Free Red (Close Contact Book 3) by Megan Mitcham

Red
    L exie zipped past the other cars on the expressway like a mugger were hot on her crystal covered Louboutins. Her heart thudded inside her chest as though one was, with fingers outstretched ready to drag her into a dark New York alley. Lexie filled her lungs, and then slowly released the breath through Russian Red lips. The MAC cosmetics color typically perked her disposition. Today, it lacked the desired effect.
    She lifted her small hand from the slick wood-grained steering wheel and examined it closely. The money-maker hovered in the air as steady as ever. Not a twitch or tremor to see. She huffed, “Of course.” Her fingers were that of a pianist’s, long and slender. Milk white skin, from zero time in the sun, stretched over them, revealing the barest hint of squiggly veins over the back of her hand and up her small arm.
    A horn blared from the left. “Shit!” Both her hands flew to the wheel and her eyes shot up in time to save the beloved 1965 red ragtop Mustang from side swiping a Smart Car. When the open water bottle she’d held noisily gluggedits contents into her lap, she screamed, “Double shit!” She huffed, yet again, righted the plastic pisser and tried to set it in a cup holder that didn’t exist. Lexie held her tongue. She wouldn’t cuss her baby.
    After securing the bottle on the passenger seat between her red Chloé tote and the black seat, Lexie looked up with just enough time to see the airport exit fly past her. “Triple shit! Shit! Shit!”
    The car jerked to a halt in a reserved parking space on the tarmac a couple hundred yards from the chartered jet. Her regular crew, a pilot, co-pilot, and single flight attendant stood at the end of the fold down steps, surely willing her to hurry the hell up. Trying her best to oblige, Lexie scooped up her satchel, portfolio, laptop case, and the cursed water bottle with deft swoops of her hands. She juggled the armload while blotting up the remainder of the water from the driver’s seat with two napkins she’d swiped from the hospital cafeteria along with her veggie wrap. Her phone burst into song. “What am I up to now,” she asked with the stomp of a pricey stiletto, “quadruple shit?”
    Lexie cradled the sopping napkins in her left palm, looped the key ring around her index finger and shoved the bottle under the overburdened limb. She fished the device from the depths of her bag and slapped it to her ear, before David Draiman could complete the chorus of “Down with the Sickness” a second time.
    “Don’t even say it,” she barked into the phone.
    The no-nonsense voice of her personal assistant, best friend, and conductor of her life carried on as though she hadn’t said a word. “You’re late. Are you close to the airport? It’s twelve forty, now. If you get there fast, you’ll only be ten minutes late and you can reconcile the time in-air.”
    “I’m here, Mona, with a wet crotch and frazzled freakin‘ nerves.”
    “Oh Honey, you could’ve stopped off to tinkle. Some things are worth being late.”
    “I spilled my drink, you goof.”
    “You’re in luck. I packed you one extra skirt. Black. Pencil. You’ll love it.”
    While Mona blatantly ignored her frazzled nerves comment and moved on to more pressing matters, like the conference she was headed to, Lexie put her ample hip against the car door and bucked it shut. At the car’s rear she sandwiched the cellular between her shoulder and cheek and worked the key ring off her finger. She shoved the key into the slot and turned counter-clockwise. Nothing happened. Clockwise? Nothing. Lexie pulled the key out, reinserted it and tried again. Again, nothing happened.
    Her hand went frantic, jostling the thin sliver of metal this way and that. Her voice grew frantic too. “Shit. Shit. Shit! Shit! Shit! Shi—” On the other end of the line, Mona clued into the fact that she wasn’t listening and began a reciprocating rant. However, the harangue didn’t kill the last