Chapter 1

Monday October 10

I got an email from Oliver yesterday:

To: Lexi

From: Oliver

Subject: Interested in a job?

Lexi -

I need a beautiful young woman for an undercover job. I’m swamped, so you’d have to take the lead on the whole investigation. Make a few bucks, gain some experience, and maybe we could swing some college credits if it fits with your coursework. What do you say?

Oliver was the guy who coaxed me into dating a guy, Paris, and then paid me to spy on Paris’ family, a few months ago. He’s a private investigator who works for a law firm. Nice guy, and he’s the only one who’s ever given me any practical encouragement in a possible investigative career.

When it became clear that I won’t ever be able to work for the FBI I figured a regular software job was most likely in my future. I’m all signed up to resume college next semester after this year’s unfortunate pause. But I do like mysteries, so maybe I shouldn’t rule investigations out completely. Maybe I could do computer forensics?

Anyway, I met Oliver at his office today.

“Our client is a woman your age who subscribed to a dating website,” Oliver explained. “She met a man, they clicked, they had sex - and she became pregnant. We believe that he deliberately sabotaged the condom. We think it’s a pattern of behavior: he gets off on impregnating women against their will. ‘Stealthing,’ they call it. We want to catch him in the act.”

I don’t know how Oliver could have known it, but reckless pregnancies are sort of a big issue for me. I guess it’s because I was raised Catholic.

“Fucker!” I replied. “So what happens if we catch him? Is that considered rape or fraud or what?”

Oliver frowned. “It’s unlikely that we could meet the burden for a criminal case,” he explained. “But there are a variety of civil avenues to pursue. We’re hoping that with your help we could punish him severely enough to send a message to anyone else thinking about it.”

“Hmm,” I said rolling it over in my head. “Wait, so how do we catch him? What exactly do you expect me to do?”

“Well,” Oliver said awkwardly, “you would have to sleep with him. Hopefully on camera. Hopefully you could preserve the condom.”

“Oh...,” I said, not knowing what to think. I mean, I’ve slept with people to achieve my goals before - I’ve got nothing against using sex as a tool. But those have always been my goals; it’s always been my idea. Nobody has ever said, “Hey, I want you to sleep with this stranger. I’ll pay you.” It’s no big deal, right? Undercover cops probably do this sort of thing all the time. But then, so do prostitutes.

Oliver spoke again to break the silence. “Of course, first we’d need for him to find you. We’ll sign you up for the dating site and model your profile after our client’s. Maybe change your look a little too. Hopefully we can replicate the qualities that attracted him to Mandy.”

I was ashamed of my shallowness at even wondering, but I couldn’t help but ask: “What does this guy look like?”

Oliver brought up a picture on his computer. It was a blond guy, well-built in a tight T-shirt, laughing and looking at something off-camera. It was exactly the sort of picture you’d want to use for a dating site. Or to sell a picture frame. He was definitely boneable.

“And this is Mandy,” Oliver said after a moment, switching to a picture of a girl. She was average size and fit, like me, with black hair in a short bob haircut. Maybe Oliver was playing me, but she just looked so innocent and carefree. I could imagine the dread she must have felt when her period was late by a day, and then another and another, until she finally took a test and confirmed her fears.

“The baby...?” I asked.

“She had an abortion,” Oliver said with a hint of sorrow.

“Oh...,” I replied. “Let me think about it?”

“Of course,” he said.

Wednesday October 12

I talked with my roommate Juliet about the mission. She says I should do it. She’s really excited, hoping that when all is said and done, she can turn it into a story for the online magazine she works at.

“Besides,” she told me, “you’ve still got a lot of screwing before you can move on from being dumped by Paris.”

“The breakup was mutual,” I told her.

“Sure it was, honey,” she said while condescendingly patting my head.

“Anyway, once I find him I only expect to do him once,” I explained. “That’s not exactly what I’d call ‘a lot of screwing’.”

“Well, sure, you’ll only do him once,” Juliet replied. “But what about all the other guys you’ll meet on this dating site? Think about it - you’ll be creating this fake persona to seem more like this Mandy chick, right? Think of all the interesting guys you can meet, use, and throw away!” When she saw the frown on my face she rolled her eyes and added, “Maybe you’ll even fall in love.

It did sound kind of fun.

Oliver wants me to take the lead on the investigation, so the first thing I did was interview Mandy. She’s a pharmacy assistant; pretty but very shy. Her friends had to twist her arm to get her to try the dating site - MyOtherHalf.com. Richard was the first guy she actually went out with from there.

We went over her profile: she’s into evenings at home reading books, and window shopping for multi-million dollar houses online. She doesn’t have any pets of her own, but sometimes she takes pictures of other people’s dogs. I friended her on various social media so that I could get a better sense of who she is.

Then I asked her to tell me about the actual date.

“We went for coffee, and I swear that was all it was supposed to be. But he was so nice, and so beautiful, and so when he asked to take a walk in the park I said yes. Where’s the harm in that, mmm?”