Caitlyn finished the last paper airplane and sailed it across the cabin. Now the file was empty. Hee!

Okay, so, she’d have to read some of it to find out where the bad guy was, but she’d do that when they landed and the Spy Car was driving her wherever she needed to go. Hell, the Spy Car would probably take her to the bad guy, most likely. Then she’d neutralize him or whatever. She’d worry about that later, but one thing was for sure. She had to get that done before she shopped.

Not that she wasn’t dying to shop. Because she absolutely was. But if she shopped, all the ghosts of the people the bad guy had killed would just bother the hell out of her. So she’d get work out of the way, then enjoy her first-ever trip to Paris.

The copilot opened the door to the cockpit and stuck his head into the cabin. “Ma’am, we’re landing.”

She peeked out the window. “Already?”

“Yes, ma’am. Buckle up.”

“I’m buckled.” She looked out the window again and opened her mouth, but the copilot had ducked back inside the cockpit. “Well, shoot.”

She waited until they had landed and taxied, out of force of habit—though it would probably take a lot more than a plane crash to ice her—then unbuckled and stood. The copilot had come out again and gallantly held out a hand to help her out of her seat.

“Thanks.”

“No problem. We’re here, ma’am.”

“Uh, hello? I think you guys need to get new maps, pronto.”

“Paris, Texas.”

“Aw, shit.”

“And the Boss said to tell you it serves you right for not reading the file.”

“Aw, shit!”

“That’s why I had to plow through two hundred paper airplanes to get my coffee, isn’t it?”

“I hate him,” she said, looking out her window at the barren expanse that was the Paris, Texas, airport, “so much.”

“We all do, ma’am.”

“So the Waldorf…?”

“It’s the Wally Dorfman Motel. See, Wally’s the mayor, and he owns the place on the side, and—”

“I actually have no interest in this at all.”

“Oh.”

“There’s a car out there, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s Caitlyn, okay? Stop with the ma’am. And the car is going to whisk me away somewhere.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So I don’t actually need to read the file,” she finished triumphantly.

“If you say so, ma’am.”

“Oh, I say so. Thanks for the ride.”

She slouched down the steps to the tarmac, shamelessly eavesdropping on the pilot and copilot’s conversation.

“She’s a field agent, right?”

“Yeah, but she’s new.”

“Really new if she’s not reading the file.”

“Yeah, but, God, wouldn’t you like to tear a piece off of—”

Caitlyn stopped listening. On the tarmac below, waiting for her, was the same driver she had last time.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. The chip in her head obediently played back the conversation where the woman had told Caitlyn her name. “Sharon, right? Nice to see you again.”

Sharon smiled at her, and the wind ruffled her hair. Prematurely gray, Caitlyn thought. She needs a good rinse to cover it. Maybe Light Auburn #421. “Hi, Caitlyn. Well, here we go again. You gonna actually shoot this one?”

“Probably not.”

“Have it your way.” Sharon snickered as she held the door open. “We’re off to the Waldorf.”

“Oh, if only.”

“…then I’m supposed to meet with this detective guy, Detective Johnson, and get the scoop from him, and then I guess I’ll use my incredible new brain to crack the case. I foresee nothing going wrong with this plan. At all.”

Sharon snickered. “I thought you didn’t read files. You’re sort of famous for it.”

“Well, I kind of scanned the papers before I made them into airplanes. It’s all up here.” She tapped her temple. “I just haven’t looked at it yet.”

“You can download information without knowing exactly what it is?”

“Sure. Like e-mail, I guess. You know, when you’re downloading something and you don’t know what it is. Good way to get a virus actually,” she added in a mutter.

“Hmf.”

“Sharon, we have to talk about this way you have of grunting instead of speaking.”

“No, we have to get to work,” Sharon said, pulling up outside the motel, which was painted a depressing shade of brown. “Luck.”

“What could possibly go wrong?” she asked glumly, slamming the car door. To punctuate her mood, it started to rain. This was apparently a rare and wonderful thing in Paris, Texas, but it was pretty damned common in Minneapolis, aka the Seattle of the Midwest.

She stomped through the lobby—no need to mess with the front desk, since the key to her room had been in the file—and down the hall to her room, popped the door open, and slung her purse on the small table in the breakfast nook.

Too late, she realized she should have scanned the room for life signs. Well, she’d said, hadn’t she? She was not cut out for this job.

She heard a sound, but there was no pain. Instead, she watched the screen in her head fade to black, exactly like a television set.

So that’s what losing consciousness feels like, she thought, tipping sideways. It’s so, er, what’s the word? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Great, now I can’t think of it. Detached! No, that’s not it. Anyway, it’s very int—