It Should Happen To You. Kathleen O'Reilly

      They got in place again.

      “One, two, three. Lift.”

      Somewhere in the dark they heard a noise.

      “What was that?” Mickey asked, her heart pounding wildly.

      Beth looked down below. “A cat.”

      “One more time.”

      “Maybe we could just break it?”

      Mickey cased the joint, considering the idea. Everything was too quiet. “Nah. Somebody might hear us.”

      “Can we try the front door? Maybe it’s unlocked.”

      “You have no imagination.”

      “Logic, Mick. It’s called logic.”

      Beth had a point. Mickey abandoned her short life of crime. “Okay.”

      They climbed back down and entered the building’s lobby. John’s apartment was on the second floor, right at the top of the stairs. Mickey handed the flashlight to Beth and tried the doorknob.

      Locked.

      Beth stared at Mickey’s hand, her mouth open. “You’re wearing gloves?”

      “I didn’t want to leave any prints.”

      “And what about me?”

      Mickey had researched that, too. “Your prints aren’t on file. No worries.”

      “What? You’ve been arrested before?”

      “No. Anybody that handles plutonium gets printed and filed in the national database. Procedure.”

      Beth got a little wide-eyed. “You really work with plutonium?”

      “Nah. Just a little prison humor.”

      Beth wasn’t amused. “Can we go now?”

      A long beam of headlights lit up the window off the stairwell.

      “Somebody’s coming,” Mickey said, and then took off up the stairs to the third floor. “Up here. If it’s John, he won’t see us.”

      Beth followed right behind, a streak in black spandex and sweater. Very stylish. Silently they waited for the door to open below.

      The door eased open and an old man creaked his way into the foyer. Mickey began to breathe again. “False alarm.”

      “Look, this isn’t working. You need to hire Dominic.”

      Oh, hell.

      Mickey leaned against the rickety stair rail and faced the whole truth. Sadly, her life as she knew it was pretty much screwed unless she got that tape back, and Dominic Corlucci, mob guy extraordinaire, seemed the best answer.

      Somewhere upstairs, a stereo cranked up. Loud, discordant and really, really bad music.

      Mickey sighed. “Oh, all right.”

      “Want to get a beer?”

      “Soft drink for me,” she answered. She was still paying for the aftereffects of her last binge.

      “I’ll buy.”

      Mickey stuffed her gloves in her pocket and studied her own attire. Black sweatshirt and matching knit pants. Passable, but barely. “You think we should change?”

      Beth shook her head. “Nah. Black is very in.”

      3

      ON SATURDAY MORNING, Mickey donned the long blond wig. She pulled the boots from her closet and searched for something remotely sleazy.

      Nothing. Absolutely nothing. In disgust, she slapped her hand against the hard wooden frame and immediately regretted it. Swift, Coleman, very swift. She was going to have to do something about her wardrobe if she wanted to continue her disguise in front of Dominic Corlucci—which she did. Her alter ego was going to need some more clothes. She should talk to Cassandra about that. If there was one woman who knew sleaze—a tasteful sort of sleaze—it was Cassandra.

      Dejected, she leaned against the closet frame. There was only one reason for this loss of steely self-control. Sex.

      And one way to fix it. Never again was she going to have sex.

      If Queen Victoria could do it, so could Mickey. Some little particle of double circled inside her, due mainly to the nighttime sightings of Dominic Corlucci in her dreams. Dreams that were starting to impact her sleeping abilities. But what harm was there in a little idle fantasizing? Mickey had always had a healthy fantasy life. And fantasies were allowed under the steely selfcontrol regime. It kept the lonely Saturday nights interesting.

      She shoved off the doubts and started strategizing her dress code, the pragmatic Mickey returning. If Dominic ever knew the real Mickey Coleman, he wouldn’t give her the time of day, much less an interesting Saturday night, so fantasies were all she had.

      Another hour later and she was at Beth’s Starbucks in full regalia—creatively inspired by a Victoria’s Secret catalog and utilizing underwear in a manner for which it was not intended. The black camisole turned heads, which she hoped was a good thing.

      She ordered a latte and then settled herself at his table. Prepared for all eventualities, she pulled out the latest issue of Scientific American—discreetly tucked inside a Playgirl—and sat back to read.

      Half an hour later, he showed. When he walked through the door, she experienced that extreme tickling inside her that seemed so odd. Again. What was it about him? Was it the long, lean body that moved so gracefully? Was it the hooded eyes that seemed as deep and dark as the blackest night sky? Whatever it was, it was powerful and scared the smegaroo right out of her. Mickey didn’t like men to have power over her. She was arrogant enough to think she could make her way to the top on her own merits. Everything would have been fine except for John Monihan. Except for Dominic Corlucci. Maybe she was just doomed to be stupid with men.

      Oh, enough already. She took one last confidence-building sip of her coffee and then stood, electing to operate from a position of dominance. “You’re late.”

      His eyes flickered with amusement. “If I had known you were so…anxious, I’d have come sooner.” He glanced over at the Playgirl and raised an eyebrow. “A little light reading?”

      “For the articles only,” she said, and then winced when she noticed the front page, Seven Sensational Positions to Achieve the Ultimate O. She shrugged a shoulder, feigning nonchalance. “We have a deal?”

      He crossed his powerful arms over his chest, his T-shirt clinging to muscles that made her mouth salivate in a purely Pavlovian response. “Yeah, but there’s one little thing I need.”

      At this point, Mickey would have promised him anything. “What?”

      “I need an escort. Somebody to fill in for a while.”

      Anything except that. “Let me think about it for a minute. No.”

      Then he shrugged a shoulder, nothing nonchalant about it at all. “The deal’s off.”

      A lesser woman would have stamped her foot. Mickey merely adjusted her glasses. “You’re willing to walk away from two-thousand dollars because I won’t decorate your arm?”

      Evenly he met her eyes. “Yeah.”

      She pulled herself up to her full five feet eleven inches and stared down her nose. He was taller than her by half a head, but the effect was still good. “What kind of wise guy are you?”

      And she had him. His eyes flickered, not a big move, but she caught it. His gaze slid over her, a look she was learning to recognize, guaranteed to drop her stomach three megaohms. Then he slowly shook his head, regret marking his expression. “All right. We do it your way.”

      She didn’t