Chloe McQueen: Spy Car: Chapter 7: A date, a clue, and a femme fatale

While Rod was checking the clue on the computer, Chloe was in her hotel room. As she was getting ready for her date with the suspect, her cell phone text alert beeped, making her jump. She wasn't surprised to see Lightning's ID on it.

It said "good luck, I love you, and I'm always with you, whether you like it or not."

Chloe smiled a little bit, and then became torn; she liked the job so far, but now…

"Chloe, are you ready yet?" Rod said impatiently, "Paul's waiting outside."

"I'm coming." Chloe said as she gathered herself together and drove inside the elevator.

"I'll stay behind and check back with Headquarters, I'll send you a message if I need you." Rod said

"You got it."

Before the doors closed, Rod said, "good luck."

"Thanks."

Just as Rod said, Paul was waiting outside, looking a little nervous with the crowd.

"Great, you're here, anyway, let's hurry up."

He's in a hurry. Chloe thought.

At the restaurant Paul was devouring his escargot like a mad car while Chloe tried to look as calm as possible. Remember your training, she said to herself, don't blow your first mission.

"So, you're interested in photography?"

"Oh yes, I enjoy taking pictures, especially of large landscapes and sceneries."

"Interesting, do you ever do pictures of people?"

"Nah, I think they just complain too much about the picture they pose for. With landscapes, there is never a complaint, except when that complaint comes from my publishers or a critic."

Paul almost choked on his meal after laughing at that remark. "You know, you're one of the best girls that I've ever known, and actually get a date from"

Chloe pretended to look flattered. "Aw, thank you."

"Listen, after dinner do you want to go back to my apartment?"

"Sure" Chloe said, only to immediately regret her hastiness.

"Great! Now you'll just pick up the tab for our dinner, I forgot my wallet."

"No problem." Chloe said, when secretly she was fuming.

. . .

"You agreed to go into his apartment?" Rod said. Chloe told him on her secret communicator in the restaurant's restroom.

"I know, I know, but he asked me on the spot. I'll just tell him that something came up and that I'll meet him…"

"Wait Chloe, this could be good for us. You can probably look inside his apartment and locate the device."

"If you say so Rod, any word from Headquarters?"

"Yeah, they said that they've located some of the devices in Beirut in a shipment headed towards France. We're not sure where they were specifically headed, but there's a good chance they could be headed towards the apartment. Just be careful not to let your guard down and if you need backup, I'll be around."

Rod's final words were comforting. "Okay, and thanks." Chloe said.

She turned her communicator off and left the bathroom stall, only to find another female car looking at her strangely.

Oh boy, Chloe thought. "Um, he's my business associate in case you were wondering, and who told you to listen in on my conversation anyway?"

Chloe hurried out, with the female car still staring after her.

. . .

Paul's apartment was just a few blocks away from the restaurant. It was rather small and pretty messy.

"Sorry about the mess, my roommate works night shifts and tends to leave me with cleaning up." Paul said as he struggled to find the light switch.

"Don't worry about it, my apartment is even worse!" Chloe laughed. Some truth was in her statement, as her Detroit apartment was filled with books and movies.

"Anyway" Paul said, I just wanted to say thanks for going out with me, I need to get out of the 'market' once in a while."

"My pleasure" Chloe said.

Suddenly Paul moved in for a kiss. Chloe did her best to hide her initial disgust, as he was a bad guy. Finally she sucked it up and kissed him.

"Dang" Paul said "you are one heck of a kisser."

Chloe pretended to blush. "Nah, come on."

Finally she heard her communicator beeping and said she had leave but promised to come back.

As soon as she was alone Chloe looked at her communicator and saw a message and map from an unknown source which said "Come see me, I may have some info you may be interested in about the device." Then a picture which showed Rod's license plate popped up.

Chloe tried to call Rod again but there was no answer, so she decided to way the risks. One the one hand it might be a tap, on the other it could be useful.

Time is always of the essence, she said to herself, so it's a risk I have to take.

. . .

Chloe followed the map to an old cottage just outside of the city limits. Plucking her courage she went inside and saw a note. As she picked it up she heard a faint beeping noise. She looked up and saw something that made her engine grow cold.

The bomb had at least 7 seconds left, and she knew it wasn't enough time to drive away. Chloe grabbed the note in her mouth, activated her wings (standard issue) and broke through the roof just as the bomb exploded! Dodging flying debris Chloe flew to a safe distance and landed.

Rod's going to kill me! She said to herself.

"I'm going to kill you first!" a shrill female voice yelled behind her.

Before Chloe could react she was rammed into by a blinding white figure. She knew at once it was the same car in the bathroom.

"Man, stalk much?" Chloe said as she punched the other car in the eye.

Before she could land another blow the white cars kicked her on her side door nearly toppling Chloe over.

Chloe rammed into her and kicked her up against a tree. Suddenly a wail of fire truck sirens was heard. The other car knew that she couldn't kill Chloe with observers, so she used a smoke screen to get out.

"I'll be back for you." She called out to Chloe. After the smoke cleared Chloe decided to tell Rod what had happened, so she raced back to the hotel.

. . .

After several attempts to call Rod she went to his room, but a maid was cleaning it. Chloe found out at the front desk that Rod had checked out earlier that evening, but that he left her a note. Confused, Chloe went back to her room and read it which said

"Chloe, I'm probably going to be in a tight spot, so don't be surprised if I'm not back yet. In the meantime, keep leading Grem on and whatever you do, don't listen to any other directions other than mine. Best of luck."

Now he tells me, she though. But before she could get mad at herself Chloe finally fell asleep out of exhaustion.