Safe Haven
Safe Haven
Hannah Alexander
A TEENAGE FUGITIVE–Youthful master of disguise Fawn Morrison comes to Hideaway seeking refuge. Now that her dangerous game has turned deadly, she must entrust her safety to strangers.A DOUBTING DOCTOR–Karah Lee Fletcher relishes the challenges offered by Hideaway's new clinic, until an unsettling discovery shakes her confidence. Despite self-doubt, she reaches out to Fawn and finds unexpected grace.A LONELY RANGER–Their first meeting leaves Ranger Taylor Jackson vowing to avoid strong-willed Karah Lee. Yet, observing her interact with patients, Taylor begins to feel admiration. Could it lead to something deeper?
PRAISE FOR
HANNAH ALEXANDER’S NOVELS
“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fair Warning
“Reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, this intelligent mystery will keep readers engrossed.”
—Library Journal on Last Resort
“Hannah Alexander’s unique ability to combine suspense with romance and faith will have you searching for this author’s entire backlist. Grab [her] titles while you can and visit this wonderful town called Hideaway—you’ll never want to leave! Each book is top-notch suspense, with just a touch of romance. Last Resort is a must-buy…guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat until you turn the final page!”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Alexander’s skill at meshing spiritual truths with fascinating suspense is captivating. Well-drawn characters help the two separate plots move rapidly toward an exciting conclusion.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Safe Haven
“Hannah Alexander is one of the few authors who has the unique ability to bring tears to your eyes and God’s touch to your heart. Safe Haven is suspense, romance and first-rate entertainment all bound into one neat book.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Genuine humor…an interesting cast of characters…a few surprises.”
—Publishers Weekly on Hideaway
“Hideaway is gripping and romantic. It may also have crossover appeal to fans of medical suspense and of such authors as Tess Gerritsen.”
—Library Journal
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”
—Jeremiah 29:11–14
Safe Haven
A Hideaway Novel
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For many years Lorene Cook, Cheryl’s mom, has been an active participant with us as we work with our books. Mom, you’ve been a lifesaver!
Thanks to Vera Overall, Mel’s mother, for her love and encouragement.
Thanks to our longtime friends and encouragers Jack and Marty Frost, Barbara Warren, Jackie Bolton, Ron and Janet Benrey, Doug and Brenda Minton, and Lori Copeland.
Many thanks to our wonderful editor, Joan Marlow Golan, and her excellent staff at Steeple Hill Books.
Thanks to our friends who helped brainstorm this book—Nancy Moser, Annie Jones, Deborah Raney, Stephanie Whitson and Colleen and Dave Coble.
Blessings to our talented and beautiful Branson celebrities: Stacy and April Frerking and their parents, Dennis and Bonnie Frerking.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
Fawn Morrison glided across the atrium of the crowded country-music theater, enjoying the glances aimed in her direction. So what if the stares weren’t all filled with admiration? Those jealous women could learn to apply makeup the right way and emphasize their few positive qualities. Everybody had at least one or two. Almost everybody.
With a grin and a wink at the old geezer who stood behind the ticket counter, Fawn eased herself past a group of chattering people and strolled toward the ATM machine in the corner.
Some of these people probably thought she was one of the entertainers in the production—she’d never looked better in her life. She wore a calf-length gown of blue silk that Bruce had selected, telling her it matched the color of her eyes. The plunging neckline raised a few eyebrows, and the thigh-high slit had almost caused an accident out in the parking lot. She sure wasn’t in Las Vegas anymore. Branson, Missouri, seemed like a different planet. Hokey, maybe, but she kind of liked this place.
As she waited for the cash to click out of the machine, Fawn enjoyed the sight of her reflection in the mirrored wall. She looked hot. Sophisticated and grown-up. She’d come a long way in eight months—from earning money the hardest way, to flouncing through the casino in her cutesy little monkey outfit, smiling and calling “Keno, Keno, Keno” like a brain-injured parrot, to riding in limousines and living in luxury, eating lobster and drinking champagne.
All because she didn’t mind a balding man with a paunch, and pockmarks on his face.
Okay, sure he’d been acting a little wacky the past couple of days, but what did that matter? He could afford to act wacky. Besides, he knew how to treat a lady—if the lady didn’t expect him to open doors for her and if she didn’t mind a burp or two during the dinner conversation.
She used the entry card and stepped into the elevator reserved for special guests, then rode up to the seventh-floor penthouse suite—Branson didn’t have skyscrapers like Vegas. It didn’t have casinos, either, and smoke didn’t hang in the air like a cloud of poison.
Bruce was talking on his cell phone when she glided through the door. She allowed it to close with a muted clunk, and he glanced around at her. She smiled as she slid the thin spaghetti strap of her blue beaded purse from her shoulder and placed it on the counter by the minibar.
His gaze darted away and his fingers whitened on the tiny phone. “No, Vin, I told you what I’d do if you didn’t stop the purchase.”
Fawn sighed as Bruce paced to the other end of the carpeted great room. Okay, so he didn’t seem as distracted by her hot looks as the old geezer at the counter downstairs.
He lowered his already deep, gravelly voice. “I’ve got everything I need to…no, you listen. I don’t need the cash from this deal, I was just doing you a favor, but I’m not risking no lives for this.” He grunted and held the phone out from his ear.
Fawn heard the angry rant all the way across the room, and she winced at the threat in that voice. Bruce frowned at her, then put the phone back to his ear. The lamplight made his face look as white as mashed potatoes. “No? Well, you didn’t tell me about their new little discovery, did you? How many other investors know your dirty little secret? I’m not taking the heat for—”
He sighed and glanced over his shoulder toward Fawn, then disconnected with a push of a button. “Stupid jerk can have his little temper tantrum on his own time. Sorry you had to hear that, Princess. You got back fast.” The edges of his voice softened as his gaze caressed her.
“What am I, your errand girl now?” she teased in the husky, seductive voice she’d practiced for months before she ever went to Las Vegas. She crossed the room in slow, easy strides and reached up to trail a fingertip along his shoulder, then rubbed at the bristles on his chin.
He jerked away as if she’d zapped him with electricity.
She pouted at him.
“Did you get the show tickets?”
“They’re in my purse.”
“And the cash?”
“That, too.”
Bruce nodded, though she couldn’t be sure he’d even heard her words. He reached into the front pocket of his slacks and pulled out a beautiful steel cigarette lighter, strolling slowly, thoughtfully, over to her purse on the counter. He opened the purse and slid the lighter into the tiny zippered pocket inside, then zipped it shut.
“I don’t smoke,” she said.
He sighed, the plump lines of his face drawing down with concern. “Whatever you do, don’t lose the purse.”
“You know I won’t.” Two weeks ago, some loser had tried to lift it from her shoulder, and he’d nearly lost his future children. He’d limped away, hopefully wiser.
“Are you done being serious?” Fawn asked. “Can we go play now?”
The question brought another frown. Bruce chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then pointed toward the satiny cushions of a Victorian love seat beside the wall of windows that overlooked Branson. “We’ve got to talk.”
She blinked up at him. This was a new thing with Bruce since they’d flown here from Vegas two days ago. He seemed to want to talk a lot more, and he’d barely touched her since they arrived. Although in one way that was a big relief, in another way…
“Have a seat, Princess,” he rumbled.
She smoothed the silk dress beneath her and sat, making sure the slit fell away and revealed her leg. She patted the cushion beside her. He ignored her gesture, pulled a chair from the dining set and sank down across from her, hands on his knees as he leaned forward and narrowed his heavy-lidded eyes.
She quietly sucked in her breath. Was she getting dumped?
“First of all, that isn’t a lighter, it’s a computer data storage device. It’s called a flash drive, and that’s all you need to know for now. Hopefully, you’ll never need to know.”
“But what if I do?”
“Just remember that it has important information in it—information that lives could depend on. If anything happens—”
“Anything like what?”
He closed his eyes. “Don’t ask me that. Please. You’re smart, and you’ll know. If anything happens, find someone you know you can trust and give them the flash drive.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Just remember what I said. I’m asking you to do the right thing.” He gave her a firm look, and she forced herself to behave like a lady and shrug, as if that would be no problem. “Second of all,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you something, Princess, and this won’t be easy.” He straightened and shoved his right hand into the pocket of his gray slacks. “But first, I got a little present for you.” He pulled out a small jewel case.
“Is that another storage device?” she asked.
He smiled gently—sadly. “It’s a ring.”
The air escaped her lungs in a loud whoosh, but before she could react, he lifted the lid.
Quietly and slowly, Fawn started breathing again. Okay, no huge solitaire diamond, nothing like that. What he pulled from the case was a beautiful gold ring encrusted completely by heart-shaped pink-red stones. He raised her right hand and slid the ring onto the little finger. It fit perfectly.
“Rubies?” she whispered.
“Vietnamese.” He cupped both his hands around hers for a short second, then hesitated, watching her. He chewed on his lower lip again, then scooted his chair back and stood to pace across the floor. “How old are you, Princess?” He swiped at beads of sweat on his shiny scalp, watching her the way a horse would watch a strange object in the road.
Her stomach suddenly felt icky. “You know I’m twenty-three. I told you I didn’t care much about—”
“Know what I think? I think I’m old enough to be your dad.”
She tried hard not to react. Don’t let on. Don’t stutter. You’re past that now. “I thought you said you were thirty-five.” Her voice sounded smooth even to her own ears. In control. “That would mean you were…what…twelve when I was born?” She forced the corners of her lips upward.
He stalked across the room and back, once again rubbing his scalp. “You know what? I’ve got a daughter who’s fifteen.” He stopped and looked at her. “Haven’t seen her in five years, but every time I see a kid around her age, I think about her.” He gestured toward Fawn’s hand. “I got my girl a ring just like that.”
Fawn watched him without moving, barely daring to blink.
“Why is it I think more and more about my daughter when I look at you lately?”
She leaned back in the sofa and crossed her legs, keeping her spine perfectly straight. “You saw my driver’s license.”
“I’ve seen enough fake ID cards in my lifetime to fill the public library in Las Vegas. You know what, Fawn? Even though I don’t see my kid, if I knew a big fat guy my age was shacking up with her, I’d shoot the loser right in the face. Why isn’t your dad chasing me down?”
She couldn’t prevent the scowl, or the gut response. “What dad?” The words bit into the air, making Bruce blink.
He wiped at the sweat again. “Are you even legal?”
“Of course I’m legal.” She was old enough to drive. That was legal.
He reached down and fingered several strands of the blond hair that curved past her shoulders. “What year did you say you were born?” His voice strained tightly in his throat.
Get back in the act. Quick! She forced a husky laugh. “Bruce, don’t be silly. Of course I’m flattered…I think. But I can’t help it if I remind you of your daughter. Do I act like some little sixteen-year-old?” Please believe me, Bruce. I can’t go back to the Keno job. And I sure can’t go back to the street.
“Not when you’re awake, except when you bite your nails.”
She held up her perfectly groomed hands. She’d had a manicure just yesterday. “A woman needs her little vices. You should be glad mine are so innocuous.” That was the right word, wasn’t it? Bruce wasn’t exactly an English professor, and tossing in an intelligent-sounding word now and then helped keep him guessing.
He continued to stare at her, as if he couldn’t quite remember the true color of her eyes behind the brown contact lenses—lenses that, according to the advertisement, made her look friendlier and more approachable. More exotic as well.
Or maybe he was trying to make a decision about something. Fawn held her breath for a long moment, until the sound of a horn blast reached through the sliding glass door that opened onto the lanai.
Bruce glanced toward the door, then at his watch. “I want you to run another errand for me, Princess.”
She pouted again. “So I really am your errand girl?”
“Let’s just pretend that you are for now, okay?” He reached down and patted her cheek. “I think you can handle playing a role.”
She watched him for a moment, fighting back a horrible fear that skittered through her stomach like a line of swarming termites. With as much cool as she could project, she reached for her purse on the counter. “Tell me what you need, oh master.”
She endured his gaze. She would not beg.
“Did you withdraw the cash limit?” he asked.
“Only from one card. I don’t know why you suddenly want all this—”
“Use the other card and withdraw that limit, too, but don’t do it downstairs. I want you to take a taxi to an address I’m going to write down for you.”
She didn’t argue. How could she? He was trying to get rid of her. “You’ll be here when I get back?” she asked, voice soft, conciliatory.
“I’m not leaving you, Princess, but I have some work to do, and I’ve got to be alone to do it.”
Karah Lee Fletcher yawned for the third time in less than five minutes as her eyes glazed and she struggled to maintain her attention on the highway ahead of her. She was too close to her destination to give in to sleep now, or to the slight nausea she’d battled ever since eating that greasy hamburger in Springfield.
She was going to have to start eating healthier. And she needed to get more sleep. Working with sick people all the time left her open to just about every virus in Missouri, and when she didn’t take care of herself, her immune system let her know about it.
The center line of the road blurred, and Karah Lee jerked the steering wheel to the right. “Come on, focus,” she muttered to her ten-year-old Ford Taurus sedan, as if the car were the culprit weaving back and forth inside the boundary of her lane. “It isn’t that late, and we’re almost there. Only a few more miles.”
Actually, it would be closer to ten miles before she reached Hideaway, and darkness had descended over Missouri some time ago. She glanced at the glowing numbers on the dash. Nine-thirty. Okay, not that long ago, but she’d worked last night. Big difference.
She felt another yawn coming on, and reluctantly closed the vents that allowed the sweet Ozark air to drift through the car. Time for the big guns.
She switched on the air conditioner full force and took a few deep breaths, aiming all four vents toward her. Ah, yes, that chased away most of the nausea and blew off some of the fog that hovered in her brain. The improvement wouldn’t last long, judging by her experience of the past hour. Highway 76 west of Branson had very little traffic to keep her occupied, and it made her wonder: Did someone know something she didn’t? Or could she be lost?
She pulled over to the side of the road and checked the directions Ardis Dunaway had given her. Follow the Highway 76 signs and ignore the strangeness of the new roads that had been added in the past few months. This place had changed a lot, but she still knew how to follow directions.
The stars congregated in the darkness of the country sky, but the moon was nowhere in evidence. The trees on either side of her seemed to swallow any excess light. Another attack of the yawns beset Karah Lee as the night invaded the car with increasing heaviness…and her eyelids drooped ever closer to catastrophe….
She jerked upright. “Time to get serious.” Karah Lee hated talking to herself. To her, it meant that, after thirty-four years, the loneliness of single life had finally affected her mind. People who talked to themselves became so addicted to it that they did so in public. Death knell for a social life. So she wouldn’t get into the habit of it, but if she fell asleep now and ran off the road and killed herself, that, too, would end future prospects.
She reached for the radio knob, then thought better of it. The blare of noise would only cheapen the experience of driving into this magical land that had made such an impact on her when she was a teenager—when the roads had been so much narrower than they were now.
Finally, she cast a quick glance into the back seat, where her huge black cat, Monster, lay snoozing in his pet taxi, strapped safely in place with the seat belt. “You know, you could learn to carry your weight in this family, and at least rattle your cage a little, give me one of those good deep snarls when I start to nod off. Your life is dependent for the next few moments on my ability to keep my wits, and they’re threatening to scatter out across the Ozarks like leaves in a tornado.”
She heard a grumpy cat-mutter and nodded. “That’s better. I probably should have put you up here in the front with me, but I thought I’d be nice and let you sleep through this trip. It’s stupid to drive when I’ve barely had eight full hours of sleep in the past three days.”
The husky-hoarse sound of her own voice in the confined space of the car would probably keep her awake for a few moments. “How many patients have I seen in the past three years who’d fallen asleep at the wheel? I don’t feel like becoming another statistic.”
Just last week a father of three was fatally injured on I–70 during rush hour when he veered over onto the shoulder, then apparently overcorrected and slammed into a car in the next lane. His friends said later he’d gone thirty-six hours without sleep. Countless accidents were caused by irresponsible drivers who…
Her head nodded forward. She took a deep breath, slowed her speed, flexed her hands. She should have given herself more time, should’ve asked for an extra day to get here, but no, good ol’ tough Karah Lee could do anything. She’d been accused by co-workers of having the stamina, pain tolerance and size of a redwood tree. At times, she was proud of the comparison. Other times, it made her feel lonelier. Few people took the time to venture past the facade of indomitable redhead and get to know the real Karah Lee Fletcher.
