Flowertown Read Online Free PDF Page B

really good guy.”
    She felt him getting harder against her, and her hands grabbed at the thick plane of muscles in his back. She let her eyes drift up from his neck and saw the broken windows.
    “What if they told you to withdraw?”
    “Hmm, baby?” Guy purred into her neck.
    Ellie hooked her hands around his back, clinging to him, unable to look away from the shattered glass and the damaged building. “What if they told you to withdraw from Flowertown?”
    “Why would they do that?”
    “What if they did?”
    She felt him tense beneath her hands.
    “Why would they tell us to withdraw, Ellie? We’re the good guys, remember?”
    “I know.” She felt a draft as his damp skin pulled back from hers. “You’re the good guys. If they told you to withdraw, who would protect us?”
    Guy stepped back from her, holding her out at arm’s length. “What’s with you today?”
    Before she could answer, a rash of obscenities broke out on the other side of the jeep.
    “Roman! Goddamit, Roman! Fletcher!”
    Guy swore and stepped toward the rear of the truck, letting her fingers slide free of his. “Roman here, sir. What’s the problem?”
    Ellie couldn’t see the man shouting, but he sounded very pissed off. “The problem is, Roman, that while you’re giving lap dances to the old broads here, someone vandalized the goddamn trucks!”
    “Aw shit.” Guy ran off, leaving her resting against the unmarked side of the truck. “I’m on it, sir.” She heard orders being barked and bystanders being warned to keep back and decided it would be a good time to head back to work. Pushing herself off the rough canvas, she traced her fingers along the rope webbing holding the canopy in place and tipped her head around the corner of the truck to see the damage. Three trucks were lined up along the sidewalk, each one spray painted in bright orange, one word per truck:
    ALL YOU WANT.

CHAPTER THREE
    Bing wasn’t at his desk when she returned, so she stuck a sticky note to the Little Debbie with a smiley face and the words “Forgive me yet?” Just to be sure, she scribbled a few bubble hearts around the words. Of course Bing would forgive her; these little dustups were nothing new. She was a little surprised he hadn’t waited for her to get back before taking his lunch, but then Bing’s supervisors were a bit more strict than hers about break times. Or maybe Bing just paid more attention to them. She perched the snack cake on the buttons of his telephone just as a page buzzed out of the speakers.
    “Ellie Cauley, if you are in the building, Ellie Cauley report to your office immediately.” Big Martha’s voice sounded extra strident, as if she had been making the page for a while. Ellie didn’t hurry—med appointments trumped all else in the magical world of Flowertown—but as she made her way down the corridor, more than one worried face looked up at her. At the last cubicle, Ellie heard a woman whisper into the phone, “She’s on her way up right now.”
    Part of her wanted to spin on the woman and call her a tattletale or snitchy-pants or some other ridiculous childhoodtaunt, but she thought better of it. Until, that is, she heard that same woman whispering over the cubicle walls. God, she didn’t know how Bing stood it down here. At the steps, knowing she had the eyes of a gaggle of HR drones on her, she spun back and glared. “Do you get paid extra for that? Some kind of suck-up bonus?”
    “They’ve been paging you for, like, an hour.” With her oversprayed hair and oversized glasses, the woman looked exactly like every cranky librarian Ellie had ever known.
    “I’ve been gone for, like, my meds. Like, it’s the law.”
    All of her coworkers had ducked back into their cubicles, but the woman was undaunted. “Like you’re so concerned with the law. I guess that’s why the suits are here.”
    Ellie headed up the steps. Some people would let anything clench their asses. “The suits” were either Feds or