Candice’s face softened. “Well,” she mused, “I suppose you did the best you could, but what’s up with your hair these days, honey?”
“What’s wrong with my hair?” I screeched loudly enough for people to turn in their seats and stare at us.
Candice held up a lock of my waist-length hair. “It’s lookin’ a little ragged, my friend.”
My eye darted to the end of the strands in her hand and I had to admit, it did sort of appear that my last haircut had been performed by a machete. “Yeah, well, I haven’t had a chance to get my hair done in a while,” I growled.
“You’re kidding,” Candice deadpanned, but she added a smile.
“This conversation is doing nothing to make me feel better about meeting Harrison,” I grumbled.
Candice’s smile widened. “You’re right. Sorry,” she said. After a prolonged silence where my knee continued to bounce, she added, “This probably isn’t going to be as bad as you think.”
“Oh, trust me,” I said with absolute certainty, “it’s going to be far worse.”
Candice shrugged her shoulders and moved her seat to its upright position. Glancing at her watch, she noted, “At least our flight’s on time.”
“Yippee,” I said woodenly.
“Are you going to be like this the entire time we’re here?”
“Count on it,” I said, bouncing my knee again.
Candice and I got our luggage from baggage claim and went in search of a taxi. We’d been informed that Gaston had made arrangements for us to stay at the Sheraton near the bureau, and we decided to check in first, then head over to meet Harrison.
After depositing our luggage in our rooms, we went back out to hail another cab. We told the cabbie that we wanted to go to the FBI D.C. Field Office, and he looked both of us up and down twice before he faced forward and pulled out into traffic.
“What time is it?” I asked Candice.
“Two minutes later than the last time you asked. Seriously, Sundance,” she said, using the new nickname she’d come up with after watching a documentary on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid the week before, “you really do need to chill out. These guys are like dogs. They can smell fear, and if you go into this meeting a big blob of nerves, Harrison’s going to intimidate the hell out of you and completely dismiss you. He’ll be far more impressed if you show up looking cool. He won’t be expecting confidence.”
“But I’m not confident,” I admitted, and I wasn’t even talking about my new self-consciousness over my rather dated outfit and frizzy hair.
“Who says you have to be?” she replied with a wink. “Abby, this meeting is about perceptions. If Harrison can’t rattle you, then he’ll have some respect for you. Right now we know he’s not open to hearing much of what you have to tell him. He’s beyond skeptical—he’s close-minded. But what he doesn’t understand is that you really are the real deal. He’s not prepared for that, and if you can just appear to have some confidence and hold up under his scrutiny, I’m positive he’ll be surprised.”
I sat with that for a bit, letting the words settle into me, and realized she was absolutely right. Who was this asshole to outright dismiss me without even hearing what I had to say or being shown what I could do? The nerve!
So by the time the cabbie pulled up to the impressive marble Washington Field Office on Fourth Street, I had settled down and had a pretty determined mind-set.
It helped a lot to walk in with Candice, who, at five feet nine inches of elegant ash-blond beauty, is the epitome of confidence. She strolled into the building like she owned the place and walked straight to the information desk. We waited in line behind a few other people with appointments before getting our turn.
“Abigail Cooper and Candice Fusco here to see Assistant Special Agent in Charge Brice Harrison,” said Candice as she stepped up to one of the big, burly men with a badge behind the desk.
Big and Burly glanced at his computer screen, clicked a few keys, then told us to wait in reception. We moseyed over to two unoccupied seats and sat down. On a nearby credenza was complimentary coffee. “Cup a joe?” Candice asked, getting up from her seat as soon as she spotted the beverage.
“No thanks,” I said. I was jittery enough without adding caffeine to the mix.
I glanced at a clock on the wall. It was ten minutes to ten. Our appointment with Harrison was at ten, so I closed my eyes and took some nice deep breaths while focusing on trying to appear confident. I heard Candice come back to her seat and quietly sip her coffee next to me. Surprisingly I really did feel calmer after a few minutes.
