Disclaimer: I don't own the situations or characters portrayed herein. I'm just playing with them for a while.


All That Glitters Part 1

Once upon a time, the agency had an operative codenamed Scarecrow. He was excellent at what he did. He got fantastic results. He had a tremendous case closure rate.

But no one paid much attention to that, because Scarecrow was famous far and wide for methods that — when described charitably — could be called unorthodox. If described a little less charitably, the words morally bankrupt came to mind.

Some people used other words. Lothario. Gigolo. Womanizer. Casanova. Philanderer. Don Juan. The best peacock dancer the agency had to offer.

It was a long list.

Lee Stetson hated that guy.

His relationship with Amanda had been almost wrecked by Scarecrow's reputation once before, on the Stemwinder case. Now, when he would like nothing more than to be a plain old boring married man going home with the same woman every night, he was being ordered to dust off the old Scarecrow costume. Dr. Smyth wanted him to gather evidence from an old fling, and the agency director clearly thought that a discreet seduction would do the trick.

It wasn't the most mature of words, but, having spent a good bit of the last two weeks around a couple of teenagers, the word that came to mind was yuck. That was followed by the overwhelming desire to call Dr. Smyth other things. Wormbrain. Bozo. Moron. Absolutely and utterly devoid of the better human characteristics and overflowing with all the worst.

Why couldn't Scarecrow be famous for his singleminded devotion, or for his disappearing acts, or his legendary cooking skills? He would even settle for being the guy that lost his Porsche over a cliff because of a clipboard.

No such luck.

He sighed, and headed off to the Danton estate. He refused to flirt or seduce. He would treat this as professionally as possible: make polite conversation, get to the point, ask his questions, then escape back to the safety of his office and his wife.

He'd put his newly acquired clearances to use first, though, and get his hands on the Grenada records.