Monster, given to Karah Lee by a colleague recently engaged to a cat hater, wasn’t exactly what she had in mind as a lifelong companion. In fact, they barely knew each other, and the relationship wasn’t improving with time. When she complained about him at work, however, the staff teased that Monster sounded a lot like his new owner.
She was not amused.
The road blurred. She could not keep her eyes open. She desperately needed sleep.
Maybe if she just pulled over to the side of the road for a short nap…but experience had taught her that if she allowed herself to close her eyes for a few moments, it would take a loud beeper in her ear to bring her out of it before morning. Just a few more miles, and—
A shadow separated itself from the darkness of the trees, followed by another shadow and another, into the glow of her headlights, barely twenty feet from her front bumper. She slammed on the brakes and swerved as three deer darted back and forth over the road in confusion. The tires of Karah Lee’s car skidded into the brush at the edge of the shoulder, and she couldn’t prevent the slide, couldn’t veer from the tree that came at her with sickening swiftness.
The impact thrust her forward, but her seat belt grabbed and held. The crash stunned her. She sat in horrified aftershock.
Monster yowled and scratched at the pet taxi with frantic cries, but Karah Lee sat frozen. Suddenly, she realized that she did not have the stamina, or the pain tolerance, of a redwood.
She fainted.
Chapter Two
Fawn stepped from the elevator on the seventh floor, heart still pounding, hands shaking harder than they had been when she left. She reached into her money-stuffed purse for the key card. Would he be here?
It wasn’t as if she’d never been dumped before. It had happened twice in the past few months, but each time it had been harder to return to other kinds of work. And here she was in Branson, Missouri. She didn’t even know these streets, and she had a strange feeling she wouldn’t be able to do as much business here, even if she could force herself to do that business again.
But what else could she do?
The card slid into the silent-lock mechanism, and to her relief the door opened at the slightest pressure of her hand. Hearing Bruce’s voice, she broke out with a sweat of relief. He was still here.
“Vincent didn’t have the guts to come and talk to me himself,” she heard him say from the other room, “so he sent you.”
She stopped in the doorway and frowned as she caught sight of a tall, dark-haired man in an expensive-looking dark gray suit. His back was to her, and Bruce stood facing her, the shadow of his big body outlined in the neon lights that flashed into the room through the lanai windows. He didn’t even glance toward her when she entered.
“He doesn’t like associating with traitors” came the visitor’s voice, which was rougher than Bruce’s deep bass.
Fawn grabbed the door to keep it from shutting and disturbing the men. Bruce wasn’t finished with his business. She’d come back too soon. She was about to turn around and leave without saying anything, when Bruce spoke again.
“I’d only be a traitor if I allowed my clients to pour their money down the drain with bad deals.”
“It doesn’t have to be a bad deal,” Gray Suit grumbled. “You tell your clients to leave their money where it is for six more months, and you can guarantee seventy percent return on their investment. They won’t want to pass that up.”
“Vincent can’t guarantee that, Harv, and you know it. How many dupes are you going to find to buy a worthless space of air over Hideaway? The condominium isn’t even built yet.”
“Construction’s already begun.”
Fawn saw the anger spill over Bruce’s face. “How can that be?”
Harv gave a low grunt of laughter. “You’re not the only man who can be bought. I’ve got good information that says you’re carrying a vital report around in your pocket. You don’t have any business with that inspection report, and Vincent wants it back.”
“It’s not on me,” Bruce said.
Out in the hallway behind Fawn came the sound of the penthouse elevator doors opening and dishes rattling, probably a meal on a room-service cart. Harv half turned at the sound, until Fawn could see the outline of his long, heavy-boned face, with thick jawline and overgrown, black eyebrows. He looked really edgy, and the fingers of his right hand tensed, muscles flexing beneath his suit.
Bruce caught Fawn’s gaze, frowning hard at her and jerking his head toward the door in an unmistakable command for her to leave. “Harv, this whole mess is going to come down on Vincent’s head, and I don’t want to be here when it happens. I’m not getting blamed for his stupid decision.”
Harv returned his attention to Bruce. “Then what are you doing here? You didn’t fly all the way here just to give Vincent the brush-off. You could’ve done that on the phone.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’ve got contacts here.” Suspicion laced the man’s voice.
“I wanted to see some of the shows, check out the—”
“I know what kinds of shows you like, and they aren’t these country-music comedy shows.”
“Vincent sent you here to do his dirty work, didn’t he?” Bruce asked. “He doesn’t care about a bunch of strangers in Hideaway as long as he can make his money and get out before tragedy strikes. Don’t you care that lives could be at stake?”
“Since when did you care about other people?”
As if against his will, Bruce’s gaze gave an imperceptible flick toward Fawn, then he looked back at Harv.
Harv’s shoulders stiffened. He started to turn, reaching beneath his suit jacket.
“No!” Bruce shouted. “Princess!”
A deadly-looking pistol with silencer seemed embedded in Harv’s hand as he drew it from his pocket. He aimed at Fawn and squeezed the trigger as she ducked at Bruce’s command.
The doorpost beside her splintered. “Bruce!”
“Run, Princess!” Bruce shouted, charging the man. “Get out now! Hurry!” He was still six feet from his target when the man swung back, aimed, squeezed the trigger.
Fawn shoved the door wide behind her, barreling past a bellman with a room-service cart. The cart and dishes went flying with a clatter across the hallway.
“Get out of the way!” she screamed. “He’s a killer! Run!” She raced to the elevator, jabbed the button, then realized she could be trapped. She ran to the stairwell and plunged downward, expecting to feel a bullet in her back any second. She heard another clatter of dishes, heard a man cry out above her just as the stairwell door closed—the bellman?
Her feet barely touched the steps as she raced down them. When she reached the third-floor landing, she stumbled and twisted her ankle. Gasping with pain, she didn’t slow her stride. At the second-floor landing, she paused long enough to look up and listen.
She didn’t hear the sound of pursuit. She kicked off the strappy, high-heeled sandals and looped them over her purse. Where was he? What was happening up there? Bruce! What happened to you?
She wanted to turn and race back up those stairs. She needed to get help, fast. Bruce could be up there bleeding to death.
Did Harv shoot the bellman, too? Where was the man? Harv could have taken the elevator down—he could be waiting for her when she stepped through the door on the ground floor.
But that would be crazy. Too many witnesses.
Instead of continuing down the stairs to the first floor, she rushed to the second-floor entrance. But as soon as she placed her hand on the knob to open the door, she let it go and drew back. What if Harv was on the other side of that door?
“Stop it!” she whispered to herself. She had to get to safety—reach the lobby and cry out for help, find the security guards and have them call for an ambulance. She cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. All she saw was a serving tray of empty dishes on the floor at the far end of the hallway. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the stairwell, then stepped into the hallway. She took the main elevator to the lobby. No way Harv could get her there.
The moment her bare feet sank into the plush wine-and-gold carpet of the lobby, she saw him. The man named Harv in the expensive-looking gray suit stood talking with two uniformed guards. He gestured toward the stairwell door, looking the part of a frightened man. One of the security guards drew his gun.
Fawn gasped.
Harv glanced her way and sighted her. “There!” he shouted. “That’s the killer. Don’t let her get away!”
She plunged into the midst of a group of elderly ladies.
“Stop that woman! She’s a killer!” someone called across the lobby.
A couple of women screamed as Fawn stumbled to the exit and shoved open the door.
She ducked past another crowd of oblivious people, keeping the colorfully dressed theatergoers between herself and the guards as she slipped into the shadows at the edge of the property. Wishing desperately for a pair of sneakers, she slung the strap of her purse over her head and plunged into the darkness, barefoot and sure she would be shot in the back any second.
Taylor Jackson sped along the tree-shrouded road as fast as he dared, and watched for moving shapes in the beams of his headlights. He dreaded what he might find, and he hoped backup was on its way.
How many times had he warned tourists to avoid driving this stretch of road at night? And how many runs like this had he made in the year he’d been working this area? The local communities needed to buy space on radios and hometown papers daily, alerting the world that humans did not own the roads in the Ozarks, especially at night. The deer, opossums, raccoons and coyotes did.
Sometimes he thought the four-footed variety of animals obeyed the rules of the Mark Twain National Forest better than the two-footed ones.
The only times he ever prayed were on runs like this, when he didn’t know what he would find, how many victims would be involved, how much damage there would be. He especially hated finding children hurt. Highway 76 twisted through the hills with such diabolical suddenness it caught travelers unaware, making them think it was veering right, then veering left instead, in hairpin curves that seemed to make no sense.
Meanwhile, oncoming cars accidentally bright-lighted one another with vicious intensity. On summer days, when traffic was heavy and they got a slow driver bottle-necking thirty sightseers in a hurry to see Hideaway in a couple of hours, people got injured, even killed. Hideaway Road had earned a bad reputation in the past few months, since tourists had discovered its beauty.
But on a weeknight he knew he could probably blame a deer.
The glow of two flashlights hovered ahead of him in the darkness, and he cut his speed. Sure enough, fresh deer scat on the road told the story. He was relieved to find no big hairy bodies lying beside the pavement. As far as he could tell, not even any blood. Now, if only the humans had been so lucky.
He saw the bright red Ford Taurus sedan kissing a maple tree in the darkness. As he maneuvered his vehicle across the road to illuminate the wreck site with his headlights, Taylor saw Mary and Jim, who lived down the road, leaning over someone in the driver’s seat. The door was open. Good. The damage might not be as severe as he had first feared. Also, he saw no passengers other than the driver.
He pulled in behind the car, left his emergency lights flashing on the dash and got out. As he ran to the car, the guttural scream of a nightmare screeched through the air, and he caught his breath at the animal sound. He’d never heard a deer cry like that before…and then he realized it was coming from inside the car.
As he approached the others, Jim and Mary stepped back, and the sound accosted him more directly. For a brief moment he hesitated, unwillingly reminded of the horror movie he’d watched years ago about a human possessed by a demon.
But the woman in the front seat behind the steering wheel did not look grotesque in any way. She looked sane, though slightly dazed. She groaned, and Taylor realized the screech did not come from her but from the back seat. He rushed forward, peered past the driver’s seat, and caught the double gleam of terrified eyes, two black paws stuck through the wire mesh of a pet taxi. It was the biggest black cat he had ever seen—and the loudest he had ever heard.
“Would you shut up?” The deep, irritable tone of the driver mingled with the cries of the cat.
Taylor stepped back slightly from the car and bent low enough to get a good look at the victim. She had wildly curly red hair and an unhappy expression in a very pale face. In the residual glow from his headlights he saw a streak of blood outlining the left side of her face.
“I didn’t mean you,” she said. “It’s Monster.” Her voice was husky and authoritative, though slightly hoarse.
“Ma’am, it’s okay, we’ll take care of you. Just remain still until I can ascertain the extent of the damage.”
“No need. I’ll be okay. I just need to get out and stretch my legs a little.” She closed her eyes and groaned again, lifting a shaking hand to her forehead.
Taylor raised his voice to be heard over the screeches of the cat. “Ma’am, I’d like to check you over first.” He turned to Jim. “Would you go get my medical case out of the truck? I want to get her vitals and—”
“My vitals are fine.” The victim’s voice deepened. “I just want some fresh air.” She reached down to unfasten her seat belt and fumbled with the release.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Taylor leaned forward, but before he could assist her, she made her escape from the belt and turned to look into the pet taxi.
He got a close-up view of a long, graceful neck above shoulders that were surprisingly broad and muscular for a woman. She wore cutoff jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, and her arms and legs were untanned, well-shaped.
“It’s okay, Monster, you’re safe.” Her husky voice was suddenly melodious and soothing. “Cut the noise a minute, will you?”
To Taylor’s amazement, the racket lowered to the growl of a stressed-out tiger.
The woman turned back and looked up at Taylor. “Sorry about that. Is there a vet around the village anywhere? I’d like to get him looked at.”
“Don’t you think we should concentrate on you first?” Taylor asked as Jim approached with the kit of medical supplies.
“I told you, I’m fine.” She reached up and grasped the side of the door frame, then swung her feet to the ground. Her face and lips were pale except for the streak of blood that matched the color of her car.
Taylor placed one hand gently on her shoulder as he reached for the bag Jim held out for him. “Ma’am, please humor me and remain seated for a moment. You don’t look fine. I’m a paramedic, and I’d like to make sure about you first. I need to ask you a few questions.”
She blinked up at him, then frowned and looked pointedly at the gun hanging at his hip. “Since when do paramedics have to carry guns and wear ranger uniforms?”
“When they’re also law-enforcement rangers. We’re short staffed.”
She took a deep, audible breath and leaned against the steering wheel, meeting his gaze squarely. “My name is Karah Lee Fletcher, I’m on Hideaway Road in Missouri, and the date is Wednesday, June 11. Those were the questions you wanted to ask me, right?”
“Done this before, have you?”
“You might say that.” A hint of humor flashed across her expression and disappeared almost before he caught it.
“I can see you’ve hit your head—did you experience any loss of consciousness?” Taylor continued to look into those eyes. They were more golden than amber brown. She had a high forehead and cheekbones, and a strong, firm chin line.
She glanced away briefly at his question, and he noticed her hesitation. “Ma’am?”
“Some.” Her voice grew irritable again.
“Some? Any idea how long you were out?”
“Couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. That racket in the back seat works better than a sternal rub.” She held her arm out. “Go ahead, take my blood pressure. It stays about 125 over 75. I already took my heart rate. It’s steady and normal. Respiration’s normal.”
He pulled the cuff out of the bag and did as he was told, curbing his curiosity about her apparent medical knowledge. The cuff made a firm fit around her arm. She had a large frame for a woman, but in spite of her muscular form she didn’t look like a bodybuilder. He pumped the cuff and took the reading, nodded and released the pressure.
“Elevated?” she asked.
“It’s 140 over 85.”
“Not bad after all this excitement,” she said. Her cheeks were gaining some color. “Now do you want to let me up?”
“If you’d give me a couple more minutes, Ms. Fletcher, I’d appreciate it.” Why did he always have to get pushy patients in the middle of the night? “Have you had any alcoholic beverages this evening?”
Her expression revealed her irritation, and the color in her face deepened. “A herd of deer ran me off the road, okay? I’m not a drunk driver. Do you smell alcohol on my breath?” She blew a puff of air into his face. All he caught was a whiff of onions. A strong whiff. “Just let me out of the car and I’ll walk a straight line for you.” She reached for the door handle to steady herself and scooted forward.
“Not yet, please.” He leaned over her and palpated the back of her neck. “Sometimes you can be hurt worse than you think at the time. It’s always best not to take chances, Ms. Fletcher.”
She gave a long-suffering groan. “It’s Karah Lee.”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I go by Karah Lee, not Ms. Fletcher.”
He pulled out his penlight and dropped to one knee in front of her so he could get a more level look. “I’m going to shine this light into your eyes briefly, Karah Lee.”
She gave another sigh of impatience. “Go ahead, do your thing. I’m telling you, I’m fine. I’d like to see about my cat, though.”
He checked her pupils, and they were equal and reactive. He looked at the wound on her temple, which could use some attention but was no longer actively bleeding. “You obviously haven’t been out of the car yet, right?” To his discomfort, the cat’s voice did seem to be reaching a higher decibel again.
“No, but if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll go for it.”
“I’m sorry, I’d like you to remain in the vehicle until we can get an ambulance here to do a more thorough—”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “I told you I’d be okay. I am willing to sign a PRC form so you can release me without getting into trouble.”
Taylor bit back a sharp retort. A Patient Refusal of Care form would release him from any liability if she should develop complications later. She sounded as if she was accusing him of trying to cover his backside.
“Look, Ms. Fletcher, I’m not interested in covering for myself, I just want to make sure you don’t have any—”
“It doesn’t look like there’s too much damage,” she said, gesturing toward the front of her car. “And I wasn’t speeding. I realize that the damage to the car isn’t always the best indication of injury to the occupants, but you’ll have to trust my judgment. I promise to check in with the local clinic first thing in the morning.” There was a hint of sarcasm in her words and a touch of irony in her gaze, and he wondered what that was all about.