At one minute to ten, I opened my eyes and smiled at my partner. “Feeling better?” she asked with a twinkle in her eye.
“Yep,” I said. “I’m good.”
“Excellent. He should be here any minute, and don’t worry, in this light your outfit isn’t so bad.” I gave her a withering look. And she smiled radiantly back at me. “Just don’t let him see you sweat,” she advised.
“Roger.”
“And if it starts to get confrontational, and you begin to feel pressured, give me a nod and I’ll step in.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it,” I said, really glad that I’d insisted on Candice’s coming along to help out.
The big hand settled on the twelve, then moved at a snail’s pace past it, then way past; then it settled on the six and it was really hard to continue to appear calm and collected. Finally, I got up and approached the front desk again. Big and Burly gave me a rather dull once-over. “Yes?” he asked.
I forced a friendly smile onto my face and said, “I was just wondering—do you know if Agent Harrison has been informed that we’re waiting for him out in reception? Our appointment was at ten, and it’s now half past, so I’m worried that he missed being told we were here.”
“He’s aware,” said Burly.
My eyes widened. “Ah,” I said at last. “Okay, then.”
Burly just stared at me with narrowed eyes. I had a feeling he didn’t like me too much.
“I’ll wait over there, nice and quiet-like, then,” I said, turning to retreat quickly back to my seat next to Candice.
“What’s the word?” she asked as I sat down.
“Harrison knows we’re here. That’s all I got out of the ray of sunshine at the desk.”
Candice eyed the clock. “Oldest tactic in the book,” she said, setting her empty cup down on the side table next to her. “Keep them waiting, make them impatient, and get them off-balance. Trust me, he’s going to hold out until he thinks we’re good and angry, and then show up without an apology.”
“So he should be showing up any second, then, right?” I groused. I was good and angry.
“Oh, I’ll bet he makes us wait a tad bit longer,” she said with a smirk before stretching her legs, leaning her head back against the wall, and closing her eyes. “Wake me in an hour, would you?”
“You’re joking!” I gasped. “You really think he’ll be an hour and a half late?”
“Oh, I think he’ll be even later,” she said. “If I were him, I’d make us sit here until ten minutes to noon. Then I’d show up with an attitude and announce that I had a luncheon appointment and ask if we could make it snappy.”
My mouth dropped open. “Please be kidding.”
“You wait,” she said. “You’ll see.”
As it turned out, Candice was very good at predicting Harrison’s behavior. At eleven forty-five she got up and motioned for me to follow. We headed to reception again and Candice eyed Big and Burly with her own rather dull expression.
“Yes?” he said with just the tiniest bit more enthusiasm than he’d used to address me.
“Please inform Agent Harrison that we waited patiently for him to make an appearance. However, we have other business to attend to. If he would still like to meet with us, he may reach us via this number.” She slid her card toward Burly.
He eyed her card and nodded.
“Please further inform Agent Harrison t
hat if we do not hear from him by five p.m., we will make Special Agent in Charge Gaston aware of what transpired here today, and head back to Michigan.”And with that, Candice turned and walked away toward the doors.
I was caught a bit off guard by her sudden departure, but quickly recovered myself and hurried after her. Once outside I asked, “Do you think he’ll call us?”
Candice smiled as she raised her arm high to hail a cab. “Yes,” she said. “But he’ll wait until four fifty-five or so.”
I chuckled ruefully and shook my head. “So, what do we do in the meantime?”
At that moment a cab pulled up in front of us. Candice reached forward and held open the door. “We shop, of course,” she said, making a point to eye my outfit again. “We need to get you into the twenty-first century, toots.”
I sighed as I got into the cab. “Okay, but I only brought along a hundred bucks’ spending money, so let’s make sure to hit the sale rack, okay?”
Candice and I spent the rest of the day arguing over price tags. “Two thousand dollars? Are you serious?” I gasped as she held out a pantsuit to me.
