"Are you serious?" Theresa laughed.

We both ogled the crammed interior of Royal Sandwiches.

I placed the wine bottle on the counter. We had taken it with us from the restaurant as we hadn't been able to drink it all—but it was empty now.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I had to steady myself against the wall.

"We could find ourselves a bridge to sleep under... Would be more comfy than this." She gestured at the royal kitchen, stumbled, and leaned against me for support. "Under that bridge, we might even find a couple of outlaws for company."

"We're the outlaws here, the ones wanted by the police, aren't we? We'd probably scare off the other bridge-dwellers."

"True... And, anyway, all I need to be happy is a friend... and a bed."

I snickered and pushed her upright, gently. Then I opened a cupboard and retrieved a stack of fresh towels. "Voilà, your bed!"

"Oh, royal beddings!"

"Yes, indeed, my queen." I curtsied, nearly losing my balance in the process, divided the stack in half, and handed Theresa her share.

She took them and studied the grimy floor between the counter and the slaughtering desk. "You're sure it's safe lying down here?"

"Not sure, no." I picked up a limp, brownish lettuce leaf and discarded it in the bin. "But that's part of the thrill."

She huffed and spread one of the towels at the table's feet, muttering something about a mattress. I washed my hands in the sink. Once clean, I used my own stack of towels to build a pillow on the floor, beside her mattress. The action made me dizzy, and I lay down, on my back. The floor was surprisingly hard, and the vicious light from the fluorescent tube on the ceiling hurt my eyes.

Theresa looked different from this point of view—a giantess with huge, dark nostrils. I giggled.

"Are you laughing at me?" She had taken off her shoes and kicked me with a stockinged foot, gently.

"Naw, not laughing at you..." I grinned. "... but at your hawk's nose, and most of all... your nostrils. They're enormous."

She kicked me again, with more force this time. "Hawks don't have noses."

I hit her leg. "Hey, you love to look down on me, admit it. The first time I saw you, at TCorp party, you remember? You came to drag away Thierry, and you looked at me as if I were something... unsavory that your brother had picked up."

She nodded. "Yes, I remember... I remember you standing there, in that unfitting two-piece dress, and with your long, blond hair. You looked so totally out of your depth, yet you seemed the only thing in that whole place that was... true... and genuine. No... I didn't think you were something unsavory, not at all. But I was angry. Angry at Thierry for laying his greedy hands on one of the employees, even though he and father had agreed that he would leave the TCorp girls alone. And I was... angry at you for falling for his cheap charms."

She turned away to the sink and washed her face.

"I wasn't falling for his charms," I said while trying to grasp what else she had said. But my head, or Royal Sandwiches, or both, were in a slow spin. My whole world was rotating. And this world suddenly turned dark. Theresa must have switched off the light.

I heard her settling down on the floor. She snuggled up to me and placed a heavy arm over my chest.

A whiff of lemon washed over me and the darkness deepened.

~~~

As I woke up, dawn seeped through the cracks in the closed-up counter window. I was on my side, facing Theresa. I was cold except where she touched me.

She was breathing softly and looked pale and vulnerable in the grayish light. Her eyelashes were long, making me wonder if they were genuine. I studied them, a row of thick bristles growing right out of her lids. Yes, they weren't fake. She wasn't the fake person I had suspected her to be.

A wave of her dark hair covered her cheek and flowed over her mouth. Careful not to wake her, I reached out to touch the strands. They were soft, silky, unsubstantial. I wondered what it would feel to run my fingers through them.

Theresa confused me, and this was not a time to be confused. And I had to pee.

But one of her hands was clasped into my sweater. I didn't want to wake her, so I laid still.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. The drumming of the rain had ceased, replaced by the self-absorbed murmur of the waves from the beach close by.

The ring of my phone shattered the sounds of the morning. I pushed myself up to get the device from my bag on the counter, the movement making Theresa grumble.

I brought it to my ear. "Yes?"

"Hey, this is Homer."

Homer? Ah, yes, Homer Holmes. "Yes, what is it?"

"I just wanted to give you a report on the results of my investigations." He sounded incredibly awake.

"Yes?" I didn't.

"I've talked to the harbormaster. I can confirm that The Indomitable is Thierry's personal property... In fact, he's taken her for a tour of the southern islands today. And, the harbor master has confirmed that Yachting Care Services, Ltd. is doing the ship's maintenance..."

"And..."

"Er..." He hesitated. "That's all... for the time being."

"Okay..." Did he expect me to commend him on his not-so-new findings? "So, what's next?"

"Um... As I told you yesterday, we need proof of the payments, and that would be... up to you."

Should I tell him about the plan we had concocted yesterday while under the influence of substantial amounts of alcohol? Probably not a good idea—we first should re-evaluate it now that we were sober. "Sure, we'll think about something."

We wished each other a successful day, and I hung up.

Theresa looked at me from her mattress, questions on her face. I told her what little I had learned. Then I prepared us some royal coffee—spending the night in a food stall did have its perks.

"You still think it's a good idea to walk into TCorp just like that?" Theresa asked and took a bite from a stale baguette.

I shrugged. "It's the best option we have, isn't it? In fact, it's the only way forward that we've found." Then I remembered something Homer had said. "And, come to think of it... It's now or never. Thierry's taken his yacht for a ride, so we won't run into him."

"Okay..." She nodded and made a serious face. "Let's do it."

I glanced at my phone. It was 9:30. "I guess I won't be cutting any sandwiches today. I'll give my boss a call and tell him I'm sick."