Page 48 of Smoke Screen
Phin took a few steps, meeting her partway and taking the shopping bag before setting her shoes on the floor. “You okay?”
“Fine,” she said in that tight tone women used when they were definitelynotfine.
She eased her feet into the pumps, holding on to his arm for balance and twisted fucker that he was, he liked it. The simplicity—and comfort—of her casually reaching for him.
Add that to them agreeing to explore their relationship further when this was all over?
He really likedthat.
Phinny, Phinny, Phinny.
Shoes in place, she pointed to the entrance. “Let’s avoid that mess.” She swiveled back to Maurice. “We’re parked in the rear lot. Can we go out the employee door?”
“Of course,” he said.
Say what now? Why would an employee be asking if she could use the employee exit?
Whatever happened in the time she’d been upstairs, it didn’t appear to be good news.
Maddy hauled ass across the lobby, her heels clicking against the marble. Man, the woman could move when she wanted to. Phin caught up, falling in step beside her. “Hey, what’s going on?”
“They suspended me.”
Come on.She’d gone from being entrusted with hiring BARS to being drop-kicked for something there was no proof she’d even done.
She waved it off. “Well, they’re calling it administrative leave. Treat it like avacation,my boss said. Avacation.”
He wanted to be shocked. Sure did. He’d been around enough politicians that nothing surprised him anymore. Which didn’t say much for his way of life, but whatever.
When protecting their public image, politicians employed enough strategists to make their shit smell like roses. No matter who they took down.
Before they reached the door, he latched on to her elbow, pulling her to a stop. “As crazy as this will sound, this isn’t about you.”
“Really?”She pulled her arm free. “Because it feels like it’s about me.”
She might rival Zeke with the biting sarcasm. Who could blame her? In a matter of days, her life, her routine, had been pulverized. And from what he’d learned, she liked routine.
“This,” he said, “is the Thompson machine doing their thing. You’re collateral damage. Which sucks.”
A guy appeared at the glass door, cupping his hands against it and peering in. The vultures waiting for their next meal. He spotted them and banged on the glass.
“Let’s go,” Phin said. “We can talk in the car.”
Repeatingthe plan from the courthouse, Phin ushered Maddy to the car, the vultures in tow while she threw no-comments around like frisbees. If nothing else, she was getting good at it.
He made a quick left out of the lot, darted down an alley, then hooked another right, followed by a few more random turns before checking his rearview.
No tail. Superb. “We’re good. No one followed us.”
Beside him, Maddy stared out the passenger window, apparently mesmerized by houses with overrun weeds, sagging gutters, and chipped paint. This street was a truck-stop waitress after an eighteen-hour shift.
Tired with aching joints.
The whole point of Thompson putting his presidential center in this neighborhood. He’d grown up here, understood the struggles, and wanted to revive his hometown. Turn that tired truck-stop waitress into a woman of leisure.
“Can I just go home?” Maddy asked, her attention still focused outside.
He paused at a traffic light and she finally looked over at him, her big eyes droopy, which, yeah, irritated him. Grated against his already crabby nerves. From the second he’d met her, she’d had a brightness that bordered on naïve. In his world, naivete got folks stomped on and he’d never allowed himself to be put in that position. Seeing too much sunshine brought rain, and he didn’t need the disappointment.
