And by using a male signature on all her work.

And by flaunting her female curves in front of the male art directors who dole out the assignments. (Abby’s breasts, you should know, are as fully developed as her hypothetical balls.)

But as bold and brash as Abby is, she never gets herself into even half as much trouble as I do. You’ll see what I mean if you read the shocking and terrifying true story I’m about to start writing (i.e., expanding into a dime store mystery novel) for you right now. You’ll see how Abby somehow rises-almost floats-above the most atrocious and hazardous of situations, while I flap around in the dirt like a beheaded chicken, blindly scratching my way toward disaster and flipping feathers all over the place.

The story starts out innocently enough (don’t they all?), but soon degenerates into a steamy tale of forbidden love, uncontrollable passion, unthinkable desperation, and-you guessed it!-murder. And that’s where you’ll find me-right in the murderous middle of things as usual-working my twitchy little tail off to get to the truth, and endangering my own twitchy little life while I’m at it.

But here, my dear reader and friend, is the 64,000-dollar question: Am I courting danger, or is danger stalking me? Is danger my greatest affliction-or my deadliest addiction?

I honestly don’t have a clue. Read the story, then you tell me.

Chapter 1

IT WAS A HOT TIME IN THE OLD TOWN that night. Seven o’clock on a Friday evening-July 1, 1955, to be exact-and even though the sun had slipped below the skyscraper skyline, the mercury was still stuck at a blistering 98.3 degrees. The steamy, jam-packed subway ride home from work had left me weak, wobbly, and drenched in perspiration (mine or somebody else’s?-it was hard to tell), and as I staggered down Bleecker Street toward my apartment, the hot sidewalk under my swelling feet was scorching the soles of my stilettos.