Candice looked unfazed. “While you were in the ladies’ room after lunch, I called Dutch and explained to him what happened this morning. I also told him I felt you needed to make a powerful first impression, which would require a complete transformation. Face it, honey—you really need a little pow to swim with the fish in this pond.”
“I never liked swimming in ponds,” I grumbled.
“Anyway, Dutch said he was totally behind your makeover, and to put it on his credit card.”
I snickered. “Good luck getting ahold of that,” I said, patting my purse protectively. I had Dutch’s credit card—which he’d insisted on giving me in case of emergencies—safely stashed in my wallet.
“You mean this?” Candice said with a grin as she held up Dutch’s AmEx card.
I gasped and tried to grab it from her, but she was way too quick for me. “Candice,” I said evenly as I glared at her, “I can’t. It would be taking advantage of him!”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Abby,” she said, completely ignoring the fact that I was unwilling to take the expensive Marc Jacobs garment from her as she sorted through the other suits on the rack. “Harrison is already sizing us up. He’s sent us a message that he doesn’t consider you worthy of his time. If you show up looking like something right out of Vogue, he’ll have to reconsider that, and by getting him to reconsider his first impression, we might just be able to open a crack into that brick wall of his mind.”
“Can’t we look for something on discount at least?” I pleaded, taking the Marc Jacobs and another three suits she handed me, afraid to actually look at the tags.
Candice sighed and turned away from that collection before heading toward another rack labeled AL-EXANDER MCQUEEN. “Dutch has given me a budget,” she called over her shoulder when I failed to follow her.
“How much?”
“I’m not telling,” she said. “But if you don’t cooperate, I’ll go over that limit by a mile.”
I glared at her again. “I hate this whole thing.”
Candice stopped draping items over her arm long enough to regard me soberly. “Welcome to Washington, babe. You want to play in this town, you gotta pony up. Dutch gets that, and let’s face it, the guy can afford it. Besides, we already know the FBI isn’t going to pay you for your services. So let’s say that Harrison is won over by you, and you assist with this investigation. Say it takes a few weeks, as we both know it very well could. I know that you get paid a hundred bones an hour from your regular clients, so you’re actually forgoing thousands of dollars by taking time off to help these guys out. This is just Dutch’s way of paying you back on behalf of the bureau.”
“Gee, if I were only naive enough to buy into that,” I said woodenly.
Candice smiled and pivoted me around to face the dressing room. “Forward and march, Sundance,” she ordered.
By three o’clock I had three suits that cost more than the down payment on my first house. I’d also been accessorized to within an inch of my life. But I will admit—I looked pretty damn good.
“Now what?” I asked as we left the upscale mall Candice had taken me to.
“We’re on to hair and makeup,” Candice said.
I paused to look at my reflection in one of the mirrors on the way out. “What’s wrong with my makeup?”
“It doesn’t say pow! It says ‘hey.’” She said that last bit with a stifled yawn. “Plus, that jungle you have going on has got to go,” she added, swirling her finger in a circle at my hair. “I think we should cut off a few feet to really update your look.”
I stopped on the sidewalk and stamped my foot. “Feet?” I screeched. “You want to cut feet off my hair?”
Candice ignored my tantrum and raised her arm again to hail a cab. “Trust me,” she said. “I’ll take good care of you.”
An hour later I was really trying not to cry. Long chunks of my waist-length hair lay on the floor of the hair salon and all I could think of was the years it had taken to grow it out that long. Juan—the hairdresser fussing over me with giddy excitement—was undeterred by my pitiful expression reflected back at him in the mirror as my now-shoulder-length hair dangled wetly from my scalp. “On to the tint and highlights!” he sang with a big fat smile before disappearing to mix up some hair dye.
In the mirror I could see Candice approaching my chair, holding on to her ringing cell phone. When she was right behind me, she wiggled it in the mirror but didn’t answer it. “Guess who that was?” she said.
