Disclaimer: I don't own this stuff. It's the property of Angela Robinson and Sony Pictures.

Reposted because it got garbled for some reason.

Chapter 2:

So, I was talking to one of my girlfriends the other day, and her cholesterol is like through the roof, you know? And I'm like, "damn girl, high protein diets are overrated." You can't go eating all that red meat and expect it to come back and bite you in your heavily-inflated ass. I mean, get off Atkins and get on the treadmill.

Anyhow, I've like so got to go right now. I think I just saw Brad Pitt walk by…

I quickly scanned the short Email message on her PDA before Amy sent it off. "You sure you weren't a valley girl in your past life?"

Amy smiled shyly. "Well, I had to make it sound as not-me as I could."

Communication between her and Max had been pretty one-sided for the last few years. About once a month or so, Amy'd send a post card from wherever we were, no return address, nothing written on it; just to let her best friend know we were okay. This would be the first actual contact she'd had with Max in close to a year. This time, through a disposable cellphone which, hopefully, nobody would be able to trace back to us.

"You're sure Max'll know who it's from?" I asked, "'cause that Email's really not-you."

Amy nodded.

"You're sure that you can trust her?" I asked.

"Lucy," Amy frowned, "she's my best friend."

I held up my hands in surrender, "I'm sorry, I just tend to be a little slow to trust people who held me at gunpoint the last time I saw them."

"I held you at gunpoint, and a few hours later you were dragging me out on a date. Also at gunpoint, I might add," a smile tugged at the corners of her lips.

"Crossbow-point, for the record," I countered, mirroring her grin.

I flopped down on the queen-sized bed next to her. The motel room wasn't exactly luxury accommodations, but it was one of countless motels along the freeway; the perfect place to disappear. Actually, it was the place where a lot of people came specifically to disappear. Quite a few motels around here rented rooms by the hour. I can only guess what the guy in the lobby must have thought when two hot chicks with no luggage showed up at his desk looking for a room. Then again, maybe I don't want to guess.

I rolled onto my side and snuggled close to Amy, automatically finding that little hollow in between her shoulder and her neck that seemed perfectly shaped for the right side of my head. She reached around me, pulling me in closer.

Holding the PDA up she tapped the "send" button, and set the device on the bedside table.

"Five… four… three…" I heard her whisper, "two… one…"

The phone rang. Amy reached over to the small cellular phone on the bedside table and tapped the "send" button.

"Amy?" Max's voice sounded tinny through the tiny speaker of the cellular phone, but it was still perfectly audible from where I lay next to Amy.

"Hi, Max," Amy replied without actually picking up the phone.

"Are you okay? What's wrong?" Her tone became harsher, "did Lucy…"

"I'm fine," Amy interrupted. "And no, this isn't about Lucy; not completely, I don't think."

"What is it?"

"Do you know anyone who might have a reason to hunt us down?" Amy asked.

"Other than us, you mean?" Max replied.

I felt Amy stiffen under my fingertips, "yeah, other than you. We were in the middle of an attempted hit on the freeway this morning, and it didn't feel like the kind of thing that the DEBS would do."

"The freeway?" There was a brief pause on the line. "Wait, you're in L.A.?"

It was hard to get a solid read from the tiny speaker of the cellular phone, but she sounded genuine enough.

"You didn't know?" Amy asked.

"No, how could I?" Max replied, "Ms. Petrie might know; but she hasn't mentioned anything about it."

"So who else could be after us?" Amy asked.

"Amy, Lucy's a former criminal mastermind; and L.A. used to be her turf. You want a list of possible suspects, I suggest you try the phonebook. And when you've checked L.A., I suggest you move on to Australia. I imagine they've got a bit of a beef against her, too," Max replied, a slight edge to her voice.

"Gee, thanks Max," I spoke up.

I could almost hear Max wince over the phone. One of my guilty pleasures, I admit: seeing Max Brewer sweat a little. "Oh. Hi, Lucy. Didn't know you were there."

"Yeah, I gathered," I replied, sarcasm dripping off my voice. Under my right cheek, I could feel Amy giggle silently.

"Look, is there anything you can tell us?" Amy asked.

"If something's going on, they haven't told me about…" Max stopped briefly, "wait a minute. We sent a team to the freeway after the crash. Not us, though, so I don't know what they found; but if Ms. Petrie thinks that you were involved, it makes sense that she'd be keeping our team out of it."

"So she does know," Amy shook her head.

"Or suspects, anyway. We're still the top squad around here," Max's voice replied, "if she didn't send us out, she must've figured we'd have some reason to hide whatever we found."

Amy chewed on her lower lip for a moment.

"Max, we need a favor," I told the red phone.

"Name it," Max replied immediately. I didn't for a minute believe that she would be doing the favor for me; but Amy made a good bargaining chip in this particular instance. Max would walk a mile over hot coals, another over broken glass, then dive naked into a swimming pool filled with razor blades if Amy asked her to.

For me? Not so much.

"I need to know what that team found. I know who I used to do business with, and who might have a reason for killing me. You don't," I told her.

"Look, we can handle this," Max insisted.

"No, you can't; and even if I thought you could, I don't for a second believe that the DEBS necessarily would," I countered. "From their point of view, either whoever's after us kills me, or I kill them. As far as you're concerned, it's win-win."

"You said you weren't down with the killing," Max accused.

"I'm not, but I'm pretty sure that the DEBS don't know that," I replied. "Last time I checked, they were still spouting that 'nobody has ever faced Lucy Diamond and lived to tell about it' bullshit." I let out a long, exasperated breath. "A few ATF agents get Ebola in Peru, and I get labeled as some kind of mass murderer just because they happened to be looking for me at the time," I muttered under my breath.

"Well, maybe we haven't got all the facts exactly…"

"You know what the really annoying thing about that is?" I continued as if she hadn't spoken. "I wasn't even in Peru. I was in Cuba. The team they sent to Cuba never even saw me. They lived, they went home and reported that I wasn't there. Meanwhile the team that goes where I'm not gets themselves killed and somehow I manage to get the blame for it."

"Um…"

"I mean, Christ, you're supposed to be an intelligence agency; frankly your track record…"

"Hey!" Max yelled. "You were in the middle of asking me for a favor, right? 'Cause frankly, yelling at me isn't the best way of putting me in an amicable mood."

Whoops.

"Sorry," I replied.

Next to me, I could feel Amy's whole body shaking as she bit down on her lower lip, trying not to burst out laughing. I fixed her with a glare before I spoke again.

"Just get me that information. You have a place where you can drop it safely?"

"Yeah," Max replied, "Amy knows the place."

"Thanks," I told her.

"I'm not doing it for you," Max told me, as if there were much doubt on that account.

Amy reached across and disconnected the phone. Then she looked down and kissed my forehead just below the hairline. "Honey, we really need to teach you the value of diplomacy."

I looked up into her eyes and smiled, "hey, it worked, didn't it?"