Frea's A/N the First: Thanks to everybody that reviewed and to our awesome beta readers. Guys, I'm excited to be showing you this chapter. It's one of the favorite things I've ever worked on as a writer. mxpw just really knocked it out of the park, and made co-writing this chapter a blast.

mxpw's A/N the First: Oh, stop it, you. But I won't deny that this chapter has a favorite character or two in it. And it's exciting to get to show it to you to everybody who has reviewed. I really appreciate you sharing your thoughts! However, if you wish to discuss Double Agent, please refrain from doing that in your reviews. Feel free to message me privately!

Southern Comfort

The problem with using a locksmith who was occasionally willing to look the other way or view the hard black lines of the law in shades of gray, was that sometimes you had to deal with that locksmith's whims. I could have called somebody else in the book and had them out to fix my office door since Monty was apparently on a three-day fishing trip with his brother-in-law, but there's something to be said for loyalty. And the guy had gotten me out of a few not-so-pretty jams before. I owed him my business for life, and fifty bucks besides. I was kind of hoping he didn't remember that part.

But since he had gone out of town, I didn't have much of a choice, which was why I was crouched in front of my door, stripped down to my shirtsleeves, when I heard the high heels.

There was no mistaking those heels, not the click or the rhythm. Relief nearly made me dizzy.

"Knew you'd come back, doll," I said without looking up. Some societies called that playing it cool. "Hand me that wrench?"

"I—I'm sorry?"

The voice was Southern, all molasses and sugar-sweet because of it. It was a pleasant voice, don't get me wrong, but it wasn't the voice of my estranged secretary and right-hand woman.

I straightened very slowly and turned.

I'm a tall man. When I say I spend most of my day looking down on people, I'm not talking about the figurative sense. One glance at this woman told me I wouldn't have to in this case because she was tall—not as tall as me, but with her heels it was good enough. She was on the willowy side, all sleek, sinful lines and fluid grace. Her face was angular and sharp, dotted with freckles that gave her a kind of innocence that belied the alluring look in her piercing blue eyes. Soft auburn curls danced along her shoulders and glowed faintly in the diffuse light of the hallway.

Normally I'm not one to care about women's fashion—or men's fashion for that matter—but a person's clothes tell you a lot about them, or more specifically their ability to pay for things like a private detective. She wore a full-skirted dark blue dress that reached about mid-calf and showed off her impressively thin waist. It looked expensive and high quality, which could only mean good things for me.

Okay, I noticed the legs. What? I'm still a man and they seemed to go on forever. I only stared for two, okay, three seconds. Thank God Ellie wasn't around; she'd probably slap me for being so uncouth.

I rubbed my hands on my pants and offered her my most friendly smile. "Help you, Miss?"

"Are you Mr. Carmichael?" Southern honey dripped from her words.

"Says so on the door." I moved so that I stood between her and the jimmied lock. "Sorry about the, ah, inconvenience. Had a couple of over-eager clients that didn't want to wait. What can I do for you?"

She smiled then, showing gleaming white teeth. It was a pretty smile, a very pretty smile, and I told myself this was a potential client, not a potential companion for a night on the town.

"I need your help."

"Then you've come to the right place." I pushed my office door in. As she passed, I was struck by the sway of her hips. Something about the way the woman moved seemed incongruent with her sweet and pleasant attitude. It was more like the stride of a panther than the mince of a lamb she appeared to be. I narrowed my eyes and closed the door behind me. It didn't shut all the way, of course, but that didn't matter. I could worry about it after the woman left.

I let her follow me into my office, only to realize a second too late that maybe that wasn't the best idea in the world. "Uh, apologies for the mess. My secretary is...on vacation." I laughed nervously as I pulled the lone chair in my office out for her. She sat and crossed one impossibly long leg over the other, resting her clasped hands on her knee and straightening up with the kind of posture that would have made my old instructors at Basic proud.

"So, what can I help you with, Miss..." I let my voice trail off as I moved around my messy desk.

"Miller," she said. "My name is Carina Miller."

I offered her my hand. Her handshake spoke of gentility and breeding. "Nice to meet you, Miss Miller. So, how can I help you?"

Her chest rose as she brought in a big breath. She seemed to steel herself, like she was about to do something unpleasant but necessary. "I need you to find a man for me," she said. She reached into her purse and pulled out a picture, which she handed to me.

He was ridiculously handsome, the kind of man who'd fit right at home on the silver screen, with stylish dark hair and light eyes. "Nice looking fellow. Who is he?"

"My fiancé."