“By the way,” she said, “I tried to start the engine and it refuses to budge. Know of anybody I might call for a tow in the morning?” Her voice mingled with the cat’s in a grating duet.
Taylor didn’t bother to curb his own sarcasm. “The engine won’t start?” He raised his voice to be heard over the yowling in the back seat. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed, then reached out and took his left arm in a firm grip. With that grip she urged him backward. “You don’t listen too well, do you?”
She released him and stood gingerly to her feet. She was tall. The top of her head came to his eyebrows, and he was six-three.
“I’m refusing care. End of…discuss—”
Her focus seemed to waver, and the color drained from her face once more. She grabbed her stomach and doubled forward. He reacted quickly to step out of the line of fire, but not quickly enough. His uniform pants would never be the same.
Chapter Three
Sirens blasted through the air and bounced from the side of the building where Fawn Morrison crouched, panting from the run, terrified. She was at least three city blocks from the hotel-theater complex she’d escaped, and panic continued to shake her body so hard she could barely get enough air into her lungs. Red-white-blue lights reflected across the parking lot. She could only gamble that no one driving into the lot would catch a glimpse of her dress from beyond the thick hedge that shielded her.
She knew that if she moved quickly, she had a better chance of escape, but still she squatted in the shadows. All she wanted to do was pull herself into a tight little ball and block everything out.
She reached into her purse for a hair clip, twisted her long blond hair into a knot at the back of her head and anchored it. She pulled her bangs out of the stiff helmet of dried hair gel she’d used to keep them off her forehead. They made her look younger. Too young for her taste—like about fourteen—but it might save her hide to look younger, just for tonight. Now if she could get out of this dress, and scrape off some of this makeup….
As the whine of the sirens died, she limped along the edge of the building to a tall privacy fence that she guessed shielded the cast entrance for this theater. A searchlight flickered across the treetops at the theater next door. In spite of her ankle, she ran to the fence, jumped up and grasped the top edge, pulling herself up, kicking hard to swing herself over. Splinters gouged her arms and legs, and she gasped with the pain as she dropped to the asphalt on the other side.
The shriek of sirens continued to split the air as Fawn limped to a concrete loading dock. She climbed the steps and tested the door. It slid open, and she slipped inside to be overwhelmed by the smell of roast beef and onions, and the clatter of cookware. A kitchen. As late as it was, they would be cleaning up after a banquet, maybe. Or this could be a dinner theater. Judging by the size of the five-story structure, this, too, was a hotel-theater complex, which was a good thing.
She passed by a broad doorway and crept as quietly as she could along the shadowy hall. If she could find her way to the connecting hotel—
“Hey, you!” came a sharp male voice from the bright kitchen.
Going cold all over, she turned to see a thin-haired man standing beside a stack of pots and pans at a huge sink. He wore a white shirt and slacks and an apron.
“You lost?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. Where’s the ladies’ room?”
“Back out the Staff Only entrance and to your right,” he said drily, tossing a towel over his shoulder as he gave her a once-over.
She nodded and continued along the service corridor until she knew she’d be out of sight of the kitchen, then she opened a door to her right. The lights were off, of course, but the hallway fluorescents revealed a small office. No good place to hide. She checked the next room down on her left, but it was locked. Several yards farther, the next door on her right, was a linen room, complete with huge stacks of towels, aprons and uniforms.
This could work! They did it in all the movies—people sneaking into the closet of a hospital and pulling on a doctor’s lab coat so they could blend in with the hospital staff. She could blend in. She’d worked at a hotel for a couple of weeks.
After a hopeless search for a light switch in the room—this must be one of those places where a master switch was located elsewhere—she pulled a tiny key-chain flashlight from her purse, stepped into the room, closed the door behind her. The thin stream of light flickered, threatening to go out as she grabbed a set of whites from the top of a stack in front of her. The pants would’ve fit an elephant. The next set in the stack looked as if they might fit. She pulled a hairnet from a package on the shelf beside the clothes. Of course there were no shoes.
She stripped off her dress and shoved it deep behind a stack of tablecloths. The clothes fit—the bottoms were a little too snug around her hips, but she could still move without ripping them. She pulled the black hairnet over her head and tucked her bangs beneath it. With the clip holding her hair up off her shoulders, she might get away with this. Except for her shoes. Still, she couldn’t go barefoot.
The tiny flashlight flickered out as she tugged on her shoes. She couldn’t coax any more from it. Should’ve changed the battery last week.
She felt around in the darkness for her purse, and was slinging the strap over her head when she heard the sound of purposeful footsteps and a man’s deep voice.
“…police department. I need to ask you some questions.”
The footsteps stopped, and Fawn caught her breath.
“I don’t think any crooks or bad guys came through here tonight, if that’s what you mean,” came the voice of the dishwasher who’d given her directions to the bathroom. “Just people from the dinner theater.”
“Is the show over?”
“Should have been over about fifteen minutes or so ago.”
“Did anyone come through this way recently? A woman in a blue dress, blond hair?”
Fawn bit the inside of her cheek. No, please don’t tell him.
“Hey, you kidding? Sure did,” came the reply. “Blue dress? Really pretty?”
“Sounds right.”
“She was in here just a few minutes ago. Looked a little spooked, if you ask me. What happened, Officer?”
“We just need to question her.” There was a sound of static, like one of those walkie-talkie things Fawn’s Uncle Ralph used to have. “We need to have a look around.”
“Okay by me, but I’m not the one you have to ask. My boss—”
“We’ll take care of that. If you don’t mind, you just ease out of the building for a few minutes. There’s been a double murder, and we’re investigating.”
“Murder! You’re not kidding me? Right here in Branson?”
Fawn froze. Oh, Bruce, no. She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned softly.
There was a thunk on the linen-room door, and then the knob turned slightly. “What’s in here?”
Fawn braced herself to make a dive for the floor.
“Towels and stuff.”
“Okay, we’ll want to check it, too. Why don’t you go ahead and get hold of your boss, and I’ll have a talk with him, get the master switch turned on down here. But meanwhile we need to get some backup in here.” The voices became somewhat fainter, but they didn’t go away completely. Fawn slid down beside a rack of towels and buried her face in her hands. She was trapped.
Oh, Bruce…he was really dead. Harv had killed him. And who else had he killed? The bellman?
And what was she going to do?
Karah Lee huddled against the passenger door of the ranger’s SUV, doing her best to control Monster’s movements within the circle of her arms as the ranger took the sharp curves at a sedate speed. “It wasn’t the bump on the head that made me sick. Really. Ouch!” She eased Monster’s front paws up and away from her shoulder, wincing as the sharp claws dug into her flesh in an effort to remain attached. “I was sick long before I saw those deer in the road.”
“Look, it’s never convenient to have to seek medical care in the middle of the night, but there are times—”
“I heard you, okay?” she snapped, then bit her lower lip. She knew the speech. She’d given it enough times, herself. And here she was behaving like one of her most obnoxious patients. Next time she would remember how irritable pain could make a person. “Trust me,” she said more gently. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, really?” His sarcasm was still in evidence. “You have a sixth sense about these things, do you?”
She frowned at him. What was his problem? So she was refusing care—it shouldn’t be a big deal to him. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” she said, then grimaced when her loving pet attempted to tenderize her right leg. “You know what, Monster? Some people think cat tastes just as good as chicken. I’m tempted to see if they’re right.”
Ranger Taylor Jackson skidded a glance her way.
“Joke,” she said. “It’s a joke. See? I’m making jokes, I’m thinking clearly, I’m—”
Monster yowled, and the impact of the sound reverberated through the interior of the SUV. Karah Lee covered the cat’s face with her left hand. He nipped at her thumb, and she jerked away.
“Do you think he’s hurt?” Taylor asked.
“If you’re asking if he’s behaving abnormally, no.” She’d checked him over, as much as he would allow, and had found no damage. “I’d still like to find a veterinarian. You say there’s none in Hideaway?”
“There’s a kid at a boys’ ranch across the lake who could probably look at him. Everybody around here takes their pets to him. Besides him, the closest vet is Kimberling City.”
“A kid?”
“About seventeen, good kid.”
Monster yowled again, and again Karah Lee attempted to comfort him.
“You say he’s always like that?”
She nodded, then realized he probably couldn’t see the gesture in the dim glow from the console. “He misses his previous owner. We aren’t exactly soul mates.”
There was a soft snort of laughter, and Karah Lee glared at the ranger’s silhouette.
The amusement left his expression. “Sorry. You’re staying at the Lakeside?”
“That’s right. I’m renting a house in town, and it won’t be ready for a week and a half.”
“You’re staying alone?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “Except for Monster. Why?”
“I simply wondered if you’d be alone tonight, without anyone to check on you.”
“You offering?” The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she wished she could tie a knot in her tongue. She hadn’t meant that the way it sounded. Not at all.
Even in the faint light from the dash she thought she could see him blush. He had the coloring for it, with faint freckling across the bridge of his nose, and hair the color of aged bronze. He had straight, fierce eyebrows—no, not exactly fierce, they just made him look earnest, like a younger version of Billy Graham.
She sighed. She had spent too much time in the company of a sarcastic hospital staff, and she’d grown accustomed to the cynical, occasionally coarse joking. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine, and if anything happens, I promise not to hold you personally responsible, okay?”
“That isn’t what I—”
“I know about head-sheet protocol, I know what to look for and I know what to do in case of emergency.”
There was a short silence. “That’s fine.” The reply was tight and clipped, and she realized she’d probably offended him. In fact, thinking about it, what she’d said had sounded offensive. Again. Disgusted with herself, she sighed and leaned back.
They rounded a curve, and there was a break in the heavy overgrowth of trees. Moonlight reflected from the glassy surface of a lovely lake below, and Karah Lee caught her breath. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it is down here.”
From the corner of her vision, she saw him glance at her. “You’ve been here before?”
“My family came here a lot when I was growing up. It was one of my favorite places in the world.”
There was a brief silence. Even the cat had settled into Karah Lee’s lap without destroying any more flesh or further taxing her eardrums.
“I think you’re going to find a few changes,” he said softly.
“The roads have changed, for sure. When I was a kid, this was a gravel road. I like the improvement.”
“It might have backfired on us.”
“What do you mean?”
He steered the vehicle along the downhill curve of the road toward town. “We’ve been overrun by tourists this year. Some company came in last fall and bought several of the houses along the shore of the lake, then opened a shop on the square this spring that rents out mountain bikes, canoes and kayaks. They take excursion trips into Branson for evening shows, by boat. They’ve been advertising big-time online, and all over Branson. The crowds are swarming here. I can’t believe you even found a place to stay.”
“I made reservations early.”
“You’re lucky.”
“No, I’m smart enough to think ahead.”
“These people have also purchased some prime property at the eastern end of town, and they’re building a ten-story condominium. Can you believe that? Right here in Hideaway.”
She glanced at him as he pulled into the circle drive in front of the bed-and-breakfast. “You sound like you think that’s a crime.”
“I transferred here from the Grand Canyon. I’ve seen the kind of damage overcrowding can cause. It could devastate the whole area. Our mayor called a council together to try to enact some zoning laws, but by then it was too late.”
“I’m sorry.” But was she? After all, she owed her new job to the sudden increase in tourism. “Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing, though.”
Taylor parked and got out of the Jeep, then walked around the front to open her door. “The crime rate has already begun to rise,” he told her. “I think it could be a disaster. I’ll help you with your things.”
She shoved Monster back into his pet taxi and braced herself. The yowling commenced. She noticed the ranger grimace. “I’ll be fine,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the sudden din. “I can take care of my own luggage.” The sooner she could haul this animal to her own private cottage and block out the sound, the happier everyone would be.
“I’ll make sure you’re settled,” he said as he carried both her heavy suitcases along a lighted footpath to a broad front porch. Someone had left the porch light on, and he set the cases down and reached for the screen door.
She grabbed the handle before he could. “Look, I’m serious, I’ll be fine.” She regretted the rough tone in her voice, but the guy was a ranger, not a bellman, and he’d already gone out of his way to help her. She refused to take advantage of him. She didn’t need a chaperon to see her inside. She knew small towns—had grown up in one, herself—and word could get out in a hurry that she’d had to be escorted to her room by a law officer.
“Really,” she said more gently. “I’ll be fine, and you probably have work to do. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. Thank you for the ride, and I’m sorry about the…the mess I made.”
Without waiting for a reply, she shouldered past him and pushed open the door, carrying her angry cat with her. She’d suffered all the humiliation she planned to endure tonight.
Darkness and silence settled into the linen room like one of the thick quilts Fawn’s great-grandma used to tuck around her when she spent the night. The sounds outside had faded just a few seconds ago—but not before Fawn heard the crackly voice of the policeman’s radio informing him they were surrounding the place.
She pulled off her shoes once again. She couldn’t run well in them, especially with the twisted ankle. She crept through the darkness, feeling her way along the edge of the shelves until she reached the doorway with the narrow line of light edging the bottom. No sound came from beneath that door.
Holding her breath, she reached for the doorknob and started to turn it. The hard metal felt cold in her hand. There was a soft click, and she froze again.
“Check all these rooms,” came a man’s voice, echoed by the sound of brisk footsteps. “Don’t take any chances, she could be armed.”
There came the sound of a latch turning, and Fawn caught her breath. It wasn’t this door. They must be searching the room across the hall. They would come here next.
She plunged her hand into her purse and felt for the book of matches she’d taken from an ashtray in the suite. As the sound of new footsteps reached her, she ripped a match out and struck it hard against the base. It flared, and she held it high to search for any vents or removable grates along the wall or ceiling—she’d seen people escape that way a lot in movies.
The footsteps drew closer. The flame burned her fingers and she dropped the match, stifling a cry of pain. Tucking her purse beneath her arm, she struck another match, then braced herself and touched the flame to the entire book of matches, holding the tip of the cardboard cover.
It flared brightly, startling her. She gasped, bit her tongue.
There was no grate, no vent she could squeeze into. But she might be able to scoot beneath two stacks of towels in the corner, if she curled herself into a tight ball. She shook the flaming matchbook before it could burn her fingers again, just as a door closed across the hall.
“Not in here. Block this—”
The scream of an alarm shot across the room, smacking Fawn with an almost physical force. The ceiling started to rain.
Instinctively, she scuttled toward the stacks of towels where she’d intended to hide, and plunged through a tumble of terry cloth. She heard muffled shouts from the hallway and more footsteps, but the door remained closed.
Her teeth had begun to chatter before she realized she must have been the one to set off the alarm with her matchbook flare. If she hadn’t already been in big trouble, she would be now, for sure. What happened to a sixteen-year-old convicted of murder and attempted arson?
She had to get out of here!
The shriek of the alarm continued to blast her as she worked up the guts to climb from her hiding place and creep back across the room. She opened the door, bracing for a gang of uniformed men to surround her and shove her to the ground.
No one stood outside the door. She peered out, both directions. Nobody. That wouldn’t last long. Tucking her purse under her arm, she turned right and plunged along the brightly lit hallway, hopefully in the direction of the hotel section of the building—and an exit door.
The alarm paused, and a tinny voice came from a speaker overhead. “Attention. Attention. The automatic fire alarm has been activated. Please proceed to the nearest staircase to exit the building. Do not use the elevators.”
If she could find a service elevator, maybe she could get upstairs. That way she could blend in with the crowd of hotel guests who would be making their way to the stairwells.
“Guard those doors!” came a voice from up ahead, just past a corner in the hallway.
Another alarm blast nearly deafened her from a speaker just overhead, followed by the same announcement.
“…can’t block the people from getting out of the building,” came the reply, and the echo of footsteps, and the sound of excited breathing…coming closer…
“Of course we can’t stop them,” came the sharp retort. “Just look for the woman!”
She came to a door and shoved it open, stumbled inside just as the sound of footsteps echoed through the hallway. She hovered in the darkness, afraid to breathe for several seconds, until the men continued along the hallway in the direction she had been going. She waited until the sound dwindled, then scuttled back into the shadows. In the dim light that came through the open door, Fawn could tell this was a prop room, with a black cape and top hat on a table in the front right corner. She saw a chest—or a cart—beside the table. A magician’s cape? A magic show of some kind?
