“The thought did cross my mind. It’s only two-thirty. We have the rest of the afternoon in front of us. Everyone else is doing something. Alexis is going through all those treasure boxes that arrived. Isabelle is helping Abner, and she’s becoming quite the hacker. Kathryn had to leave for therapy. Yoko said she had to be at the nursery because some shipment of something or other was due to arrive, and she had to be there to sign off on it. Maggie is back at the paper with the boys, working on her call to Moss and the Man of the Year contest. Harry has classes, and Jack is helping. That leaves the three of us, and I absolutely do not want to go home and look at those mountains of mud around the house,” Nikki said.

“Let’s do it,” Myra said. She looked at Nikki and Annie to see if she thought they would pass muster for a trip to a prestigious internist’s office. Satisfied with what she was seeing, she gave the pearls around her neck a jerk, and asked, “Who’s driving?”

“Me!” Nikki said before Annie could get her tongue to work. “I want to get there in one piece. No offense, Annie.”

Annie laughed. “None taken, dear. So, how do we play this. Do we go in, flash our gold shields, and play badass agents? Or what?”

“That sounds about right,” Myra said. “I’m itching to take someone on right now.”

“Whoa, Myra,” Nikki said as she gunned her BMW and raced down the long road that would take her to the highway. “I need an address, ladies.”

Annie flashed her phone. “I have the address right here. I’ll program it into your GPS, and it will take us right to the door. The doctor owns the building. Eighteen thousand square feet. He even does minor procedures there. According to what I’m seeing here, we should be at the door in thirty-three minutes.”

“That’s if you were driving, Annie. Since Nikki is driving, add fifteen more minutes.” Myra laughed. “Have you given any thought to the doctor’s not being there? Then what do we do?”

Annie held up her hand. “Not to worry, he has office hours till four. I checked.”

“I’m excited,” Myra said as she fingered her pearls.

“You might want to ditch those pearls, Myra. I don’t think special agents of the government wear pearls even if they are considered badasses when they do an insertion. That’s what we’re doing, you know.” Myra dutifully tucked her heirloom pearls under the collar of the button-down shirt she was wearing.

“We should put our shields on a lanyard. Do you have any in the car, Nikki? This way, when we make our entrance, the shields will speak for themselves.”