“I hate you,” I said meanly, ignoring her question.
Her face softened. “Abby, I promise you, Juan is one of the best. You are really going to love this new look. And think about how freeing it will be not to be a slave to your long hair anymore. I mean, the drying time alone must take half an hour.”
“I still hate you,” I groused, slumping down in the chair.
Candice smoothed a few of the locks away from my face. “You can hate me now,” she said, “but just wait to see the end result before you hate me permanently, okay?”
I sighed heavily and stared at my lap. “Was that Harrison?” I asked, wanting to change the subject before I really did start crying.
“It was,” she said. “Or at least the caller ID said it was from the FBI.” Candice glanced at her watch. “And he was twenty whole minutes earlier than I thought he’d be, the sneaky bastard.”
I raised my eyes and cocked my head. “Why is that sneaky?”
“Well,” Candice said, leaning an elbow against the next chair, “it means that I gave him until five to contact us. And if he had waited until about quarter to, or even four fifty, and we had just ignored him, then he knew he’d be given the riot act by Gaston. But since he was earlier than expected, well, now he can say that he attempted to call us and we didn’t respond, so Gaston can’t accuse him of being uncooperative.”
“So now what?” I asked, feeling like I was way out of my political league.
“We blow him off for tonight,” she said. “And tomorrow we call him early—before he gets into his office, in fact. We’ll leave him a message telling him that our plane departs at ten a.m. If he wants to meet with us, he’ll have to rearrange his morning schedule, which will no doubt royally tick him off, but he’ll do it just to say he did.”
At that moment Juan came bouncing back with several containers of brightly colored hair dye. I gulped and gave Candice a pleading look. “Help me,” I mouthed.
She smiled broadly and gave my shoulder a gentle pat. “See you in a bit,” she sang, then went back to sit in the lobby.
Two hours later Candice and I had made our way back to the hotel. As we stepped out of the cab and approached the door, loaded down with shopping bags, a man walking down the street jumped right in front of us and reached for the lobby door. “Let me get that for you,” he said with a huge smile and eyes that looked directly into mine.
I blushed and gave a quick “Thank you” as I hurried past him into the lobby.
Behind me I could hear Candice’s soft laughter. “That’s the third time in twenty minutes!” She giggled.
I could feel my cheeks flush even hotter and saw the evidence as we passed a large mirror on our way to the elevators. My new look was definitely turning heads and as I caught a glimpse of my reflection, I had to admit, even with those bright red embarrassed cheeks, I looked friggin’ amazing.
“I barely recognize myself,” I said to my partner as we waited by the elevator.
“You look stunning,” Candice said. I blushed some more and looked down at the floor. “Really, Abs, I can’t believe the transformation.”
“I hope Dutch likes it,” I said as we got on and turned around to face the doors again. I noticed then that we were surrounded by men all openly ogling.
Candice raised a hand to her lips to stifle a giggle. “Oh, something tells me he’ll like it all right.”
We left our bags in the room and then headed downstairs to dinner at the elegant Bistro Bis. As we were seated, Candice’s cell began to ring.
“Harrison?” I asked as she looked at the caller ID.
“Nope,” she said with a smile. “It’s your boy.” Candice answered the call. “Hi, Dutch,” she said. I scrunched my eyebrows, wondering why my boyfriend was calling my partner before calling me. “. . . Uh-huh,” she was saying, “mission accomplished, and I only had to wrestle her to the ground two or three times.” Then she laughed and laughed and I snapped open my menu, thoroughly irritated. “Believe me,” she continued, “you wouldn’t recognize her if she walked right past you on the street. She looks like one of Charlie’s Angels.”
Behind the menu I rolled my eyes, but deep down I felt the smallest hint of satisfaction. Candice’s hand appeared at the top of my menu and pulled it gently down. “Your man would like to whisper sweet noth ings to you,” she said, handing me the phone.