Free The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller by Shane Kuhn Page A

last.”
    “If I were to kiss you right now, would it taste like blood?”
    “Alice. We work together. Hasn’t anyone ever told you not to shit where you—”
    She kisses me. It tastes like brown sugar and sex. I’m fucked.
    “I live nearby,” she coaxes.
    “Of course you do.”
    “I have an Xbox.”
    “Enticing.”
    “And cats.”
    “Stop it. I’m going crazy with lust.”
    I agree to go home with her. This makes her very happy but she orders another round of courage for good measure. I could use a strong drink myself. The tequila has latched onto the speed in my head, and they are crashing around my psyche like Tom and Jerry. So we drink some more. And the verbal foreplay flows like a full-bodied Barolo—darkly playful and mind-numbingly strong. By the time we are ready to leave, my arms are full of tiny red crescent moons where she’s been digging her nails into my skin every time she wants to make a point and, in my estimation, hold on to this moment for dear life.
    I know what you’re thinking. The whole idea of James Bond pumping Pussy Galore for information is as much bullshit as the name Pussy Galore. If anything, a woman is more likely to lie to you the more she is invested in trying to land you as a boyfriend, spouse, sugar daddy, or whatever. Plus, the LAST thing a woman wants to talk about while basking in the caramel-colored light of multiple orgasms is work.
    “Was it as good for you as it was for me? Light me a cigarette and oh, out of curiosity, what are the Russian missile launch codes?”
    The good thing is that I’m not planning to ask her anything about work. Since she’s had time to go home, she undoubtedly took her laptop with her to do work over the weekend (she never stops), and it’s just sitting there, waiting to tell me what I want to know.
    When we get to her place and she starts to undress me the moment the front door closes, what I thought was a steely resolve beginsto quickly disintegrate. After several minutes of deep-sea tongue exploration and rough trade groping, I am saved by the bell when she excuses herself to go to the bathroom to do whatever women do in the bathroom when they know they are about to have sex. Like Robert Johnson, I am now standing at a crossroads with the devil on one side and desolation on the other. Not only do I want to close this proverbial deal with Alice, but also I can feel that part of me actually needs this. This is a rare opportunity to mix business with pleasure, and to deny it goes against every fiber of my being. For a split second, I decide to give in to the dark side and go for it. Then I hear the water running in the bathroom, and the sound reminds me of when I couldn’t stop washing my hands after my first kill. That’s when I remember I already made my deal with the devil.
    So I move quickly to the kitchen to fix us a drink. I pour her a vodka martini with an Ambien chaser. She comes out of the bathroom, downs it, and proceeds to devour me like a female mantis. But she’s snoring before I can finish undoing her impossibly complicated bra fastener. I can disassemble, clean, reassemble, and load an MP9 Tactical Machine Pistol in total darkness in about twenty-seven seconds. I have never once successfully unfastened any woman’s bra.
    While she dozes, I go to work snooping her place. I find her laptop in her workbag and fire it up. The password screen appears, and I slip my thumb drive into the USB port. I have some password hack programs that I bought from Russian gangbangers for a king’s ransom, and they are pretty damned effective. However, Alice’s laptop has an unusual amount of security encryption protecting her log-in screen, even for an attorney. After three and a half hours of hammering her system, I’m still not in. I’m beginning to get a bit anxious because I have only about an hour left on the Ambien I gave her.
    While I wait, I move to Plan B and install a small, wireless transmitter on her laptop motherboard. This