“Did you check that room?” came another man’s voice as footsteps once again echoed in the hallway. “Hurry. Search where you can.”
“But the alarm—”
“Just check the room!”
Fawn skittered toward the cart and dived behind it. She had worked backstage at a theater with a magic act in Las Vegas. These carts were big enough for someone to hide inside…if she could just remember how to unlatch—
“Can’t find the light switch.”
She found the latch and slid the panel sideways, scrambled inside just as the overhead light came on. Under cover of the echo of footsteps, she slid the panel shut behind her, plunging herself into the protective blackness, afraid to breathe.
“Anything?”
“Of course not. I told you she wouldn’t still be here, even if she was here in the first place, which I don’t think—”
“Just cover the exits and make sure she doesn’t slip through.” The voices faded.
Fawn crouched in the dark for a few more seconds, then slowly, with the alarms still sounding all along the hallway, she slipped out of the magician’s cart and skittered to the open door. The corridor was empty. She caught sight of an elevator door a few yards down and sighed with relief. After another quick glance along the hall in both directions, she ran to the elevator doors and pressed the button, hoping this wasn’t one of those places that disabled their elevators during a fire alarm.
Once again came the sound of footsteps. She tensed, ready to run, but the door slid open. She plunged inside as the footsteps grew louder, and tapped the third-floor button desperately. The doors took their time, then slowly closed as the footsteps quickened.
Fawn closed her eyes and slunk into the corner, sure the searchers would catch sight of her before she could escape. They didn’t. The doors clanked shut, and she finally allowed herself to breathe again.
When the elevator deposited her at the third floor, she rushed into the hallway and joined a small crowd of sleepy-eyed, confused-looking people. She limped along beside a man dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts and a hotel terry robe. The woman with him wore a nightgown. As Fawn joined the others on the guest stairwell, she glanced down at her clothes, then reached up to feel her head. The net was still there, and her hair was wet, which would darken its blond color. They would think she was an employee, or someone in her pajamas.
More people came up behind her as she limped downstairs. They reached the ground floor and stepped through the emergency exit out into the night, where three men in uniform stood watching them closely.
She yawned and rubbed her eyes.
They didn’t stop her. Nobody called out as she joined the rest of the growing crowd in the glow of the outside lights.
As the first fire engine raced into the parking lot behind the building, Fawn crept closer to the edge of the crowd, then slipped out into the night. She hadn’t needed her shoes, after all.
Chapter Four
The telephone beside Karah Lee’s bed rang long before the alarm clock did on Thursday morning. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the receiver. Her left hand knocked it from the cradle and she barely caught it before it could hit the hardwood floor. This wasn’t going to be a good day.
“Hello.” She sounded like a frog.
“Hi, this is Taylor Jackson doing damage control,” came the baritone-gilded voice.
She cleared her throat and pried her eyes open. Good grief, it was practically still dark outside. “Damage control?”
“You had a wreck last night, remember? At least you’re awake and talking.”
She tried to sit up in bed, but the movement made her head pound, and she lay back against the lilac-scented pillow. “Don’t you ever have downtime?”
“Not lately. I’ve seen some bad reactions after an impact like last night’s. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Her nausea was almost gone, but her head hurt where she’d bumped it, and her shoulder ached where the seat belt had grabbed her. Even worse, she cringed with humiliation every time she thought about her nauseating display in front of—and on—the poor guy.
“Well. Okay.” She glanced toward Monster through the semidarkness, and saw his huge outline, belly up, legs in the air, paws clinging through the holes in the top of the pet taxi. It was the way he usually slept—except he usually avoided the pet taxi.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Taylor prompted.
“I’m doing fine, no blurred vision, and I feel a lot better.”
“Usually after an impact like the one you sustained, the victim feels worse the next day.”
She gave a quiet sigh. Nothing better than a skeptic paramedic—unless it was a cat that snored. “Okay, but when you factor in the bulldozer running me over, I’m doing pretty good.”
No reply.
“You know, considering.” He obviously had been born without a sense of humor, or the gift of gab. “Look, Taylor, I’ll be fine.”
“The tow truck picked up your car.” He had a very attractive voice. “The mechanics will be checking it out today. I gave them the number of the Lakeside in case they need to get in touch with you.”
“You’re kidding. You did all that?”
“The guy’s shop is just three blocks from the square.” Yes, that was definitely a nice voice, maybe a little impatient because she wasn’t admitting to her misery. Maybe he was wondering why he’d even gone to the trouble to help her in the first place.
She was touched in spite of his curtness. After all, she was definitely a noncompliant patient. She wouldn’t have been nearly so forbearing in his place.
“Well. Thanks again, Taylor. And really, don’t worry about me. I’ll be checking in at the clinic about eight-thirty this morning.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “You will?”
“Of course.” To work. She had specifically not mentioned that fact to him last night, because she knew how quickly word traveled in the medical community, in spite of the new Federal regulations about patient confidentiality. She did not want her stupid behavior last night to precede her. “Thanks a lot for calling, Taylor.” Her head continued to throb. She needed aspirin, and fast. “Goodbye.”
There was a pause, and then, “Goodbye.” It almost sounded like a question, as if he still wasn’t convinced she was okay.
She moaned and allowed the receiver to fall back into its cradle, hoping she wouldn’t have to face him again until the stain faded from his uniform. Unfortunately, one did not easily forget a six-foot-tall woman with red hair.
Her stomach rumbled, harmonizing with Monster’s early-morning growl of welcome, and she dragged herself from the comfortable bed to open the pet-taxi door. She had assured the elderly proprietress of the Lakeside Bed-and-Breakfast that her furry ball-and-chain had the intelligence to use the ever-present litter box, and that he didn’t scratch furniture because he’d been neutered in a former cat-life.
Monster rushed to the kitty-litter box in the bathroom while Karah Lee followed him and dug aspirin from her overnight case. Checking her appearance in the mirror, she groaned aloud. Her forehead was mottled red and blue and the skin was broken. She might possibly pull enough bangs down over it to conceal the bruise from the clinic staff, but it would take a better actress than she was to conceal the fact that her head was throbbing so hard it nearly crossed her eyes.
But she would be there, no matter what.
Fawn Morrison opened her eyes to dim, green-shaded light and the sound of tires on blacktop only a few yards from where she lay. She unwound herself from the tight-little-ball position in which she always slept, and brushed aside a pine branch that scratched at her cheek with the puff of every breeze. Her stomach cramped. Her feet hurt from the cuts and bruises she’d gotten from her barefoot run through the hazard-pocked darkness last night. Her ankle ached.
From the jumbled-together restaurants up the hill on Highway 76, she caught a whiff of frying bacon, and it reminded her how hungry she was in spite of her stomachache. It also reminded her where she was, and why.
Last night, she’d raced away from the crowd as fast as she could run, tripping over curbs in the dark, stumbling into bushes she couldn’t see and, finally, scrambling down a steep, muddy embankment to this place. Unable to go farther, and hurting too much to care if she got caught, she’d curled up and cried.
Again this morning, the tears blurred her vision. Bruce was murdered! The police thought she was the murderer, and Harv knew what she looked like. He couldn’t afford to let a murder witness live. And if she was right about that flash drive storage device in her purse, Harv would be after it. She couldn’t afford to let him—or the police—get to her.
She couldn’t let anybody find her—which meant she couldn’t let anyone recognize her.
Another car swept past, and Fawn eased herself farther down the muddy, tree-lined bank to a tiny creek that trickled over some rocks in the shadows. It didn’t smell like a sewer, so she stooped down and splashed some of the chilly water on her face. She couldn’t believe this hidden place was so close to congested Highway 76.
Her head ached, and her eyes felt swollen from crying. For the past couple of years she’d been sure she’d never cry again. She thought she’d seen everything—and done everything. But just as Great-Grandma used to say, life had a way of changing. Why couldn’t things just settle for once? Why couldn’t people learn to be nice?
Fawn missed Bruce. He’d been good to her—as good as he’d known how to be. He wasn’t one of those fine, law-abiding citizens or anything. He had a business, and it wasn’t banking. But she’d also seen him give money to the soup kitchen down the street from the mall in Las Vegas, and he was a big tipper. He was good to a lot of people. So much better than her stepfather had ever been to her…considering Bruce didn’t know how old she really was…considering he’d never forced her to do anything she didn’t pretend to want to do.
Teardrops joined the creek water on her face, and again she let herself cry. “Oh, Bruce,” she whispered. “Why’d you have to blow the whistle on those people? Why’d you have to make it such a big deal?” People broke the rules every day. He broke the rules every day. Why’d he have to pick yesterday to change his ways?
And then she couldn’t help wondering about the big, ugly crime he said they were committing in Hideaway. What kind of danger were those people in? And what would happen to them now that Bruce wasn’t there to stop whatever was happening?
Now she knew why he’d planned to take her there this weekend. He’d told her they could play—riding jet bikes and floating down a local river and hiking on some fancy new trail—but she’d known from the beginning he’d had something else on his mind.
A loud truck muffler startled her with its racket on the road. She sniffed and wiped her face, then slumped back against the bank of the creek. “What am I going to do now?”
She picked up the purse she’d used as a pillow last night, and pulled out the tiny lipstick with mirror Bruce had given her last week. From what she could see in the reflection, she had mud all over her face, and her hair was one big mat of tangles and dirt and leaves. One of her contact lenses had come out, and now she had one blue eye and one brown.
She’d have to clean up before anybody saw her.
She sniffed and blinked away the tears, then dropped to her knees and rinsed her hair and clothes as well as she could in the cold creek water to get some of the mud out. The gravel dug into her knees, adding to the pain of her cut and bruised feet.
Last night, she’d scrambled through the deserted parking lot of a mall about a half mile or so up the hill from here. Maybe she could go back there and get some clothes before it got busy this morning. And maybe she could get some other supplies, as well.
She pulled the cash from her purse and stuffed it into the pocket of her pants. She transferred the rest into her shirt pocket—including the teensy computer data storage device Bruce had told her to keep—and buried her pretty, blue-beaded purse that matched the dress she’d looked so good in. And so grown-up.
Now it was time to be a kid again. Maybe she could get away with that here in Branson, at least for a little while. Branson was nothing like Las Vegas.
Except there were murderers here, too.
The rumble of Monster’s outraged cries still echoed in Karah Lee’s ears as she stepped through the entrance of the two-story Victorian lodge that held the main office where she had checked in last night. The cat did okay alone most of the time, but he hated new places, and he let everybody know about it. Karah Lee only hoped he didn’t blast the windows out with his caterwauling today.
Maybe someone at the clinic could tell her how to contact that kid who treated animals. Monster didn’t appear to be injured, but she didn’t want to take any chances with the life of her grumpy roomie.
Drawn by the irresistible aroma of a country breakfast, Karah Lee strolled through the comfortable-looking lobby, with its Victorian sofa and chairs and fireplace, to a wide hallway that led to a large dining area with fifteen tables decorated with cut-glass vases holding fresh carnations.
This morning, the only diners in evidence sat outside on a deck overlooking the lake. Karah Lee glanced toward a steam table near the wall to her right. A white-haired octogenarian stooped over the table, stirring a pot of gravy. There were steel trays containing sausage patties, omelettes, waffles and all kinds of toppings, fresh fruit, biscuits, hash browns with onions…the aromas made Karah Lee dizzy with hunger.
“There you are.” The lady set down her platter of biscuits and gestured toward a table beside a window that overlooked the deck—and the sparkling blue lake just a few yards away. “You’re Dr. Fletcher, ain’t you?” she called across the room.
“That’s me.”
She studied Karah Lee’s scrubs and lab coat. “Cheyenne sure is looking forward to seeing you.”
“Good. I’ll walk over there as soon as I finish my breakfast.”
“She’ll be glad of that.” The woman dusted her floury hands on her apron as she crossed to Karah Lee’s table. “Nobody can believe how fast her business grew this year, and what with her signed on to work down at Dogwood Springs for the rest of the summer, to boot, she’s been working night and day sometimes, it seems like to me.” She held her hand out.
Karah Lee took it in a gentle grip, looking for a name badge that wasn’t anywhere in evidence. “You must be Edith Potts’s business partner.”
The lady’s dark eyes lit with a gleam of amusement. “Called me that, did she? ‘Idiot partner’ is more like it. I’m the one who talked her into this fool idea last fall when the former owner retired.”
“You mean this bed-and-breakfast?”
“That’s right. Can you believe it?” She gestured around the room, then plopped a biscuit in a plate, split it in half, and stepped to the warming table to spoon some gravy over the top of it. “Two old women, each with a foot in the grave, and we’re buying this place from somebody younger than we are by ten years.” She shook her head as she set the plate in front of Karah Lee. “You look like a gal who likes rib-sticking food. Oh, where’re my manners? My name’s Bertie Meyer. I’ll get you some coffee and freshly squeezed juice. You can have anything here you want to eat, you don’t have to eat what I stick under your nose.”
“I love biscuits and gravy.”
“You sure? Red always griped at me for being too pushy.”
“Biscuits and gravy are my favorites for breakfast except for waffles and strawberries and cream. Who’s Red?” Karah Lee took a bite of tender biscuit and perfectly seasoned gravy.
“That was my husband,” Bertie said. “He died last year. He was eighty-five or eighty-seven years old, we’re not sure which.”
“How could he not know how old he was?”
“When he applied for social security he thought he was seventy, and those people told him he was two years older than he thought. We knew better than to argue with the government, so we just let ’em think what they wanted.”
“Why do you think buying this bed-and-breakfast was a bad idea?”
Bertie snorted. “You kidding? I must’ve lost my senses when I talked Edith into buying this place.”
“Obviously Edith didn’t think it was a bad idea.”
“Most folks didn’t at the time, but that was before a bunch of greasy-handed scoundrels called the Beaufont Corporation bought up most of the town.” She glanced toward the steam table, then leaned toward Karah Lee. “You like black walnuts?”
“Love ’em.”
Bertie’s face crinkled in a pleased smile. Nearly a foot shorter than Karah Lee, she moved with a quickness that contradicted her professed elderliness as she poured coffee and juice and decorated a plate with a thick Belgian waffle, strawberries, whipped cream. White running shoes peeped out from beneath crisp green slacks as she quick-stepped back to the table.
“This here’s my specialty.” She set the platter in front of Karah Lee with a flourish. “Black walnut waffles made with milk and eggs from our own private supplies. My pet goat, Mildred, donated the milk.”
Karah Lee held her breath for a moment, then sniffed, closed her eyes, exhaled slowly. “Black walnut waffles,” she whispered. “I haven’t had one of these in years.”
“Aha! So you do appreciate fine dining.” Bertie glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Don’t tell Cheyenne I said so, but she could use a little culture. Poor gal can’t tolerate black walnuts.” She pulled a chair out and seated herself across from Karah Lee. “You go ahead and eat, and I’ll fill you in on some of the stuff that’s been going on around here lately.”
“You mean like the greasy scoundrels who bought up the town?”
“Two men in nice coveralls and bill caps, posing as farmers, came along with a deal I couldn’t pass up. I should’ve known they was fakes when their hats didn’t have a single sweat mark on ’em, and the overalls were brand-new. Red and I worked hard on that farm all our married life, and you know what? Those frauds couldn’t farm a two-bit garden. I should’ve seen it, but I was so crazy with loneliness after Red died, I couldn’t think straight.”
“They offered you a lot of money?” Karah Lee asked between bites of a delicacy so scrumptious it was making her high.
“The money wasn’t bad, nosiree. To boot, I told myself they was real farmers, and the land needed to be farmed. Now those so-called farmers are subdividing my home, and I can’t hardly stand it. I’m just glad I sold our milk goats to the boys’ ranch across the lake. No telling what those idiots would’ve done to my babies.”
“Someone mentioned there was a local boys’ ranch.”
Bertie nodded. “Dane Gideon—he’s our mayor?—he runs it. Wouldn’t be surprised if your boss ended up over there at that ranch with him. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
“Dr. Allison?”
