C.T. Brown - Second Time Lucky? by C.T. Brown Read Free Book Online Page A

than that to get a reaction from him.
    Once
she had finished destroying her phone Emily sat in the only available chair
which was between those occupied by a smartly dressed man and probably the
oldest woman she had ever seen. Three men sitting on the row of chairs on the
opposite side of the reception area immediately dropped their heads, making it
even more obvious than it had been that they were trying to stare at her
without looking like they were staring at her. Surreptitiously Emily looked the
men over to ensure they weren't any sort of threat and came to the conclusion
that they were relatively harmless and had probably only been trying to imagine
what she looked like naked. Thanks to her looks and athletic figure Emily was
used to men staring - although that didn't make it any less annoying.
    As
she shifted in her seat Emily noticed something seemed to have snagged the
skirt of her plain black suit, standing up she discovered the chewing gum
someone had helpfully stuck in the middle of the seat she'd sat on. Stepping
over the remains of her phone she headed for the ladies room to see what the
damage was. When she opened the door the first thing that struck her was the
smell. It was clearly intended to be a pleasant, flowery smell but whoever had
created it for the air freshener company had failed to include any real flowers
anywhere in the process of coming up with it. Apart from the smell itself an
additional problem was the sheer volume of it, walking through the door it felt
as if all the air in the room had been replaced with air freshener and it took
Emily a few moments to get used to breathing it instead. She turned her skirt
about without removing it and started to try and pick off the gum, it was clear
quite quickly that there was a limit to how much she'd be able to remove.
    Sighing
loudly Emily reflected that the evening had gone rapidly downhill since
deciding to go to dinner with her husband. Firstly they had stopped to buy a
snack and been attacked by what she considered to be rather amateur kidnappers,
then they'd been arrested - something which had soon been noticed by her
superiors, triggering a phone call that had antagonised the police rather a
lot. Once they'd allowed her out of her interview room she'd received a call
from her boss who was very unhappy to be interrupted on a Friday evening by
stories of attempted kidnappings in south London. The call had not gone well,
hence the current state of her phone. Now she had to return to work to explain
what had happened with a large patch of pink chewing gum stuck to the back of
her skirt, what else could go wrong?
    Before
she could berate herself for tempting fate something hit her from behind and
her head connected with the mirror over the sink in front of her. The glass
cracked and she felt a sharp pain on her forehead, she knew it had drawn blood.
Without looking she kicked out behind herself with her left foot and felt it
connect with something, she then span on the spot and swung with her right
hand. Her fist connected with the jaw of her attacker when she was about
halfway around. The attacker was a young, blonde woman dressed in the chaviest clothing Emily had ever seen, complete with large
gold hoop earrings that she was sure came direct from Argos' cheapest selection.
However Emily doubted that most of the women who normally wore similar clothes
could execute a perfect karate kick as this one did. Unfortunately her
appreciation of the quality of the kick was somewhat diminished by it
connecting painfully with her stomach.

 
    Sergeant
Thomas was starting to wonder about the length of time the young chav woman had
spent in the bathroom. He hated it when that happened. From experience he knew
that if he thought someone had been in there too long there was almost always
something going on and he'd be the one stuck with dealing with it. Hoping he
wasn't going to have to clean up after another overdose Sergeant Thomas stepped
out from behind the