“Who wasn’t Chuck Puckett screwing?” I asked. “Oh, wait…me.”

“Maggie…”

“I don’t even think you could call it betraying, could you? I mean there would’ve had to be something to betray. Some faithfulness for there to be unfaithfulness. Some one-timing for there to be two-timing. Well, I guess there was some one-timing…all on my part. I went through more batteries… Anyway, yeah. Another affair. Got it. How does Quinn boinking my boyfriend fit into the picture?”

“He was a jerk to do that to you.”

“I’m not mad at him. Mostly. I’m mad at myself.”

Super Agent reached up and touched my cheek. I leaned in to the caress. It felt good to be touched. To have a guy interested in me for something more than my photogenic-ness and my ability to charm political snakes.

“Don’t be. He should’ve been honest with you.” He pulled a chair over for me. “Come and sit down.”

“More bad news? Don’t tell me…you and Chuck Puckett?”

“God, no. It’s pretty clear where my interests lie.” He winked at me, then cleared his throat back-to-business-like. “I’ve been considering why someone would go to all the trouble of torching your apartment. I want you to think hard.” He pushed a piece of paper and pen toward me. “Write down everything the senator ever gave you, no matter how incidental.”

“Why?”

“I have a feeling someone doesn’t want whatever it is found.”

“So they destroyed my entire apartment?”

“Exactly.”

“Isn’t that rather like killing the dog to get rid of the fleas?”

“They must want to get rid of whatever it is very badly. Yes. I can’t come up with another reason why they’d destroy your apartment.”

I got to work on my list while he went back to clickety-clacking at his computer. Thinking back to when Chuck Puckett and I first met brought back some nice memories. He’d walked up to the Estelle Landers counter just as I was pulling my purse out of the drawer to go to lunch. Normally I didn’t let anything get between me and a meal, but he had the most amazing blue eyes, crystalline looking, almost like glass. I’d dropped my purse as if it held a nest of spiders and shouldered my coworker out of the way.

By the time I rang up the perfume he’d bought for his mother, I’d worked my wiles on him. He asked for my number. I gave it. And for the next year, my life was filled with beautiful places, not-so-beautiful faces, and never-ending political races. And I wouldn’t have changed a day.

I jotted down all of the clothes, jewelry, shoes, and other trinkets Chuck Puckett had bought me during our year together. He’d had fantastic taste. The list was going to be longer than I thought. Sadly, they were all ashes now. I was on my second page when there was a knock at the door.

Super Agent produced a wicked-looking gun from out of nowhere and went to the door. Whoever was on the other side must not have been an assassin, because he opened the door, had a brief conversation, then closed it again. He came back with a paper grocery bag and sat it on the table.

“This is what we could salvage from your apartment. Any of it come from the senator?”

I stood up and peeked inside. It smelled like my three-pack-a-day Aunt Esther’s old romance novels. The items were completely random and from different rooms of my apartment—a Christmas ornament, a mug, a photo in a frame of my brother and me at our graduation, a troll doll and a pair of emerald-green satin heels that Chuck Puckett had bought me to wear to some gala. I mourned the dress they’d matched; it had been a work of art.

And that was it. Everything I owned reduced to a stinky grocery sack.

“The shoes,” I told him.

Super Agent took them from me and went to the kitchenette. A series of bangs and curse words ensued.

“What are you doing?”

“Examining the shoes. Did you finish your list?”

“Almost.”

“Finish it.”

I sat back down, worried about my shoes. Something pinched. I dug into my pocket and pulled out the broken keychain. Huh.

“Um, Mr. Super Agent?”

He turned to me with a half-torn-apart shoe in his hand. “Yeah?”

I sucked in a shocked breath. “What have you done to my shoes? My beautiful shoes?”

“Sorry.” He had the good sense to look ashamed. “They might’ve had a clue inside.”

“I can assure you they don’t.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I think I’ve got what everyone’s been looking for right here.”

I held out one of the broken pieces in my palm to show him. He took my hand and brought it up for a closer look.

“Well, I’ll be damned. That’s clever,” he said.

“What is it?”

“A microchip. Congratulations. You found what everyone’s been looking for.”