A Is for Apple (22 page)
About the Author
To learn more about Kate Johnson and Sophie Green, please visit
www.KateJohnson.co.uk
or visit Sophie’s MySpace at
www.myspace.com/sophiesuperspy
. Send an email to Kate Johnson at
[email protected]
.
Look for these titles by Kate Johnson
Now Available:
The Twelve Lies of Christmas
I, Spy?
Ugley Business
Never underestimate the blonde.
I, Spy?
© 2007 Kate Johnson
“The British spy is elegant, suave and sophisticated. The British spy is not blonde, built, and confused.”
But Sophie Green is, and she’s just been hired by a highly secret government agency. She drives a car the colour of bile and is obsessed with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. She doesn’t know which end of the gun to fire from and her hair hasn’t been natural since she was twelve. But that’s not going to stop her from trying to save the day, once she figures out who to save it from.
Sexy spies, plane crashes, firebombs and multicoloured cocktails—they’re all in a day’s work for Sophie. Roll over, Bond, there’s a new bombshell in town. And it’s got Sophie’s name on it…
Enjoy the following excerpt for
I, Spy?
Okay, I can do this. This is not a problem. This is what I’m trained for. I can stay calm in a crisis.
Only, the crisis was I switched my alarm off and now I had twenty minutes in which to get out of bed, washed, dressed, up to uniform “neat and tidy appearance” standards, gulp down some coffee, find my keys and get to work.
It takes me twenty minutes to find a frigging parking space.
I hit the first hurdle when I couldn’t find my uniform shirt. Not by my bed. Not under my bed. Not in the laundry basket. Not in the washing machine. Christ, I only took it off yesterday, where the hell could it have gone? I found myself looking in the most insane places—under the sofa, in the shoe cupboard, the oven—
everywhere
—before I finally found it in the first place I’d checked. Stale and creased in the laundry basket.
I sprayed some Febreze on it, shook out the creases—I couldn’t even remember where my iron’s
supposed
to be, let alone where it might actually have ended up—and slung it on. I nearly strangled myself with my scarf before I got it right. Making some heroically quick instant coffee with half cold water, I nevertheless scalded my tongue and the roof of my mouth gulping it down.
Tammy, my little tabby cat, watched with a total lack of interest as I hopped around, swearing and moaning at the pain.
“Keys,” I slurred, and she blinked at me. There was no logical place for my keys; why would there be? I was nearly crying by the time I found them on the kitchen counter. A quick check of my watch told me it was ten to five—even if I raced up to the airport and left my car on the front concourse, I’d still be late.
“So why am I rushing?” I asked Tammy.
Tammy didn’t know.
Finally, finally finding my shoes, gulping down some mouthwash as an alternative to toothpaste (and nearly choking myself in the process), I ricocheted out of the house. Seven minutes to. This was not going to be possible.
At least the roads would be quiet—but no, against all reasonable laws, I got stuck behind some ancient grandpa doing two miles an hour in his Rover. Finally leaving him behind as I took the back road to the staff car park, I skidded up to the car park barrier—and realised I’d left my security pass at home.
Shit, fuck and bugger. With a side order of bollocks.
Slamming the car into reverse with no thought for who may be behind me—thankfully no one—I zoomed back home, startled Tammy by grabbing said pass from the back of my bedroom door—well, where would you keep yours?—and left again.
I parked up at quarter past five. T plus fifteen minutes. By the time I made it up to the terminal, breathless, red and wheezing, it had gone twenty past and the queues at checkin were hitting the desks opposite.
I slunk up to the office, ready with an excuse about my car breaking down—hoping no one would remember it’s physically indestructible—and found it deserted.
Ha. I grabbed my time sheet and signed in on time. Hell, they weren’t going to check.
Probably I should stop being this late every day, though.
You know, when you think of airline staff you think of cute uniforms and bright lipstick and glamour. You don’t think about getting up at an invisible hour of the morning, wearing a bright turquoise shirt and polyester scarf, covered in cat hairs and so tired you could fall over mid-stride. The reality isn’t checking in celebrities on first class flights to New York. It’s surly businessmen and drunk girls on hen weekends to Prague.
Within five minutes of me sitting down at a desk, one of several things will have happened: the computer will have broken down, the bag tag reel will have run out, the boarding card reel will have run out, the flight will have been delayed, the passenger in front of me will refuse to pay their excess baggage, the passenger behind them won’t have the right visa. The Norwegian guy I fancy will have got chatted up by a woman with condoms on her veil. Or all of the above.
Within thirty minutes, I’ll feel like curling up into a ball under the desk, sobbing hysterically.
So, why did I do this job? Why demean myself daily, prostrate my exhausted body in front of the baying masses clamouring for my blood because their lives have been disrupted by five small minutes? Why work longer hours than the sun for worse pay than a supermarket shelf filler?
Well…
I did look good in the uniform.
And the Norwegian guy was really quite cute.
And because when people asked me what I did, I had an answer for them that wasn’t “student”, “shopgirl” or “office junior”, which was what had happened to everyone I went to school with. Apart from Jason Miles, who’s a pothead and went to prison three months ago for ramraiding the post office.
And that’s about it. I suppose you could say there was the illusion of glamour. My job really wasn’t very glamorous, but people thought it was and I liked them to think I was too.