“Cheyenne. She and Dane’ve been sweet on each other since before Red died—that’s how I count time now—Before Red, and After Red.”
The food was so distractingly delicious, Karah Lee couldn’t keep up. She blinked in confusion.
Bertie gave an inspection of Karah Lee’s empty coffee cup, then carried it over to the pot for a refill. “Dane Gideon also owns the general store down the street from the clinic. I should’ve listened to him. He warned me to check out that offer a little closer, but did I listen? Oh, no, not me. In a few months, when they change the whole look of our town and get that monster condominium built and sold to the poor saps who’ve been flocking in here, Edith and I’ll be out of a job, sure enough.”
“Why do you say that?”
Bertie shook her head. “Honey, I’ve seen the tourists pour in here like this before. It was a regular holiday boomtown back when Branson got put on the maps with all those singing stars. Half those famous people came right here to this little place to stay when they wasn’t performing. Then the developers built more of them fancy hotels closer to Branson, and we lost a lot of business. Mark my words, when that condo building’s finished, it’ll suck all the attention away from our little bed-and-breakfast. Tourists are fickle folk.”
“I bet you’re wrong.” Karah Lee savored the final mouthful of strawberries and whipped cream, then wiped her mouth and pushed away from the table. “You’ve got what, ten cottages along the shore?”
“That’s right, and three more rooms upstairs in this building, though the top floor ain’t finished yet. Too quaint for the crowd the big boys are trying to reel in. Why, they’re building them an honest-to-goodness hiking trail, and renting out kayaks and bicycles, and running one of them starlight-dinner boat rides into Branson. Ain’t any way Edith and I can compete with that. And jet bikes! I never heard of such a thing around here. It’ll scare all our fishermen away. They’ll hate it.”
“Seems to me you’ll get a good clientele from those who just want peace and quiet, not all that crazy activity,” Karah Lee commented.
Bertie leaned forward, the skin around her eyes crinkling with worry. “But I know our customers, and they ain’t going to stay around here with all that activity. That company is set to take over this whole town. We won’t be the same.”
Karah Lee remembered what Taylor had said on that subject last night. Was his forecast of a disaster accurate after all? Bertie seemed to think so.
Dressed in new jeans, a pink T-shirt with LOVE BRANSON in big blue letters across the front and white canvas tennis shoes, Fawn carried the rest of her purchases across the parking lot of the outlet mall with the bright blue roof. Her ankle still felt stiff, but she tried really hard not to limp. She wanted to continue blending into the crowd—until she could escape it.
As soon as she reached the quiet backside of the mall, she cut behind the strip of buildings where no one could see her, then pulled out a compass and a map of Branson and studied the map for a minute to get her bearings.
She’d gone on a wilderness trek with a church youth group a couple of years ago—some friends of hers had tried for a few months to “save” her soul. All that Jesus and God talk didn’t make much sense to her. Why would she want another father? They weren’t good for anything but leaving. Or worse.
Anyway, the trek had been fun, and she’d learned some great stuff, like how to use a compass and how to wrap a sprained ankle. Judging by the map, she needed to cross Highway 76 and find a nightly condorental place down by Lake Taneycomo. If she pulled her con right, without getting caught, she might be able to find a place to hide out for a few days, until the police decided she’d left town.
But first, she needed to make a few changes. Still trying not to limp, Fawn scrambled back down to the bank where she’d slept the night before and opened her bags of purchases. She pulled out the denim backpack she’d gotten for half price at the wilderness outfitter store, tore off the tags and opened the zipped pockets so she could stuff it full. She stuck toiletries into the pockets, along with food, extra underwear and some shorts. By the time she filled the compartments, they would hardly zip shut.
She shoved the pack to the side and pulled out a food-coloring kit she’d purchased at the kitchen-supply outlet. In that whole mall, she hadn’t found a single hair-color kit, so she’d have to make do. She was allergic to the hair-color developer, anyway.
Beside the little plastic bottles she set a tiny bottle of shampoo, a pair of rubber gloves, a mirror, comb, scissors. When she got finished with this rig, nobody’d recognize her from last night.
Before Fawn went to Las Vegas, she’d been an emancipated minor living with two older girls. One of her roommates had been a beautician and had taught her some of the basics, but there wasn’t time for anything fancy right now. She whacked her hair off in long chunks, then buried the telltale blond strands beneath the mud along the bank, just in case someone came looking for her here. She couldn’t afford to let them know what she might look like after she finished this.
She washed her hair, combed it out, trimmed it again. Using the rubber gloves, she mixed the food coloring until it was the same sort of burgundy brown a lot of kids sported, and spread it onto her hair, adding water from the creek to get it soaked through. The food coloring stained her cheeks—she had to scrub hard and even then didn’t get it all off. Still, it looked like a big birthmark, so maybe she’d get by with it.
By the time she finished her makeover, Fawn didn’t even recognize herself. She was a new person. Again. She’d done that a lot lately.
Sometimes it seemed as if she might go through the rest of her life becoming a new person every few weeks—as if the old person wasn’t good enough.
When would the real Fawn Morrison ever be accepted as she was?
Chapter Five
Taylor Jackson inhaled the sweet scent of honeysuckle through the open window of his truck as he pulled into the scenic overlook above Hideaway. The Beaufont Corporation had just completed their new hiking trail along this ridge, and even though he wasn’t crazy about all the disimprovements those people were making, he liked this trail. It was the only smart move they’d made, in spite of the difficulties with zoning laws and purchase of the land. Their efforts would help draw the business they would need to fill that ten-story condominium eyesore under construction at the east edge of town.
He might even use that trail himself, from time to time. One thing he missed about his job at the Grand Canyon—one of the only things—was the hiking.
As the echo of hammers, saws and the rumble of the crane drifted up to the cliffs from the construction site, Taylor climbed out of the truck, taking his coffee with him. He glanced at the ashtray and considered, for just a moment, pulling a cigarette from the pack he kept stashed there. But he was trying hard to quit. He’d managed to do it three times already in the past year. Amazing how hard it was for a guy to live healthy when there were times that he saw the futility of living at all.
Gravel crunched beneath the soles of his boots as he strolled to the edge of the pavement to gaze down on the village of Hideaway. Settled comfortably on a small peninsula along the shore of the Table Rock Lake, the tiny town with a population of barely over a thousand always held him spellbound. He came to this spot often to remind himself why he’d requested the transfer to the Ozarks. The contrast between this view and the view from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon often made him feel as if he had traveled to a different planet.
Of course, he loved the starkly angled vistas of one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. He couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t gaze in awe across the shadowed gorges from the South Rim to the North Rim and marvel at God’s artwork. Part of his heart would always belong to the Canyon. But he no longer wanted to live with the memories the place continued to evoke.
Here in Missouri, he’d made no memories except those from childhood, when he had traveled historic Route 66 with his parents on vacation, and they’d made a detour south to this place.
The beauty of this area began with the lush June green of an abundant Ozark Garden of Eden, brilliant with flowers that dotted the grass and trees like enormous jewels. Generously proportioned gazebos dotted the broad lawn that reached into the lake on a peninsula down below. The Victorian angles and gingerbread trim of those gazebos blended with the bright yellow, green, blue and pink cottages of the Lakeside along the shore at the west edge of town.
Okay, so a guy could live without the pink, but the overall effect wasn’t bad.
A large new dock, crowded with boats, extended from the shore, and it appeared as if construction had begun on still another dock to the east—another project of Beaufont. Across the lake, a tree-topped cliff—twin to the one on which Taylor stood—embraced the water and held captive vines of honeysuckle and wild roses.
The village municipal district was a square of connected brick-front buildings facing outward to the street that surrounded it on four sides. Each doorway had a flower box, and each box held red, blue, yellow or purple blooms. From Taylor’s position, he could see nearly everything that went on below, from the dock all the way back to the ancient, abandoned barn directly below him in the shadow of the cliff. The barn was old, constructed of weathered gray board, old corrugated aluminum roof, loft door broken, barely hanging, old hay spilling out. A dilapidated wood fence caged nothing more than a herd of wildly tangled weeds in the corral.
A movement redirected Taylor’s attention as the front door to the lodge at the Lakeside opened and a woman with curly red hair stepped onto the quaint, wooden front porch. She wore a long white jacket and a pink jumpsuit of some kind, though he couldn’t tell the design from here. He was pretty sure, however, that the woman was Karah Lee Fletcher. She ducked beneath a low-hanging potted plant and descended the steps to the walkway. When she reached the street, she strolled toward town. Except for the new sidewalk that encircled the town square, Hideaway had no paved public walkways.
Taylor thought about his telephone call to her this morning. He’d obviously awakened Karah Lee, and he felt badly about that. He ordinarily had a little more finesse than to call someone barely past sunrise. After last night’s conversation and this morning’s—during which she’d made clear her eagerness to cut the talk short—he’d decided not to bother her again.
She frustrated him. Last night she’d shown obvious signs of injury, and yet she’d refused any kind of treatment. Her hostile response to his concern still rankled. His main concern had been her physical safety, and even though she looked perfectly healthy to him now as she walked along the road, last night she had not seemed well.
Too many people delayed medical care after an accident, and they paid the price for it later. Was he wrong to show a little human compassion this morning, knowing she was alone, with possible brain injury?
He just needed to keep reminding himself this wasn’t the Grand Canyon, where the hot, dry climate had added a dash of danger to every situation during his shifts. The climate in the rolling hills of these Missouri Ozarks was more forgiving. But this was about an accident, not heatstroke, and on his watch, nobody was going to die from neglect.
The figure below crossed the street as she reached the square, and Taylor nodded with satisfaction. She was going to the clinic, just as she’d promised.
Static from the radio on his belt interrupted the rumble of the crane below, and Taylor returned to the truck as he listened to a message about the manhunt—which was actually a woman hunt. The murderer who had killed the Las Vegas businessman and the hotel employee last night in Branson had not yet been apprehended. No surprise there.
He glanced at the faxed report he’d received this morning and studied the unfocused picture of a sexy blonde in a blue dress. The image had been caught on a security camera as she ran from the scene of the crime last night. The police had lost her trail in a theater-hotel complex a few blocks away when a fire alarm went off. They’d been forced to evacuate the building. Details—and a better picture of the woman—were to follow sometime today.
Since murders were not a common thing in this area of the country, the press would be all over this. It wouldn’t surprise Taylor if the picture of this woman made the front page of the local and regional papers.
He took a sip of his coffee and automatically reached for a cigarette. He had it out of the pack and halfway to his mouth before he caught himself and returned it. He hated these things.
On impulse, he carried the pack to the trash can alongside the trail, squashed the cigarettes as if they were a hand-exercise ball and tossed them in the can. People were murdering each other in Branson, Missouri, the heart of the Bible Belt. He didn’t need any help to put himself in the grave.
Of course, he knew he’d probably break down and buy another pack tomorrow, but it felt good to make this gesture, expensive as that gesture had become lately.
He was just about to drive away, when he received another call, this one more typical for Hideaway. A child had bumped his head this morning, and the parents were concerned about a concussion. Taylor answered the call. He could get to their location in five minutes. Seemed as if he was on a roll with the concussion patients lately.
Karah Lee raised her face to the morning light—the sun had not yet appeared over the tall pine trees that stood sentinel over an outward-facing, redbrick town square. The majority of commerce in this thriving little town concentrated itself on a peninsula of land surrounded by the diamond-blue glitter of Table Rock Lake.
As she stepped across the street from the broad lawn to the sidewalk that encircled the square, she caught sight of the reflection of herself in the front window of the general store next to the brick-front clinic. She grimaced at the same tall woman with flyaway curls of red hair who watched her from the mirror every morning—and whose image she tried to avoid every chance she got.
She had never taken any delight in her appearance. She not only towered over other women, she was also taller than most men, and many of her male colleagues seemed intimidated by her.
This was her first job outside the supervision of the hospital or her trainer, and Karah Lee felt awkward. It wasn’t that she doubted her skills—her grades had always been good, her supervisors and trainers had always given her excellent reviews, and she’d breezed through med school and residency with surprising ease. If only social situations had been so easy.
When she was growing up—and up, and up—Mom had always encouraged her to hold her head high and be proud of her height. Even Dad had told her to “suck it up,” because someday she was going to be a beautiful woman.
So when did “someday” come? At thirty-four, Karah Lee did not feel attractive.
She knew what she looked like. One elderly patient a couple of months ago had called her “handsome,” whatever that meant. At least her facial features were even, and her waist was still slightly narrower than her hips. Slightly.
This morning she wanted to make a good first impression, instead of blurting out the first thing that entered her brain—which was a habit she hadn’t been able to break. People who knew her became accustomed to this tendency, but strangers didn’t always know what to think about her—last night with poor Ranger Jackson being a prime example.
She took a final breath of the sweet, cedar-scented air and pulled open the glass door on the right. The sign on the window beside it stated Hideaway Walk-in Clinic. For Emergencies, call 911.
She walked quietly across the tile floor as the door whisked shut behind her. The clinic brooded in dim silence, not quite open for business this morning. To the immediate right were two vending machines, one with candy and chips and one with drinks; they combined with the row of windows behind her to provide the sole source of illumination at the moment. Another set of doors stood open to an empty, seemingly deserted hallway that held the smell of an old building, scrubbed to a shine with a lemon cleanser.
Voices and laughter reached her from the left, and she turned and glanced through another open door to find a waiting room and reception window. Lights blinked on in the office behind the window as she watched. Good, she wasn’t late.
She took a step in that direction, but then she saw a movement in the shadows at the far side of the vending machines. There was a thump, and a grunt, and she recognized with amusement the posterior section of someone bent forward from the waist, squeezed between the machine and the wall.
She cleared her throat. There was another thump, and a low mutter of words she couldn’t decipher. Definitely male.
“Hello,” she called out to him.
“’Morning,” he said without straightening. Though muffled, his voice sounded deep and youthful.
“We need to call an electrician to get this outlet fixed,” he said. “Dane’d kill me if I tried to do it. The light was blinking when I came in. Is it okay now?”
Karah Lee turned her attention to the steady glow against the potato-chip wrappers. “Looks fine to me.”
“Great, maybe that’ll hold it until they can get over here. I’m glad the pop machine didn’t kick off in the night.” There was a shuffle of feet as he backed out toward her, then straightened to turn. “I’d hate to have to replace all those cans of—” He saw her, and his thick, black eyebrows raised in surprise.
The young guy was obviously in his teens. He had broad, muscular shoulders, ebony skin, and very short, kinky dark hair. He wore green scrubs that matched the color of the cedars outside. As all this registered with her, Karah Lee saw the realization dawn in his expressive brown eyes that he hadn’t exactly greeted her—a stranger—with dignity. He grimaced with dismay.
He recovered quickly and gave her a broad display of straight, even teeth. “Hi, you must be our new doctor.”
Karah Lee nodded and held out her hand. He took it, and she was pleased by the confident grip. “Karah Lee Fletcher.”
“Gavin Farmer, but nobody calls me by my real name. You can call me Blaze.”
She gestured to his clothing. “Are you a nurse or a tech?”
“Tech and chief flunky. I help out here when I’m not in school.” He gestured toward the machines. “I’ve just been placed in charge of potato chips and soda, and I’ve already failed.” He didn’t sound upset about it. In fact, he struck Karah Lee as one of those terminally cheerful morning people who tended to get on her nerves.
“College?” she asked.
His grin broadened with pleasure. “Really? I look like a college kid?”
She nodded.
“Not for another year. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the staff and show you around the place, if they’ll let me.” He led the way across the cozy waiting room toward the reception window where a woman sat with her back to the room, listening to an ambulance radio at the far side of the oblong office space.
“Hey, Jill, look who I found,” Blaze announced as he stepped up to the window. “Our newest staff victim, Dr. Karah Lee Fletcher.”
Without turning around, the woman held her hand up to silence him. She had short hair that resembled a brown football helmet. Karah Lee thought that style had gone out of fashion in the last millennium, but she’d never been one to keep up with fads.
Blaze gave Karah Lee an apologetic glance. “Believe it or not, she’s usually friendly,” he muttered.
“Hush a minute, Blaze,” Jill said, her voice deep and raspy. “I’m waiting for some news.”
