P A R T  O N E

"love takes a little trial and error, Marilyn."

"yeah, but I didn't think there'd be an actual trial."

—

S N I P P E T

"No, I'm Marilyn Finley, I'm the maid," I said. "That's definitely not my family in there."

All that was visible of his face were his two bright eyes and his mouth, but he blinked in surprised and his mouth hung agape, basically utilizing every weapon he had in his arsenal to show me how excited he was to hear that.

"This works perfectly, actually," he said, his voice raising again so I shushed him. "Okay, think about this: if you help me out, I'll tell you what I'm doing here."

"Whatever you're doing seems like there's a high risk of you getting murdered, so I think I'm fine," I said.