Free A Billion Little Clues by Samantha Westlake

coffee and not thinking about having to move or work or any of those other pestersome obligations that always insist on poking their noses in on my quiet time. It wasn't until I heard a set of footsteps clicking towards me that I looked up. I knew that self-important walk.
    Sure enough, Keith was bearing down on me. I looked up at him as he glared at me from behind his rectangular, frameless glasses. Those things were like eye shields, probably the only reason that his angry stares didn't melt me down into a pile of scorched little pebbles.
    "Melinda!" he barked at me, and I felt my spine attempt to straighten up as much as it could. Unfortunately, this jerk upright also made my coffee cup shoot upright as well - which wasn't good for the liquid inside.
    "Um, sorry," I apologized, as I grabbed for a napkin to dab at my blouse. Why in the world had I chosen to wear a light-colored blouse? I kept a stack of napkins at my desk for just this purpose, but I could still see the discoloration spreading. This was not going to help me make an impressive entrance on floor twenty-eight.
    When I raised my eyes from damage control on my blouse back up to my boss, he was shaking his head, as if he was ashamed of even having to breathe the same air as such a screw-up as me. "Look, everyone's all abuzz about the party last night," he said, clearly attempting to ignore my little mishap. "What happened? What did I miss?"
    I considered where to begin. "Well, the party was very fancy," I began. I wanted to make sure that I didn't leave out any important details. "I mean, people driving fancy cars, there were flamingos in the fountain, and even the swords were really made of metal!" I wished that I had held onto my little martini skewer to demonstrate.
    There was a soft growl leaking out of Keith's throat, so I hastily pressed forward. "Anyway, the chief financial guy, Geoffrey Silvers, ended up somehow hurting himself and dying, and the police arrested Roman for it," I wrapped up quickly. "After that, the party pretty much ended. Hey, I have to go report to the twenty-eighth floor right now - I got a sticky note about it. I'm sure that I'll be back later for any other questions."
    I felt that I had just done a great job of summarizing the party. Clearly, Keith was speechless, his mouth opening and closing as he tried in vain to recover his ability to speak. I just gave him a little smile as I grabbed my purse, a few extra napkins, and my coffee. He could thank me later.
    I breezed past my boss, but somewhere around getting into the elevator, I felt my spurt of motivation fade just as suddenly as it had appeared. I still didn't know who was summoning me, or for what.
    A sudden icy hand of fear gripped me. What if they knew that I wasn't supposed to be at the party the other night? Or what if someone had found out about that kiss with Roman? Wasn't it against the rules to fraternize with other people at work? And given as how he was the CEO of the entire company, I doubted that human resources would choose to fire him instead of me. Even though he had totally been the one to initiate things. I hadn't even given off any hints that I wanted to be kissed. I wondered if this would make a good argument, but I suspected that, with my word against Roman's, I wouldn't fare too well.
    Even with all my worrying, however, there really wasn't any other option. I had to go up to floor twenty-eight and face my fear. By this point, a few other businesspeople had filtered into the elevator, and I let them push whatever floors they needed.
    Floor twenty-eight still wasn't lit. I stepped forward, took a deep breath, and pushed the button.
    The doors of the elevator closed. We started to rise smoothly upwards.
    #
    Floor twenty-eight wasn't quite what I had been expecting.
    Before I arrived, I wasn't sure quite how tall our building was. I knew that Panther Worldwide had a lease on the entire building, and that the top floors were reserved for the bigwigs, the guys