He shrugged and leaned toward Karah Lee. “Jill’s our nurse and general troublemaker. And she’s doing secretary-receptionist duties since we don’t have one right now.”
A voice shot over the radio. “Nothing here, Jill. Over.”
She pressed the talk button. “You’re sure about that?” She released the button and glanced over her shoulder at Blaze and Karah Lee. “A friend of mine got a call this morning from Mary Coley, who lives out by the road a few miles from here. Said somebody swerved to miss a deer and ran into a tree last night. That shy ranger, Taylor What’s-his-name, took the call, but he’s tight as a clam and never shares details. You hear anything about a wreck?”
Karah Lee felt a sudden buzz of discomfort.
“Not a peep,” Blaze said. “I want to introduce Cheyenne to Dr. Fletcher before we get too busy to—”
The radio chugged its static over the line again. “…the crew didn’t make any runs to Springfield last night…either dead or alive. Over.”
Blaze gave a long-suffering sigh and stepped forward. “Jill, would you quit playing?” There was a cajoling edge to his voice now. “This is our new doctor. At least say good morning.”
Jill turned from the radio and straightened, grimacing ruefully. “Sorry. Hi, Dr. Fletcher. Nice to meet you. We’ve got a bet going on how many car-versus-animal accident patients we’ll have for the month of June.” She raised her voice, as if speaking to someone in another room. “So far it’s three and I’m winning.”
“Last night doesn’t count until it’s confirmed,” came a slightly familiar voice from down the hallway. “And besides, our bet was on how many patients we received.” The sound of the voice drew closer. “I haven’t seen any patients yet this morning, have you?” The speaker stepped into view, and Karah Lee recognized her new employer, Dr. Cheyenne Allison.
Dr. Allison had hair the color of midnight, cut in a wash-and-wear shag that barely reached her shoulders. She had dark brown eyes and an olive complexion that suggested a Native American heritage. At about five feet seven inches, she had to tilt her head to look up at Karah Lee.
“Oops, you caught us being unprofessional.” Dr. Allison opened the door between the waiting room and the treatment area and stepped out to shake Karah Lee’s hand with the same firm grip Karah Lee remembered from their interview in Branson earlier in the spring.
“Hi, Dr. Allison.”
“Shy.”
Karah Lee frowned.
“Call me Shy. Short for Cheyenne.”
Ah. Chey.
“First order of business,” Cheyenne said, “we’re all on a first-name basis around here, patients, doctors, staff. Some of the older patients like to be called Mr. or Mrs. and they insist on calling me Dr., it makes them feel more secure, but other than that we have a more relaxed office. Call me Chey or Cheyenne.”
“Chey. Fine.” Karah Lee pulled up an office chair and sat down. “I go by Karah Lee. So this is what you do for entertainment around here? Keep tabs on car wrecks?”
Jill and Cheyenne glanced at each other sheepishly.
Blaze chuckled. “Serves you right for betting.”
Jill shrugged. “We’re not betting for money, we’re just competing for one of Bertie’s black walnut pies.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. I’ve got dibs on a goat cheese,” Cheyenne said. “Not black walnut.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Karah Lee said. “I heard you didn’t exactly have a sophisticated palate.”
The gently angular lines of Chey’s face filled with amusement. “Who told you that?”
Jill laughed. “Anybody in town could’ve told her that. Hey, I heard the dummy who caused the accident last night had a cat in the car. Does that count as a patient?”
“No way!” Cheyenne protested. “That’s cheating.”
Karah Lee forced a smile. Time to get this over with. “Since the dummy’s cat suffered fewer injuries than even the dummy herself, I don’t think you can count him as a patient. We might be checking out the dummy later. Depends on how the day goes.”
If she hadn’t been the victim of this unintentional joke, she would have laughed at the expressions of surprise on their faces. Blaze did laugh. Loudly.
She reached up and pushed back her bangs to expose the injury. “Deer ran out in front of me and I swerved and hit a tree. Actually, it was my car that hit the tree. I had sunglasses clipped to the visor, and my head made contact during impact. End of story. My cat’s okay and everything is fine. You got any coffee? I could use another dose of caffeine.”
Static jerked through the ambulance radio and drowned out Jill’s abject apology. A disembodied voice announced the pending arrival of a small child who had slipped and smacked his head against the rocks while chasing a squirrel.
As the radio voice gave specifics, Karah Lee turned to Blaze. “You’d better give me that tour while we’ve still got time.”
Chapter Six
Taylor led the way to the clinic in his truck, checking the rearview mirror to make sure the parents of the injured child were keeping up in their own car. The damage wasn’t bad, but Dr. Allison—who preferred to be called by her first name instead of her title—would probably want to do a suture or two.
The radio buzzed at him again, and he received an updated report about the woman hunt in Branson. For some reason, authorities believed the suspect was still in town. To Taylor, that was stupid. With all the roads that led out of Branson, no murderer was going to hang around to get nabbed by the police.
Taylor switched off the radio as he parked in front of the clinic. He had more important things to take care of right now. Branson could keep its murderers.
Blaze opened the door to the fourth and last exam room. “I’ll never make fun of my patients. If I ever have any.”
Karah Lee glanced at him curiously as she stepped into the room and inhaled the familiar scent of iodine and alcohol. “You’re going to be a doctor?”
“A vet. If I can make the grades. What were you saying about your cat?” Blaze followed her inside. “Did he get hurt in the wreck?”
“He seems fine this morning, but I’d like to have a vet take a look at him.”
“You staying over at Bert’s place?”
“Bert?”
“You know, Bertie Meyer. She and Edith run the Lakeside.”
“Oh, that’s right.” A small town, where everyone knew everyone, just like Karah Lee’s hometown. “Yes, that’s where I’m staying.”
“I can run over there this morning when I get a chance and take a look at him for you. What’s his name?”
“Monster. You already take patients?” She remembered Ranger Jackson telling her about him.
“Right now I’m all Hideaway’s got. My dad was a vet, and I worked with him.”
“So where’s he?”
There was a slight hesitation, then, “He died. My mom and I don’t get along. They were divorced. That’s why I live at the boys’ ranch now.”
“Oh.” There you go, Fletcher, putting your foot in it again. “When did he die?”
“Last year.”
“Oh, man. Sorry. I lost my dad when I was just a little older than you.”
“How’d he die?” Blaze asked.
“He didn’t die. He left.”
It was Blaze’s turned to grimace, and he did it with his whole face, his thick, dark eyebrows drawing close above beautifully expressive eyes. “I think that’d be worse than having him die.”
Karah Lee nodded. “But I don’t think he’d agree.”
Blaze’s grimace lifted.
“So when can you see my cat?”
“Lunch break.”
“Karah Lee?” came her new boss’s voice. “You want to come in here a minute? I need a big, strong, brave patient.”
Karah Lee frowned at Blaze. “Patient?”
He shrugged at her. “Better do what she says. She’s a dead-on shot with pepper spray.”
“I heard that!” Cheyenne called from the other room.
Blaze grinned and rolled his eyes. “I’ll explain later,” he whispered.
After giving a report at the clinic, Taylor left the little boy and his parents in Dr. Allison’s capable care and strolled back toward his truck, glancing along the sidewalk in both directions as he stepped from the curb. He’d seen no tall woman with red hair in the waiting room, and she was nowhere on the street. No way would he ask about her at the clinic. It was no longer his business.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to run into Karah Lee—she might suspect him of stalking her.
He climbed into the Jeep and glanced toward the front doors of the general store next to the clinic. No, he would not buy another pack of cigarettes.
He was driving west on Hideaway Road, when he saw a late-model white Toyota Camry sedan parked alongside the road beneath a heavy overhang of trees. One man crouched beside the right front tire while another man was bent over, apparently searching through the trunk for something that didn’t seem to be there.
Taylor parked and got out of the truck. “Lose your jack?”
Both men looked up at him. He noticed the motor was still running. “Engine problems?”
The man stooping at the right front tire straightened and hurried around the car toward him. He wore a sleeveless white T-shirt, which revealed a tattoo of an eye on his left shoulder. “I’ll say. Thing’s been dying on us all morning, and then this.” He gestured with disgust toward the front, just as a car came speeding around the curve.
Tires squealed on blacktop as the driver caught sight of them and swerved to avoid a collision.
“You say you’ve got a jack?” Tattoo asked. “The one in the trunk’s busted, and it’s a little dangerous here on the road. Trouble is, there’s no shoulder.”
Taylor could only pray a car with a less cautious driver didn’t come barreling around the curve before they could get out of the way. “I’ll get my tools.”
Working as quickly as possible, Taylor helped the guys with their tire and had them on their way within ten minutes.
The last thing he did as the car disappeared from sight around the bend was write down their license number. It was a habit he’d picked up years ago, working the Canyon. Ordinarily, he’d have done a more thorough check immediately, but not with cars screeching around the hairpin curve at double the speed limit.
Thirty minutes later, he received a call about a stolen vehicle.
Karah Lee had her first taste of Cheyenne Allison’s bedside manner in exam room three in the presence of a frightened, screaming five-year-old boy named Jonah.
“There, now, it’ll be okay, sweetheart.” Chey’s voice settled into the room like a soothing blanket. “Let me tell you what I’m going to do. You see this big strong doctor?” She placed a hand on Karah Lee’s shoulder. “She has a bump on her head, too.”
The child and his parents turned their attention to Karah Lee, and she suppressed a groan. So much for confidentiality in this office. Hadn’t these people ever heard of government regulations?
Chey’s hand tightened on Karah Lee’s shoulder, urging her to lean forward; then, with her other hand she brushed Karah Lee’s bangs aside. The child’s eyes widened at the sight of the uncovered wound.
“Why don’t you watch how we fix her head,” Chey suggested. “Then, if she doesn’t cry, you won’t mind letting us do the same thing to you, will you?”
Like magic, Jonah’s tear faucet stopped. He studied Karah Lee with serious intensity, hiccuped, then sighed. “Does it hurt bad?”
“It did when I hit it.” Karah Lee leaned closer to him. “Want to compare? Hey, I think mine’s bigger than yours.” Truly, his injury didn’t look too deep.
From the periphery of her vision she caught sight of Cheyenne winking at the parents. Okay, this could work. Karah Lee had been mothered by manipulative medical personnel before. In fact, she tended to be that way, herself.
With the observant child watching, Cheyenne sat Karah Lee on a stool and cleaned her wound with gentle pressure. She dabbed away the excess moisture and applied a dermatological adhesive instead of sutures or bandages. Her style was a little unorthodox, but Karah Lee approved.
Ordinarily, a wound could be sutured without question up to six hours after the injury. Between six and twelve hours, closure of the wound could be questionable, and after twelve hours Karah Lee never attempted it. No one did. Even though it had been more than six hours after Karah Lee’s injury, the facial skin had a good blood supply, and this should heal quickly in spite of the delay of closure.
“All done,” Cheyenne said a moment after applying the adhesive.
Jonah’s eyes widened. He studied the repair job a moment. “Did it hurt?” he asked Karah Lee.
“I didn’t cry, did I?”
“Grown-ups never cry.”
“Well, it wasn’t as much fun as eating chocolate chip cookies, but it feels better than being socked in the nose by my sister when I was five. Can I fix your forehead now?”
“Will you stick me with a needle?”
Karah Lee glanced at the mother. “Has he ever had a tetanus shot?”
“Last year when he stepped on a piece of tin and cut his foot,” she said.
“Then I don’t think we’ll need to use a needle.” There would be no need for sutures on this one. Kids healed quickly, and Karah Lee held a minimalist approach when it came to risk of traumatization.
As she cleaned Jonah’s wound and soothed him and chatted with him about her big cat named Monster, and his dog named Bo, and her sister who was a bully, and his little brother who still wet his pants, she began to enjoy herself. Kids were so much easier to talk to than adults.
A couple of years ago, when Karah Lee was nearing the end of her first year in residency, one of the third year residents casually remarked that she shouldn’t go into pediatric medicine because her size might scare the kids. Instead of giving in to her knee-jerk desire to punch the dolt in the stomach, she’d challenged him to a duel to see who could finish up the year with the fewest crying kids. According to the nurses, Karah Lee had won by a huge margin.
“Are you done yet?” Jonah asked as Karah Lee held the skin together for the bonding agent to set.
“Can you count to a hundred?”
“Yes,” he said, as if the question were an insult.
“Let’s hear it.”
Though aware Cheyenne was watching her, Karah Lee didn’t feel uncomfortable about being observed. She’d had plenty of that in the past few years.
The staff here seemed friendly, in spite of the disparaging remark Jill had made about reckless drivers. Karah Lee had made a few comments like that, herself, from time to time. Today she was learning a valuable lesson about prejudging patients.
Cheyenne left to take a telephone call before Jonah finished counting, and the treatment ended without mishap, or more tears. As Karah Lee walked the relieved family to the waiting room, Blaze stepped to the reception window and handed Jonah a bright red balloon animal in the approximate shape of a poodle. Jonah laughed and played with the poodle while Jill talked to the uninsured parents about the fee for treatment.
Blaze tapped Karah Lee on the shoulder from behind. “Chey wants to see you in her office as soon as you’re finished.”
“I’m done.”
“Okay, but tell her to make it quick. We’ve got incoming.”
“Tell her yourself. This is my first day on the job, and I have to make a good impression on the boss.”
She found Chey sitting in her office at the desk, reading a medical chart. “You wanted to see me?”
Setting the chart aside, Cheyenne glanced up at her thoughtfully. “Close the door and have a seat.”
“I guess you have paperwork for me to fill out.” The red tape could be daunting for doctors on a new job. Licenses, permits, clearing for insurance—both professional liability and various types of coverage for patients—took up a lot of a doc’s time, and it never seemed to end.
For a moment, Cheyenne remained silent. She didn’t smile as she glanced out the front window that overlooked the broad lawn and the lake.
The silence grew uncomfortable. “Did you have a problem with the treatment I gave Jonah?” Karah Lee asked.
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Hannah Alexander
A TEENAGE FUGITIVE–Youthful master of disguise Fawn Morrison comes to Hideaway seeking refuge. Now that her dangerous game has turned deadly, she must entrust her safety to strangers.A DOUBTING DOCTOR–Karah Lee Fletcher relishes the challenges offered by Hideaway's new clinic, until an unsettling discovery shakes her confidence. Despite self-doubt, she reaches out to Fawn and finds unexpected grace.A LONELY RANGER–Their first meeting leaves Ranger Taylor Jackson vowing to avoid strong-willed Karah Lee. Yet, observing her interact with patients, Taylor begins to feel admiration. Could it lead to something deeper?
PRAISE FOR
HANNAH ALEXANDER’S NOVELS
“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fair Warning
“Reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, this intelligent mystery will keep readers engrossed.”
—Library Journal on Last Resort
“Hannah Alexander’s unique ability to combine suspense with romance and faith will have you searching for this author’s entire backlist. Grab [her] titles while you can and visit this wonderful town called Hideaway—you’ll never want to leave! Each book is top-notch suspense, with just a touch of romance. Last Resort is a must-buy…guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat until you turn the final page!”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Alexander’s skill at meshing spiritual truths with fascinating suspense is captivating. Well-drawn characters help the two separate plots move rapidly toward an exciting conclusion.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Safe Haven
“Hannah Alexander is one of the few authors who has the unique ability to bring tears to your eyes and God’s touch to your heart. Safe Haven is suspense, romance and first-rate entertainment all bound into one neat book.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“Genuine humor…an interesting cast of characters…a few surprises.”
—Publishers Weekly on Hideaway
“Hideaway is gripping and romantic. It may also have crossover appeal to fans of medical suspense and of such authors as Tess Gerritsen.”
—Library Journal
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you seek Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”
—Jeremiah 29:11–14
Safe Haven
A Hideaway Novel
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For many years Lorene Cook, Cheryl’s mom, has been an active participant with us as we work with our books. Mom, you’ve been a lifesaver!
Thanks to Vera Overall, Mel’s mother, for her love and encouragement.
Thanks to our longtime friends and encouragers Jack and Marty Frost, Barbara Warren, Jackie Bolton, Ron and Janet Benrey, Doug and Brenda Minton, and Lori Copeland.
