Read Online An Appetite for Passion by Cynthia MacGregor - Free Book Online Page B

earlier. “I know I picked those flyers up earlier!” Russ was thundering. Russ was one of the bigwigs in the campaign. “I picked them up personally! They were in the back of the van.”
    “Maybe the printer’s still open and could run some more off for us,” Jeff suggested.
    “Where are the ones we already had...and paid for?”
    “I never saw them,” Jeff quickly pointed out.
    “You were in charge of getting the mailing out. Did you take them off the van and forget?”
    “I haven’t seen them, I told you.”
    “Well, somebody’s done something with them. Look around the office again.”
    “We’ve looked three times,” Eileen said wearily.
    “Well, please look again.” His voice brooked no buts.
    Turning to Kari, whom he’d only just noticed, Jeff added, “Somebody’s been tearing our posters down, too. That, I’d assume, is being done by some of Badley’s people, but I can’t account for the flyers.”
    “Maybe Badley’s got a mole in our office.” That was another of the volunteers.
    “You’ve been reading too many spy novels.” That was yet another volunteer.
    “It does seem awfully odd....” Russ agreed with the first volunteer.
    Kari looked around the room. Was someone here really sabotaging the campaign? Russ seemed suspicious of Jeff...but it couldn’t be Jeff. Kari refused to believe that was a possibility. “What are we going to do?” she asked. Her coat was halfway off, hanging from one arm. Was there work for her, or should she hurry home to her computer?
    “You’re here to work. Get to work,” Jeff said. “Get on the phones. We’ll get the job reprinted—if we don’t find the flyers by tomorrow morning—and we’ll do the mailing Thursday. Meanwhile, scare up some votes by phone. But first, why don’t you have a look around the place? Maybe a fresh pair of eyes will find the missing flyers.
    “They’re black and red on tan paper, and they were in brown cardboard cartons. The printer folded and stapled them for us. We have to address the outside of them and meter them.
    “Look for anything that might be them. Maybe someone put them in a different container, or...I don’t know. Just look.” The forever grin was a mere hint of its usual brilliance, the hair wilder than ever from his running his fingers distractedly through it. “Steve looked earlier, too, but maybe one more pair of eyes....”
    Lylah’s husband had said he was working at Larrimore headquarters, but so far Kari hadn’t run into him there.
    Kari looked under, over, into, and around every pile of papers, carton, wastebasket, file drawer, you name it. She went out to the van and looked inside. She even timidly checked Jeff’s car, unlocked and parked right out front.
    No flyers anywhere. No sign of them. Not one single flyer remained of all of them. There had been tens of thousands of them...how had they all disappeared? Today hadn’t been trash day. Where had they gone? More and more, it seemed it had been no mere accident, no simple matter of someone misplacing them. How do you misplace that many cartons, that many pieces of paper?
    Kari got on the phones, began exhorting people to get out and vote for Larrimore, telling one and all who answered why Larrimore was the better candidate...when she could get that far. Many people weren’t home, and of those who were, many had already made their minds up, for or against, and didn’t want to hear her pitch.
    Working down the list, she came to a Phil Traylor. “Hello, Mr. Traylor? I’m calling from the Ron Larrimore election headquarters.”
    “This isn’t Phil.”
    “May I speak with him?”
    “He’s out of town. I’m taking care of his place while he’s gone.”
    “Well, are you a registered voter?
    “Yes, I am.”
    “Well, may I talk to you, then?” And she launched into the litany of reasons why Larrimore was the better candidate...but all the while wondering why the voice on the other end sounded familiar. The man interrupted her from