My name is Sophie Green, and I live a very small life
.
While investigative reporter Catherine Steel looks for Mr. Right, she tries to learn if someone murdered the janitor from her old high school.
A Fiery Secret
© 2006 Diane Craver
Catherine Steel is an investigative reporter for a newspaper in Ohio. To supplement her income so that she can buy clothes and gifts for her small godchild, she writes fluff pieces for women’s magazines. Two recent articles are: “What To Wear to Get Noticed” and “Catherine’s Ten Simple Dating Rules.”
When Jake Michaels fills a sports editor’s spot on the paper, Catherine wonders if he is man enough to fulfill her fantasy. And does she want him to be the one? After all, he broke her heart ten years ago in high school when he failed to show up for their prom date. And now that he’s back in town, he wants to date her. Catherine refuses to go out with him but he keeps asking. Should she give Jake another chance?
When it appears the high school janitor, Max, was murdered, Catherine is determined to learn the truth about his death. Catherine’s list of suspects for Max’s death include: the school secretary with her intense dislike of Max, the charismatic mayor, the mayor’s unbalanced girlfriend, the angry school principal, and a strange math teacher.
Enjoy this excerpt from
A Fiery Secret
:
On Friday morning, I sat at my desk, wearing my favorite pair of jeans with a raspberry-colored, single-button shrug sweater and a white top underneath. The vibrant raspberry was enough to brighten anyone’s work day. While leaving my apartment, I‘d slipped on a comfortable pair of loafers and was happy to leave the stiletto heels at home. My feet needed a break from walking back and forth in high heels in front of Jake. I wondered if he’d miss me wearing a short skirt today.
I didn’t have to wonder for long.
“Are you working on your romance article?” Jake said, standing next to me.
I turned away from the monitor screen to see him grinning at me. He wore jeans and a shirt with the Bengals’ Tiger logo on it. I shook my head. “No, I’m finishing up the interview I did with Mr. Jansen last night about his new poetry book.” My eyes widened as I gazed at Jake. “I guess the Bengals didn’t sign you.”
“Even if they could add me to their roster mid-season, I couldn’t leave the newspaper and miss seeing you parade up and down the hallway to get your water.”
“I better get a water bottle so I don’t distract you from your work.”
“I like the distraction.” He leaned closer. “And you look great in jeans and that…” He stopped to take a better look at my shrug. “That little sweater and tight top.”
Glancing down at my chest, I said, “It’s not tight, just slightly fitted.”
“How’s the absent Ricardo? Is he going to make an appearance at the Halloween party?”
It was time to tell Jake that a Spanish girl had taken Ricardo’s love away from me. No, I couldn’t say that. It wouldn’t be wise to mention I was jilted for another woman. And actually I wasn’t, since I broke up with Ricardo first, but still I hadn’t anticipated him finding someone to take my place in his heart. This stretching the truth a little bit—okay, a lot—was making my life too stressful.
I looked Jake straight in the eye. “We broke up.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t like speaking Spanish anyway.”
“Doesn’t he speak English?”
I nodded. “It was a joke. Ricardo speaks better English than I do. But his family talks in Spanish most of the time.” I wondered if Anita realized what a great family she was marrying into. Probably not.
“You better still come to the party.” That’s all he had to say. What happened to hitting on me and asking me out for tonight? It was Friday, after all, and I was definitely free now. “I’ll be there. Have you talked to Brian? Is everyone going to McFadden’s tonight?”
He shrugged. “I haven’t heard. But I’m leaving this weekend to cover the World Series.”
This was why being a couple would never work for us. One of us would always have a story to cover, but still it was funny that he wasn’t all over me. What happened to him trying to convince me to give him another chance? It couldn’t just be because he was leaving for the World Series.
I mean, he could’ve mentioned going out for a drink before he left. That was it. We could go out for a nice drink after work, and it’d be fun to be the one to suggest it. “Let’s go out for a drink tonight.”
He shook his head. “I don’t think that’s wise.”
I tapped my fingers on the desk. “What’s going on here? You just said the other day how much you wanted to go out with me and I could even stand you up since I missed the prom. Then we’d move on. What gives?”
His expression grew serious. “I think the biggest mistake single women and men make is to bounce from one relationship to the next without evaluating what went wrong. I know you really don’t want to use me to help you get over Ricardo. And I don’t want you to date me on the rebound. That’s unfair to both of us. My policy is to wait a month after a breakup before I date someone new.”
“So you want to give me a month after my breakup with Ricardo before we date?”
“Or longer.”
Now that Jake knew I was available, he wanted to wait before going out with me. Unbelievable. When I decided to take a chance on him, he was indifferent. I thought there were sparks between us, so why was he pulling back?
He was only interested in the chase. That had to be it. That was what I’d feared.
Something wasn’t right here and I thought for a moment, giving Jake a weak smile. Then it hit me how his words sounded so familiar. Shit, he was playing me. His whole rebounding theory was taken from my magazine article, “Catherine’s Ten Simple Dating Rules”.
I glared at him. “You read my dating article.”
He grinned. “I thought you’d catch on. And a drink tonight sounds good.”
It turned out to be more than a drink.
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