Many thanks to our wonderful editor, Joan Marlow Golan, and her excellent staff at Steeple Hill Books.
Thanks to our friends who helped brainstorm this book—Nancy Moser, Annie Jones, Deborah Raney, Stephanie Whitson and Colleen and Dave Coble.
Blessings to our talented and beautiful Branson celebrities: Stacy and April Frerking and their parents, Dennis and Bonnie Frerking.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Questions for Discussion
Chapter One
Fawn Morrison glided across the atrium of the crowded country-music theater, enjoying the glances aimed in her direction. So what if the stares weren’t all filled with admiration? Those jealous women could learn to apply makeup the right way and emphasize their few positive qualities. Everybody had at least one or two. Almost everybody.
With a grin and a wink at the old geezer who stood behind the ticket counter, Fawn eased herself past a group of chattering people and strolled toward the ATM machine in the corner.
Some of these people probably thought she was one of the entertainers in the production—she’d never looked better in her life. She wore a calf-length gown of blue silk that Bruce had selected, telling her it matched the color of her eyes. The plunging neckline raised a few eyebrows, and the thigh-high slit had almost caused an accident out in the parking lot. She sure wasn’t in Las Vegas anymore. Branson, Missouri, seemed like a different planet. Hokey, maybe, but she kind of liked this place.
As she waited for the cash to click out of the machine, Fawn enjoyed the sight of her reflection in the mirrored wall. She looked hot. Sophisticated and grown-up. She’d come a long way in eight months—from earning money the hardest way, to flouncing through the casino in her cutesy little monkey outfit, smiling and calling “Keno, Keno, Keno” like a brain-injured parrot, to riding in limousines and living in luxury, eating lobster and drinking champagne.
All because she didn’t mind a balding man with a paunch, and pockmarks on his face.
Okay, sure he’d been acting a little wacky the past couple of days, but what did that matter? He could afford to act wacky. Besides, he knew how to treat a lady—if the lady didn’t expect him to open doors for her and if she didn’t mind a burp or two during the dinner conversation.
She used the entry card and stepped into the elevator reserved for special guests, then rode up to the seventh-floor penthouse suite—Branson didn’t have skyscrapers like Vegas. It didn’t have casinos, either, and smoke didn’t hang in the air like a cloud of poison.
Bruce was talking on his cell phone when she glided through the door. She allowed it to close with a muted clunk, and he glanced around at her. She smiled as she slid the thin spaghetti strap of her blue beaded purse from her shoulder and placed it on the counter by the minibar.
His gaze darted away and his fingers whitened on the tiny phone. “No, Vin, I told you what I’d do if you didn’t stop the purchase.”
Fawn sighed as Bruce paced to the other end of the carpeted great room. Okay, so he didn’t seem as distracted by her hot looks as the old geezer at the counter downstairs.
He lowered his already deep, gravelly voice. “I’ve got everything I need to…no, you listen. I don’t need the cash from this deal, I was just doing you a favor, but I’m not risking no lives for this.” He grunted and held the phone out from his ear.
Fawn heard the angry rant all the way across the room, and she winced at the threat in that voice. Bruce frowned at her, then put the phone back to his ear. The lamplight made his face look as white as mashed potatoes. “No? Well, you didn’t tell me about their new little discovery, did you? How many other investors know your dirty little secret? I’m not taking the heat for—”
He sighed and glanced over his shoulder toward Fawn, then disconnected with a push of a button. “Stupid jerk can have his little temper tantrum on his own time. Sorry you had to hear that, Princess. You got back fast.” The edges of his voice softened as his gaze caressed her.
“What am I, your errand girl now?” she teased in the husky, seductive voice she’d practiced for months before she ever went to Las Vegas. She crossed the room in slow, easy strides and reached up to trail a fingertip along his shoulder, then rubbed at the bristles on his chin.
He jerked away as if she’d zapped him with electricity.
She pouted at him.
“Did you get the show tickets?”
“They’re in my purse.”
“And the cash?”
“That, too.”
Bruce nodded, though she couldn’t be sure he’d even heard her words. He reached into the front pocket of his slacks and pulled out a beautiful steel cigarette lighter, strolling slowly, thoughtfully, over to her purse on the counter. He opened the purse and slid the lighter into the tiny zippered pocket inside, then zipped it shut.
“I don’t smoke,” she said.
He sighed, the plump lines of his face drawing down with concern. “Whatever you do, don’t lose the purse.”
“You know I won’t.” Two weeks ago, some loser had tried to lift it from her shoulder, and he’d nearly lost his future children. He’d limped away, hopefully wiser.
“Are you done being serious?” Fawn asked. “Can we go play now?”
The question brought another frown. Bruce chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then pointed toward the satiny cushions of a Victorian love seat beside the wall of windows that overlooked Branson. “We’ve got to talk.”
She blinked up at him. This was a new thing with Bruce since they’d flown here from Vegas two days ago. He seemed to want to talk a lot more, and he’d barely touched her since they arrived. Although in one way that was a big relief, in another way…
“Have a seat, Princess,” he rumbled.
She smoothed the silk dress beneath her and sat, making sure the slit fell away and revealed her leg. She patted the cushion beside her. He ignored her gesture, pulled a chair from the dining set and sank down across from her, hands on his knees as he leaned forward and narrowed his heavy-lidded eyes.
She quietly sucked in her breath. Was she getting dumped?
“First of all, that isn’t a lighter, it’s a computer data storage device. It’s called a flash drive, and that’s all you need to know for now. Hopefully, you’ll never need to know.”
“But what if I do?”
“Just remember that it has important information in it—information that lives could depend on. If anything happens—”
“Anything like what?”
He closed his eyes. “Don’t ask me that. Please. You’re smart, and you’ll know. If anything happens, find someone you know you can trust and give them the flash drive.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“Just remember what I said. I’m asking you to do the right thing.” He gave her a firm look, and she forced herself to behave like a lady and shrug, as if that would be no problem. “Second of all,” he said, “I’ve got to tell you something, Princess, and this won’t be easy.” He straightened and shoved his right hand into the pocket of his gray slacks. “But first, I got a little present for you.” He pulled out a small jewel case.
“Is that another storage device?” she asked.
He smiled gently—sadly. “It’s a ring.”
The air escaped her lungs in a loud whoosh, but before she could react, he lifted the lid.
Quietly and slowly, Fawn started breathing again. Okay, no huge solitaire diamond, nothing like that. What he pulled from the case was a beautiful gold ring encrusted completely by heart-shaped pink-red stones. He raised her right hand and slid the ring onto the little finger. It fit perfectly.
“Rubies?” she whispered.
“Vietnamese.” He cupped both his hands around hers for a short second, then hesitated, watching her. He chewed on his lower lip again, then scooted his chair back and stood to pace across the floor. “How old are you, Princess?” He swiped at beads of sweat on his shiny scalp, watching her the way a horse would watch a strange object in the road.
Her stomach suddenly felt icky. “You know I’m twenty-three. I told you I didn’t care much about—”
“Know what I think? I think I’m old enough to be your dad.”
She tried hard not to react. Don’t let on. Don’t stutter. You’re past that now. “I thought you said you were thirty-five.” Her voice sounded smooth even to her own ears. In control. “That would mean you were…what…twelve when I was born?” She forced the corners of her lips upward.
He stalked across the room and back, once again rubbing his scalp. “You know what? I’ve got a daughter who’s fifteen.” He stopped and looked at her. “Haven’t seen her in five years, but every time I see a kid around her age, I think about her.” He gestured toward Fawn’s hand. “I got my girl a ring just like that.”
Fawn watched him without moving, barely daring to blink.
“Why is it I think more and more about my daughter when I look at you lately?”
She leaned back in the sofa and crossed her legs, keeping her spine perfectly straight. “You saw my driver’s license.”
“I’ve seen enough fake ID cards in my lifetime to fill the public library in Las Vegas. You know what, Fawn? Even though I don’t see my kid, if I knew a big fat guy my age was shacking up with her, I’d shoot the loser right in the face. Why isn’t your dad chasing me down?”
She couldn’t prevent the scowl, or the gut response. “What dad?” The words bit into the air, making Bruce blink.
He wiped at the sweat again. “Are you even legal?”
“Of course I’m legal.” She was old enough to drive. That was legal.
He reached down and fingered several strands of the blond hair that curved past her shoulders. “What year did you say you were born?” His voice strained tightly in his throat.
Get back in the act. Quick! She forced a husky laugh. “Bruce, don’t be silly. Of course I’m flattered…I think. But I can’t help it if I remind you of your daughter. Do I act like some little sixteen-year-old?” Please believe me, Bruce. I can’t go back to the Keno job. And I sure can’t go back to the street.
“Not when you’re awake, except when you bite your nails.”
She held up her perfectly groomed hands. She’d had a manicure just yesterday. “A woman needs her little vices. You should be glad mine are so innocuous.” That was the right word, wasn’t it? Bruce wasn’t exactly an English professor, and tossing in an intelligent-sounding word now and then helped keep him guessing.
He continued to stare at her, as if he couldn’t quite remember the true color of her eyes behind the brown contact lenses—lenses that, according to the advertisement, made her look friendlier and more approachable. More exotic as well.
Or maybe he was trying to make a decision about something. Fawn held her breath for a long moment, until the sound of a horn blast reached through the sliding glass door that opened onto the lanai.
Bruce glanced toward the door, then at his watch. “I want you to run another errand for me, Princess.”
She pouted again. “So I really am your errand girl?”
“Let’s just pretend that you are for now, okay?” He reached down and patted her cheek. “I think you can handle playing a role.”
She watched him for a moment, fighting back a horrible fear that skittered through her stomach like a line of swarming termites. With as much cool as she could project, she reached for her purse on the counter. “Tell me what you need, oh master.”
She endured his gaze. She would not beg.
“Did you withdraw the cash limit?” he asked.
“Only from one card. I don’t know why you suddenly want all this—”
“Use the other card and withdraw that limit, too, but don’t do it downstairs. I want you to take a taxi to an address I’m going to write down for you.”
She didn’t argue. How could she? He was trying to get rid of her. “You’ll be here when I get back?” she asked, voice soft, conciliatory.
“I’m not leaving you, Princess, but I have some work to do, and I’ve got to be alone to do it.”
Karah Lee Fletcher yawned for the third time in less than five minutes as her eyes glazed and she struggled to maintain her attention on the highway ahead of her. She was too close to her destination to give in to sleep now, or to the slight nausea she’d battled ever since eating that greasy hamburger in Springfield.
She was going to have to start eating healthier. And she needed to get more sleep. Working with sick people all the time left her open to just about every virus in Missouri, and when she didn’t take care of herself, her immune system let her know about it.
The center line of the road blurred, and Karah Lee jerked the steering wheel to the right. “Come on, focus,” she muttered to her ten-year-old Ford Taurus sedan, as if the car were the culprit weaving back and forth inside the boundary of her lane. “It isn’t that late, and we’re almost there. Only a few more miles.”
Actually, it would be closer to ten miles before she reached Hideaway, and darkness had descended over Missouri some time ago. She glanced at the glowing numbers on the dash. Nine-thirty. Okay, not that long ago, but she’d worked last night. Big difference.
She felt another yawn coming on, and reluctantly closed the vents that allowed the sweet Ozark air to drift through the car. Time for the big guns.
She switched on the air conditioner full force and took a few deep breaths, aiming all four vents toward her. Ah, yes, that chased away most of the nausea and blew off some of the fog that hovered in her brain. The improvement wouldn’t last long, judging by her experience of the past hour. Highway 76 west of Branson had very little traffic to keep her occupied, and it made her wonder: Did someone know something she didn’t? Or could she be lost?
She pulled over to the side of the road and checked the directions Ardis Dunaway had given her. Follow the Highway 76 signs and ignore the strangeness of the new roads that had been added in the past few months. This place had changed a lot, but she still knew how to follow directions.
The stars congregated in the darkness of the country sky, but the moon was nowhere in evidence. The trees on either side of her seemed to swallow any excess light. Another attack of the yawns beset Karah Lee as the night invaded the car with increasing heaviness…and her eyelids drooped ever closer to catastrophe….
She jerked upright. “Time to get serious.” Karah Lee hated talking to herself. To her, it meant that, after thirty-four years, the loneliness of single life had finally affected her mind. People who talked to themselves became so addicted to it that they did so in public. Death knell for a social life. So she wouldn’t get into the habit of it, but if she fell asleep now and ran off the road and killed herself, that, too, would end future prospects.
She reached for the radio knob, then thought better of it. The blare of noise would only cheapen the experience of driving into this magical land that had made such an impact on her when she was a teenager—when the roads had been so much narrower than they were now.
Finally, she cast a quick glance into the back seat, where her huge black cat, Monster, lay snoozing in his pet taxi, strapped safely in place with the seat belt. “You know, you could learn to carry your weight in this family, and at least rattle your cage a little, give me one of those good deep snarls when I start to nod off. Your life is dependent for the next few moments on my ability to keep my wits, and they’re threatening to scatter out across the Ozarks like leaves in a tornado.”
She heard a grumpy cat-mutter and nodded. “That’s better. I probably should have put you up here in the front with me, but I thought I’d be nice and let you sleep through this trip. It’s stupid to drive when I’ve barely had eight full hours of sleep in the past three days.”
The husky-hoarse sound of her own voice in the confined space of the car would probably keep her awake for a few moments. “How many patients have I seen in the past three years who’d fallen asleep at the wheel? I don’t feel like becoming another statistic.”
Just last week a father of three was fatally injured on I–70 during rush hour when he veered over onto the shoulder, then apparently overcorrected and slammed into a car in the next lane. His friends said later he’d gone thirty-six hours without sleep. Countless accidents were caused by irresponsible drivers who…
Her head nodded forward. She took a deep breath, slowed her speed, flexed her hands. She should have given herself more time, should’ve asked for an extra day to get here, but no, good ol’ tough Karah Lee could do anything. She’d been accused by co-workers of having the stamina, pain tolerance and size of a redwood tree. At times, she was proud of the comparison. Other times, it made her feel lonelier. Few people took the time to venture past the facade of indomitable redhead and get to know the real Karah Lee Fletcher.
Monster, given to Karah Lee by a colleague recently engaged to a cat hater, wasn’t exactly what she had in mind as a lifelong companion. In fact, they barely knew each other, and the relationship wasn’t improving with time. When she complained about him at work, however, the staff teased that Monster sounded a lot like his new owner.
She was not amused.
The road blurred. She could not keep her eyes open. She desperately needed sleep.
Maybe if she just pulled over to the side of the road for a short nap…but experience had taught her that if she allowed herself to close her eyes for a few moments, it would take a loud beeper in her ear to bring her out of it before morning. Just a few more miles, and—
A shadow separated itself from the darkness of the trees, followed by another shadow and another, into the glow of her headlights, barely twenty feet from her front bumper. She slammed on the brakes and swerved as three deer darted back and forth over the road in confusion. The tires of Karah Lee’s car skidded into the brush at the edge of the shoulder, and she couldn’t prevent the slide, couldn’t veer from the tree that came at her with sickening swiftness.
The impact thrust her forward, but her seat belt grabbed and held. The crash stunned her. She sat in horrified aftershock.
Monster yowled and scratched at the pet taxi with frantic cries, but Karah Lee sat frozen. Suddenly, she realized that she did not have the stamina, or the pain tolerance, of a redwood.
She fainted.
Chapter Two
Fawn stepped from the elevator on the seventh floor, heart still pounding, hands shaking harder than they had been when she left. She reached into her money-stuffed purse for the key card. Would he be here?
It wasn’t as if she’d never been dumped before. It had happened twice in the past few months, but each time it had been harder to return to other kinds of work. And here she was in Branson, Missouri. She didn’t even know these streets, and she had a strange feeling she wouldn’t be able to do as much business here, even if she could force herself to do that business again.
But what else could she do?
The card slid into the silent-lock mechanism, and to her relief the door opened at the slightest pressure of her hand. Hearing Bruce’s voice, she broke out with a sweat of relief. He was still here.
