The Catcher in the Eye (America's Next Top Assistant Mystery Book 1) by Lotta Smith Page A

stuck on me like Elmer’s permanent glue was not the happiest prospectus
of my life. Headlines of tomorrow’s trashy morning papers in the UK flashed in
my head, with photos of me spread all over and captions that implied as if I
was the one responsible for the gruesome murders.
    I closed my eyes, blinked,
took a deep breath, and tried to count three positive things about this event
in a vain attempt to cheer myself up. One; at least, I didn’t live in the UK anymore
so I wouldn’t be bothered with mean headlines unless I waste a moment to search
the garbage on the web, two; I was still famous and a sort of popular among
them, and three; well…what about the third positive thing…?
    BASH!
    Alright, add that
the camera suddenly got busted and shattered to tatters in front of my eyes, to
the reason#3 to stay positive.
    “Bloody fuck!”
    “Hey, what the
fuck do you think you just did?” yelled two mean men from the UK.
    “Chill, I’ve just
saved your lives.” Archangel, who had just shattered the camera into bits and pieces
with a reverse roundhouse kick, casually chimed in. 
    “On that camera, you
had a black widow spider crawling about. It’s one of the deadliest spiders of
the world, and if you get bitten by that, it could have caused serious
consequences such as an acute abdominal and back pain, muscle cramps, nausea,
vomiting, difficulty breathing, high blood pressure, restlessness, and death.”
    British paparazzi exchanged
glances.
    “You’re trying to
con me, right?” said Dick the photographer.
    “You’ll be sorry
if you’re bullshitting on us.” With narrowed eyes, Baz said. “Just because we
happen to be English gentlemen doesn’t mean you can take an advantage of us.”
    Archangel bent
down, picked up a fragment of the shattered camera using a handkerchief. “By
the way, the spider has highly potent venom which causes helluva ulcers to the
skin in case you have physical contacts. Wanna try?”
    As he extended his
hand holding the fragment to the British paparazzi, they literally jumped back.
“Hell no!”
    “By the way, you
are bloody lucky that I’m not suing your little arses out,” dropping
the camera fragment, Archangel continued in a low and husky voice.
    “Look at this,” he
kicked the left leg in front, exhibiting the slightly chipped sole of the Jimmy
Choo platform to their eyes. “Your camera had caused a tremendous damage to my
shoe, this baby had cost a fortune. Think about the sacrifice I’ve just made
for the two of you! I’ll send the shoe-repair bill to your office in London, cheers !”
    Grabbing my arm,
he dragged me away from the British tabloid guys, to the house entrance where
he exchanged greeting with the officer by first names. I could hear Baz and Dick
asking around about the bloody giant bloke in funny getup, and obtaining
the answer telling that they had just met someone they didn’t want to mess with.
    “Thank you for
rescuing me.” I whispered to Archangel. 
    “No problem.” He
whispered back with an enigmatic grin. “Do you think someone else was taking a
video of everything?”
    “You mean, like
the moment you bashed the camera into pieces with your kick? Why do you want
anyone to record that particular moment?”
    “You know,” he
shrugged. “I was thinking maybe the video goes viral and maybe it’ll be cool to
have a reality show with a title like ‘Keeping Up with Michael Archangel.’ ”
    “Are you serious?”
    Now I was very confused.
“By the way, there really was a deadly spider on the camera so you had to bash
it, right?”
    “Oh-oh,” he
frowned. “I’m not really sure if asking a question for the answer you don’t
want to know is a clever move.”
    “Oh my God…” I
gasped. Then I heard the British paparazzi cursing that nothing good ever comes
with Kelly the Poisonous Bitch, so I said, “Mr. Archangel, you could have
kicked their heads off rather than the stupid camera.”
    “Ya think?” He
shrugged off my