(Detective note: how do you find out if someone you’ve just met went to an Ivy League university? Answer: you don’t have to. Within thirty seconds of meeting them, they’ll tell you.)

Anyway, two years after they were married, Audrey found out her husband had been cheating on her—with her best friend—so she divorced him.

One truly strange part of Audrey’s divorce was that her parents, astoundingly, still liked her ex and, to this day, urged Audrey to forgive him and take him back.

(‘He’s a good boy from a good family,’ her mother told her. ‘He just made a mistake, that’s all,’ her father said.)

I’ve never met Audrey’s ex-husband so I can’t comment on what kind of person he is or what his family is like, but I think he must have been out of his mind.

I would never cheat on Audrey because (a) she’s an amazing person; (b) it would be mean; and (c) she’s so far out of my league even I wonder sometimes if I talked in my sleep and inadvertently did a deal with the Devil to nab her.

Audrey’s parents—her father is Black, her mom is white—live in Florida, to be close to her brother who has two young children.

I met them once and I think they found me a bit weird.

(I actually overheard her father say, ‘That boy is weird.’ Remember: detective.)

Audrey’s niece, Marnie, is nine years old and she worships Audrey. They read Nancy Drew books together because Audrey says reading Nancy Drew books inspired her to go into law enforcement.

Anyway, in four days it was going to be our second Christmas together as boyfriend and girlfriend and I wanted to give Audrey a better gift than I did last year.

Back then, I gave her a black leather belt with a rectangular silver buckle.

It seemed like a regular buckle but it actually folded open, containing within it a secret compartment, one that was big enough to hold a credit card or a key.

I’d found it on a travel website and thought it was very sensible. Audrey had laughed when I’d given it to her even though it wasn’t meant to be funny.

She wore it sometimes but not a lot, which made me think maybe it had been a poor fashion choice on my part (see above: ‘no God-dang fashion sense at all’).

This year I’m giving her a first edition of the first Nancy Drew novel, The Secret of the Old Clock. It cost me $539. I think she’ll like it more than the belt.

Audrey divides her time between the Bureau’s Dallas Field Office and its Counterintelligence Division in Washington, D.C., which was where she was when I’d been woken up in Houston.

Oh, and we have sex.

Quite often.

It’s really awesome.

I’ve actually changed in a few other significant ways since that last case.