Flushed by Sally Felt Read Free Book Online Page A

spy into Isabelle’s life. If she could
sparkle on the arm of gorgeous, kind, sexy Kim Martin through the course of an
intimate dinner, it would surely get back to the slug.
    But Kim wasn’t exactly dying to see her again, was he?
    Crap.
    “I’ll have to check with Kim,” she hedged, then immediately regretted
it. What had happened to the respectful honesty mantra she was so fond of?
    “Please, Isabelle. Promise him anything. Sleep with him if
you have to—not like it would be any big sacrifice, what a hunk—but really.
Please.”
    “I’ll call him.” Or see him. He’d told her to drop by. He’d
given her a card…Isabelle tucked the phone against her neck and strained to
reach her wicker clothes hamper. The phone cord was simply not long enough.
Maybe her friends had a point about the uselessness of landlines.
    “Mirabelle, eight o’clock,” Stacey said. “Thank you,
Isabelle. I gotta go. I promise not to pick ugly bridesmaid dresses.”
    And with that, the conversation was over. Isabelle was free
to pop open the hamper and pull out last night’s satin blouse from among her dirty
clothes. Sure enough, Kim’s business card was right where she’d left it, tucked
into the blouse’s turned-back cuff.
    Except it was the card Stacey had given her with the
possible commercial business lead.
    Or was it?
    Isabelle went to the kitchen. The business card on top of
the penne pasta jar said Wall Werx. The business card from her blouse said Wall
Werx. She held them side-by-side. One of them was imprinted with the
president’s name, Damon Franklin. The other had no name on it at all.
    A shiver wound down Isabelle’s spine. Maybe Stacey was
right, that it was no coincidence, her getting Kim’s card at the same time
Steven was breaking Isabelle’s heart. Maybe Kim was the perfect way for her to
get back at the dimple-faced rat bastard.
    All he could say was no.
    * * * * *
    “No,” said Kim.
    “Damon lets us put on our own music,” the kid said. He wore
the standard more-attitude-than-thou knitted cap favored by so many of the teen
boys who seemed to arrive in after-school packs. They came in with big
attitudes, but none of them were stupid enough to pick a fight in here. So far,
at least.
    “Yeah,” said his friend with a buzz cut and a neck covered
with tribal tattoos. They were both fairly serious climbers, Kim knew, as he’d
seen them in here a lot. Long-limbed and tightly wired, they looked good on the
wall. Kim wondered whether they climbed outside the gym and whether anyone had
talked to them about what to say to the cops if they got caught buildering.
    “Damon isn’t here today,” he said. “I’m picking the music.
Let’s see you move to it.” He nodded at the wall. They stood there, giving him
a poor-old-dude-is-so-uncool look.
    If he’d been quicker to think of it, Kim might have locked
the doors in the post-lunch doldrums, enjoyed a private workout and skipped all
this nonsense. It would have served Damon right for being both gone and
unreachable. But he hadn’t. In consideration, he should at least get to pick
the music. And he had. The walls of the Big Top fairly throbbed with an ex-pat
Cuban rap band he was fond of.
    Kim gave the teens a poor-dumb-kids-don’t-know-nothing look
and leapt at a jug hold, low on the east wall. It was the starting point for
the Testament route, but he had something else in mind. He hung from his right
hand for a few beats, letting his body torque to the music. He brought his feet
up onto smaller holds and slapped the wall to emphasize the beat before
launching a highly stylized horizontal traverse. He’d never tried anything like
this before and the rap tempo was far slower than what the kids usually chose,
but it worked surprisingly well, giving him enough time to sketch his next move
before he had to commit, every plastic bolt and hold vibrating with the bass.
    Wow. He’d found yet another way to have fun climbing.
    When he jumped clear of the wall and