I looked from the picture to the woman. Made sense. "All right, what makes you think he's missing?"

"I haven't heard from him in more than a week. I'm worried."

Poor schmuck. Had to be dead. Not much else could keep a man, even one who looked like that, from coming back to the Southern belle currently sultrying up my wreck of an office. A Southern belle, regrettably, that I myself would have to turn down. "I'm sorry, sweetheart," I said. "I don't take missing persons cases. But if he's been gone a week like you say, you should go to the police."

"I have." Tears shimmered, but didn't fall from those quicksilver eyes. "They said I shouldn't worry my 'pretty little head' about it."

Unfortunately, that sounded like the bulls we all loved to hate. "I'm sorry. I've got a friend down at the 42nd, I could send you his way, and he'd be willing to help you out."

"Mr. Carmichael." I liked the way she said that. Mist-ah Cah-michael, just melting on the tongue like spun sugar. She gave me a look that could twist the hearts of greater men than myself around her little finger. "I came to you because I heard you were the best. The police, they say that Bryce is just another wanderer, that it's not unusual that men can get up and leave everything they know behind. They said it was the War that does it to these, these rogues, but I know Bryce better. He's not like them, Mr. Carmichael."

Bryce.

Casually, I leaned forward to grab the foul ball Sarah had caught when I'd treated us to a Cubbies game during a slump in business. I tossed it casually from hand to hand. "Your fiancé got a last name?" I asked, keeping my voice the same as it had been the entire conversation.

"It's Larkin. Bryce Larkin."

Southern honey didn't sound so sweet laced with deception. I tossed the ball to my left hand so that my right was free to scrawl Bryce's name onto a sheet of paper, even as my mind began to trace the possibilities. There was no way this could be a coincidence. Not three people coming to the office in the same afternoon and asking after the same fellow. Colt and Delgado, they were easy enough to understand. They were hatchetmen for the Bishop. Miss Southern Comfort sitting across the desk from me was where I got tripped up. Was she a plant by the Bishop? If so, good old Vincent Karpazzo had certainly moved fast.

And if she wasn't a plant and this Bryce Larkin was just a cat who'd gotten mixed up in the wrong business? Should I try to find him for her? Should I tell her to skip town? Vincent Karpazzo wasn't shelling out fifty c-notes up front to find an innocent man, after all. Maybe Miss Carina was better off without him.

Maybe I should take the case.

Maybe the Cubs would win the pennant this year.

Not for the first time, I wished Sarah was here. My office wouldn't be a mess, I wouldn't be bleeding clients, and I would have somebody to talk to about the Belle of the Ball sitting across from my messy desk. Sarah may not have liked a lot of people, but she was a good judge of character.

"Miss Miller," I said, dropping my pencil into the general mess, "can I ask you a personal question?"

She blinked a few times, coquettishly: the perfect way to disarm a man at fifty paces and make him beg to do her bidding. "Are you certain that's appropriate, Mr. Carmichael? We hardly know each other."

"Your fiancé. Was he into anything...shady?"

Her mouth formed an 'oh' of shock and scandal. "What do you mean to imply, sir?"

"I'm not implying anything. It's just that, well, people don't usually disappear without some...provocation." Something Bryce had done had the Bishop up in arms. Whether or not Carina Miller herself was working for the man, it was worrisome enough that maybe I should do some checking, even if I didn't take the case. Just to be sure.

Miss Carina Miller didn't seem to care for my insinuations. The Southern Belle, in addition to playing the seductress and the soft-spoken charmer, also appeared to have a temper. Her color rose to high indignation, and she pinned me with a glare that was, in addition to being one of the most lethal things a person could possess, quite impressive in its ferocity.

"My fiancé is a good man," she said, that accent adding a rich flavor to her ire, "and I resent your implication that he might be involved in any of this so-called shady business of yours. You take that back, Mr. Carmichael."

If this was an act, it was a mighty good one. I played along. "All right, all right. I apologize, Miss Miller, for being out of line."

She took a deep breath and seemed to calm herself. "So you'll help me out, Mr. Carmichael? You'll find my fiancé?"

"I didn't say that."

"Well, as you may or may not know, I come from the Charleston Millers, and we're a big name in cotton—certainly you've heard of cotton, even this far north?" Her voice took on the smallest hint of disdain for us Yankees with the misfortune of being born above the Mason-Dixon line. I just tossed the baseball to my other hand and nodded. Oh, yes. I'd heard of cotton. "And my family has quite a bit of money. I'd be willing to pay you." Her smile took on just the tiniest edge of seduction. "Handsomely."

A guy's gotta eat. "How much?"

She named a sum. It put good old Vinnie and his boys to shame by a great deal. Needless to say, I dropped the baseball onto a stack of papers.

"Wow, Miss Miller," I said after a minute of listening to my brain happily and creatively swear up a storm. "It must be love."

"Oh, trust me, Mr. Carmichael. It is." Her lips twisted upward. That darkly-knowing, feline look might have seemed out of place on such a Dixie Miss, but this smile was one that every woman had in her arsenal: the man in her sights was cornered.

The problem was, I didn't know if it was this Bryce Larkin that was cornered, or if it was me.

"Even so, Miss, I'm afraid I can't help you. I'd be willing to point you toward somebody that would."

"Are you sure, Mr. Carmichael? She—they said you were the best in town."

"Whoever your informant is, they're right, but they must have neglected to mention something." I gave her a regretful look even while my brain whirled on me and tried to figure out what was really going on. "I don't take missing persons cases. Too many times, they just end in tragedy."

"I'm sorry you feel that way." Carina Miller rose to her feet. As a proper gentleman, so did I. "If you happen to change your mind..."

"My apologies, Miss Miller, but I won't."

"Even so, you can find me at the Sheridan."

I walked her to the door. The click of her three-inch heels against the floor once again sounded familiar, and something about her stride...

At the door, she offered me her hand. "It's been...interesting, Mr. Carmichael."

"I'm sorry that I can't help you, Miss Miller. Good luck finding your fiancé."

"Thanks. I'll need it." With one final, sad smile, she slipped into the hallway and out of my life, leaving nothing but a waft of perfume on the air. I stood at the doorway for a minute longer, feeling oddly as though I'd brushed up against the edges of a very potent hurricane.

I moved back to my desk and resumed tossing the baseball from hand to hand. There was something rotten in the Windy City, and that something likely bore the name of Bryce Larkin. Since Miss Carina hadn't asked for his picture back, I picked it up and studied it. Good lookin' fellow, and there was something about his face that tugged at the corners of my mind. He almost seemed familiar to me, but I was sure I'd never seen him before. I pushed the thought away and focused on the conundrum this Larkin created. So what was this Bryce character into that both the Bishop and the Belle wanted him back so badly?

Maybe it was love. Maybe I'd grown cynical. They'd make a handsome couple, Mr. Bryce and Miss Carina, and after less than ten minutes in the woman's presence, I could understand the attraction. I felt a smile twist the corner of my mouth up. I wouldn't mind stepping out with a dame like that.

Too bad I was already in love—with a woman whose face I had never even seen. It complicated things a bit.

I gave one final thought to what might have been—if only Miss Miller wasn't possibly a pawn of the Bishop, if only she wasn't engaged, if only—and rose to my feet. Turning down that much money had hurt. Turning it down twice had nearly killed him. But if there was something going on in my town, I needed to know about it.

So I rose to my feet and pulled on my jacket and hat. It was time to hit the usual sources. I took enough time to scribble off a note to any would-be trespassers, letting them know that there wasn't much of value inside, but they were welcome to half of the ham-on-rye sandwich in the middle drawer, and left that on my doorknob as a courtesy, before I hit the mean streets of Chicago looking for answers.

Frea's A/N the Second: Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn...and because we know how much you're already loving this story, we're going to be super nice and update THREE times this week. So tune in Friday, and always, here's a little taste of what's to come:

"I've had an interesting day. Buy me a drink?"

"Not even if you were pretty and female, two things of which you are neither. What are you doing here?"

"You don't want to hear about my interesting day?"

Casey glanced over my shoulder at something happening behind me in the bullpen. I started to get the feeling that he was serious. "Carmichael, I have no time to help you hunt down some two-timing scumbag of a husband."

"It's a fiancé in this case, and it seems like it's a little more than that." I leaned forward. "Looking for a guy. Maybe you've seen him, five eleven, brown hair, blue eyes, too handsome for his own good?"

He had. I could tell by the way his eyes darted around the room. After a second, I saw him relax, but he'd already given away far too much. He studied my face for a beat, nodded slowly. "Guess I have time to hear about your day after all. But don't forget it's your turn to buy."

On an administrative note, I'll be out of the country for a couple of weeks backpacking with friends, so mxpw will be posting this story from my account (so if I start to post smut before September 17th, do me a favor and kick him). Please, please, please keep your reviews confined to My Girl Sarah related stuff. We're flattered that you want more Curtain Call and Double Agent, but it's not fair to this story if that's what your review is about. We'd be much obliged for your kind consideration.