“Vincent didn’t have the guts to come and talk to me himself,” she heard him say from the other room, “so he sent you.”
She stopped in the doorway and frowned as she caught sight of a tall, dark-haired man in an expensive-looking dark gray suit. His back was to her, and Bruce stood facing her, the shadow of his big body outlined in the neon lights that flashed into the room through the lanai windows. He didn’t even glance toward her when she entered.
“He doesn’t like associating with traitors” came the visitor’s voice, which was rougher than Bruce’s deep bass.
Fawn grabbed the door to keep it from shutting and disturbing the men. Bruce wasn’t finished with his business. She’d come back too soon. She was about to turn around and leave without saying anything, when Bruce spoke again.
“I’d only be a traitor if I allowed my clients to pour their money down the drain with bad deals.”
“It doesn’t have to be a bad deal,” Gray Suit grumbled. “You tell your clients to leave their money where it is for six more months, and you can guarantee seventy percent return on their investment. They won’t want to pass that up.”
“Vincent can’t guarantee that, Harv, and you know it. How many dupes are you going to find to buy a worthless space of air over Hideaway? The condominium isn’t even built yet.”
“Construction’s already begun.”
Fawn saw the anger spill over Bruce’s face. “How can that be?”
Harv gave a low grunt of laughter. “You’re not the only man who can be bought. I’ve got good information that says you’re carrying a vital report around in your pocket. You don’t have any business with that inspection report, and Vincent wants it back.”
“It’s not on me,” Bruce said.
Out in the hallway behind Fawn came the sound of the penthouse elevator doors opening and dishes rattling, probably a meal on a room-service cart. Harv half turned at the sound, until Fawn could see the outline of his long, heavy-boned face, with thick jawline and overgrown, black eyebrows. He looked really edgy, and the fingers of his right hand tensed, muscles flexing beneath his suit.
Bruce caught Fawn’s gaze, frowning hard at her and jerking his head toward the door in an unmistakable command for her to leave. “Harv, this whole mess is going to come down on Vincent’s head, and I don’t want to be here when it happens. I’m not getting blamed for his stupid decision.”
Harv returned his attention to Bruce. “Then what are you doing here? You didn’t fly all the way here just to give Vincent the brush-off. You could’ve done that on the phone.”
“I didn’t—”
“You’ve got contacts here.” Suspicion laced the man’s voice.
“I wanted to see some of the shows, check out the—”
“I know what kinds of shows you like, and they aren’t these country-music comedy shows.”
“Vincent sent you here to do his dirty work, didn’t he?” Bruce asked. “He doesn’t care about a bunch of strangers in Hideaway as long as he can make his money and get out before tragedy strikes. Don’t you care that lives could be at stake?”
“Since when did you care about other people?”
As if against his will, Bruce’s gaze gave an imperceptible flick toward Fawn, then he looked back at Harv.
Harv’s shoulders stiffened. He started to turn, reaching beneath his suit jacket.
“No!” Bruce shouted. “Princess!”
A deadly-looking pistol with silencer seemed embedded in Harv’s hand as he drew it from his pocket. He aimed at Fawn and squeezed the trigger as she ducked at Bruce’s command.
The doorpost beside her splintered. “Bruce!”
“Run, Princess!” Bruce shouted, charging the man. “Get out now! Hurry!” He was still six feet from his target when the man swung back, aimed, squeezed the trigger.
Fawn shoved the door wide behind her, barreling past a bellman with a room-service cart. The cart and dishes went flying with a clatter across the hallway.
“Get out of the way!” she screamed. “He’s a killer! Run!” She raced to the elevator, jabbed the button, then realized she could be trapped. She ran to the stairwell and plunged downward, expecting to feel a bullet in her back any second. She heard another clatter of dishes, heard a man cry out above her just as the stairwell door closed—the bellman?
Her feet barely touched the steps as she raced down them. When she reached the third-floor landing, she stumbled and twisted her ankle. Gasping with pain, she didn’t slow her stride. At the second-floor landing, she paused long enough to look up and listen.
She didn’t hear the sound of pursuit. She kicked off the strappy, high-heeled sandals and looped them over her purse. Where was he? What was happening up there? Bruce! What happened to you?
She wanted to turn and race back up those stairs. She needed to get help, fast. Bruce could be up there bleeding to death.
Did Harv shoot the bellman, too? Where was the man? Harv could have taken the elevator down—he could be waiting for her when she stepped through the door on the ground floor.
But that would be crazy. Too many witnesses.
Instead of continuing down the stairs to the first floor, she rushed to the second-floor entrance. But as soon as she placed her hand on the knob to open the door, she let it go and drew back. What if Harv was on the other side of that door?
“Stop it!” she whispered to herself. She had to get to safety—reach the lobby and cry out for help, find the security guards and have them call for an ambulance. She cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. All she saw was a serving tray of empty dishes on the floor at the far end of the hallway. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the stairwell, then stepped into the hallway. She took the main elevator to the lobby. No way Harv could get her there.
The moment her bare feet sank into the plush wine-and-gold carpet of the lobby, she saw him. The man named Harv in the expensive-looking gray suit stood talking with two uniformed guards. He gestured toward the stairwell door, looking the part of a frightened man. One of the security guards drew his gun.
Fawn gasped.
Harv glanced her way and sighted her. “There!” he shouted. “That’s the killer. Don’t let her get away!”
She plunged into the midst of a group of elderly ladies.
“Stop that woman! She’s a killer!” someone called across the lobby.
A couple of women screamed as Fawn stumbled to the exit and shoved open the door.
She ducked past another crowd of oblivious people, keeping the colorfully dressed theatergoers between herself and the guards as she slipped into the shadows at the edge of the property. Wishing desperately for a pair of sneakers, she slung the strap of her purse over her head and plunged into the darkness, barefoot and sure she would be shot in the back any second.
Taylor Jackson sped along the tree-shrouded road as fast as he dared, and watched for moving shapes in the beams of his headlights. He dreaded what he might find, and he hoped backup was on its way.
How many times had he warned tourists to avoid driving this stretch of road at night? And how many runs like this had he made in the year he’d been working this area? The local communities needed to buy space on radios and hometown papers daily, alerting the world that humans did not own the roads in the Ozarks, especially at night. The deer, opossums, raccoons and coyotes did.
Sometimes he thought the four-footed variety of animals obeyed the rules of the Mark Twain National Forest better than the two-footed ones.
The only times he ever prayed were on runs like this, when he didn’t know what he would find, how many victims would be involved, how much damage there would be. He especially hated finding children hurt. Highway 76 twisted through the hills with such diabolical suddenness it caught travelers unaware, making them think it was veering right, then veering left instead, in hairpin curves that seemed to make no sense.
Meanwhile, oncoming cars accidentally bright-lighted one another with vicious intensity. On summer days, when traffic was heavy and they got a slow driver bottle-necking thirty sightseers in a hurry to see Hideaway in a couple of hours, people got injured, even killed. Hideaway Road had earned a bad reputation in the past few months, since tourists had discovered its beauty.
But on a weeknight he knew he could probably blame a deer.
The glow of two flashlights hovered ahead of him in the darkness, and he cut his speed. Sure enough, fresh deer scat on the road told the story. He was relieved to find no big hairy bodies lying beside the pavement. As far as he could tell, not even any blood. Now, if only the humans had been so lucky.
He saw the bright red Ford Taurus sedan kissing a maple tree in the darkness. As he maneuvered his vehicle across the road to illuminate the wreck site with his headlights, Taylor saw Mary and Jim, who lived down the road, leaning over someone in the driver’s seat. The door was open. Good. The damage might not be as severe as he had first feared. Also, he saw no passengers other than the driver.
He pulled in behind the car, left his emergency lights flashing on the dash and got out. As he ran to the car, the guttural scream of a nightmare screeched through the air, and he caught his breath at the animal sound. He’d never heard a deer cry like that before…and then he realized it was coming from inside the car.
As he approached the others, Jim and Mary stepped back, and the sound accosted him more directly. For a brief moment he hesitated, unwillingly reminded of the horror movie he’d watched years ago about a human possessed by a demon.
But the woman in the front seat behind the steering wheel did not look grotesque in any way. She looked sane, though slightly dazed. She groaned, and Taylor realized the screech did not come from her but from the back seat. He rushed forward, peered past the driver’s seat, and caught the double gleam of terrified eyes, two black paws stuck through the wire mesh of a pet taxi. It was the biggest black cat he had ever seen—and the loudest he had ever heard.
“Would you shut up?” The deep, irritable tone of the driver mingled with the cries of the cat.
Taylor stepped back slightly from the car and bent low enough to get a good look at the victim. She had wildly curly red hair and an unhappy expression in a very pale face. In the residual glow from his headlights he saw a streak of blood outlining the left side of her face.
“I didn’t mean you,” she said. “It’s Monster.” Her voice was husky and authoritative, though slightly hoarse.
“Ma’am, it’s okay, we’ll take care of you. Just remain still until I can ascertain the extent of the damage.”
“No need. I’ll be okay. I just need to get out and stretch my legs a little.” She closed her eyes and groaned again, lifting a shaking hand to her forehead.
Taylor raised his voice to be heard over the screeches of the cat. “Ma’am, I’d like to check you over first.” He turned to Jim. “Would you go get my medical case out of the truck? I want to get her vitals and—”
“My vitals are fine.” The victim’s voice deepened. “I just want some fresh air.” She reached down to unfasten her seat belt and fumbled with the release.
“Here, let me help you with that.” Taylor leaned forward, but before he could assist her, she made her escape from the belt and turned to look into the pet taxi.
He got a close-up view of a long, graceful neck above shoulders that were surprisingly broad and muscular for a woman. She wore cutoff jeans and a faded blue T-shirt, and her arms and legs were untanned, well-shaped.
“It’s okay, Monster, you’re safe.” Her husky voice was suddenly melodious and soothing. “Cut the noise a minute, will you?”
To Taylor’s amazement, the racket lowered to the growl of a stressed-out tiger.
The woman turned back and looked up at Taylor. “Sorry about that. Is there a vet around the village anywhere? I’d like to get him looked at.”
“Don’t you think we should concentrate on you first?” Taylor asked as Jim approached with the kit of medical supplies.
“I told you, I’m fine.” She reached up and grasped the side of the door frame, then swung her feet to the ground. Her face and lips were pale except for the streak of blood that matched the color of her car.
Taylor placed one hand gently on her shoulder as he reached for the bag Jim held out for him. “Ma’am, please humor me and remain seated for a moment. You don’t look fine. I’m a paramedic, and I’d like to make sure about you first. I need to ask you a few questions.”
She blinked up at him, then frowned and looked pointedly at the gun hanging at his hip. “Since when do paramedics have to carry guns and wear ranger uniforms?”
“When they’re also law-enforcement rangers. We’re short staffed.”
She took a deep, audible breath and leaned against the steering wheel, meeting his gaze squarely. “My name is Karah Lee Fletcher, I’m on Hideaway Road in Missouri, and the date is Wednesday, June 11. Those were the questions you wanted to ask me, right?”
“Done this before, have you?”
“You might say that.” A hint of humor flashed across her expression and disappeared almost before he caught it.
“I can see you’ve hit your head—did you experience any loss of consciousness?” Taylor continued to look into those eyes. They were more golden than amber brown. She had a high forehead and cheekbones, and a strong, firm chin line.
She glanced away briefly at his question, and he noticed her hesitation. “Ma’am?”
“Some.” Her voice grew irritable again.
“Some? Any idea how long you were out?”
“Couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. That racket in the back seat works better than a sternal rub.” She held her arm out. “Go ahead, take my blood pressure. It stays about 125 over 75. I already took my heart rate. It’s steady and normal. Respiration’s normal.”
He pulled the cuff out of the bag and did as he was told, curbing his curiosity about her apparent medical knowledge. The cuff made a firm fit around her arm. She had a large frame for a woman, but in spite of her muscular form she didn’t look like a bodybuilder. He pumped the cuff and took the reading, nodded and released the pressure.
“Elevated?” she asked.
“It’s 140 over 85.”
“Not bad after all this excitement,” she said. Her cheeks were gaining some color. “Now do you want to let me up?”
“If you’d give me a couple more minutes, Ms. Fletcher, I’d appreciate it.” Why did he always have to get pushy patients in the middle of the night? “Have you had any alcoholic beverages this evening?”
Her expression revealed her irritation, and the color in her face deepened. “A herd of deer ran me off the road, okay? I’m not a drunk driver. Do you smell alcohol on my breath?” She blew a puff of air into his face. All he caught was a whiff of onions. A strong whiff. “Just let me out of the car and I’ll walk a straight line for you.” She reached for the door handle to steady herself and scooted forward.
“Not yet, please.” He leaned over her and palpated the back of her neck. “Sometimes you can be hurt worse than you think at the time. It’s always best not to take chances, Ms. Fletcher.”
She gave a long-suffering groan. “It’s Karah Lee.”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I go by Karah Lee, not Ms. Fletcher.”
He pulled out his penlight and dropped to one knee in front of her so he could get a more level look. “I’m going to shine this light into your eyes briefly, Karah Lee.”
She gave another sigh of impatience. “Go ahead, do your thing. I’m telling you, I’m fine. I’d like to see about my cat, though.”
He checked her pupils, and they were equal and reactive. He looked at the wound on her temple, which could use some attention but was no longer actively bleeding. “You obviously haven’t been out of the car yet, right?” To his discomfort, the cat’s voice did seem to be reaching a higher decibel again.
“No, but if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll go for it.”
“I’m sorry, I’d like you to remain in the vehicle until we can get an ambulance here to do a more thorough—”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “I told you I’d be okay. I am willing to sign a PRC form so you can release me without getting into trouble.”
Taylor bit back a sharp retort. A Patient Refusal of Care form would release him from any liability if she should develop complications later. She sounded as if she was accusing him of trying to cover his backside.
“Look, Ms. Fletcher, I’m not interested in covering for myself, I just want to make sure you don’t have any—”
“It doesn’t look like there’s too much damage,” she said, gesturing toward the front of her car. “And I wasn’t speeding. I realize that the damage to the car isn’t always the best indication of injury to the occupants, but you’ll have to trust my judgment. I promise to check in with the local clinic first thing in the morning.” There was a hint of sarcasm in her words and a touch of irony in her gaze, and he wondered what that was all about.
“By the way,” she said, “I tried to start the engine and it refuses to budge. Know of anybody I might call for a tow in the morning?” Her voice mingled with the cat’s in a grating duet.
Taylor didn’t bother to curb his own sarcasm. “The engine won’t start?” He raised his voice to be heard over the yowling in the back seat. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed, then reached out and took his left arm in a firm grip. With that grip she urged him backward. “You don’t listen too well, do you?”
She released him and stood gingerly to her feet. She was tall. The top of her head came to his eyebrows, and he was six-three.
“I’m refusing care. End of…discuss—”
Her focus seemed to waver, and the color drained from her face once more. She grabbed her stomach and doubled forward. He reacted quickly to step out of the line of fire, but not quickly enough. His uniform pants would never be the same.
Chapter Three
Sirens blasted through the air and bounced from the side of the building where Fawn Morrison crouched, panting from the run, terrified. She was at least three city blocks from the hotel-theater complex she’d escaped, and panic continued to shake her body so hard she could barely get enough air into her lungs. Red-white-blue lights reflected across the parking lot. She could only gamble that no one driving into the lot would catch a glimpse of her dress from beyond the thick hedge that shielded her.
She knew that if she moved quickly, she had a better chance of escape, but still she squatted in the shadows. All she wanted to do was pull herself into a tight little ball and block everything out.
She reached into her purse for a hair clip, twisted her long blond hair into a knot at the back of her head and anchored it. She pulled her bangs out of the stiff helmet of dried hair gel she’d used to keep them off her forehead. They made her look younger. Too young for her taste—like about fourteen—but it might save her hide to look younger, just for tonight. Now if she could get out of this dress, and scrape off some of this makeup….
As the whine of the sirens died, she limped along the edge of the building to a tall privacy fence that she guessed shielded the cast entrance for this theater. A searchlight flickered across the treetops at the theater next door. In spite of her ankle, she ran to the fence, jumped up and grasped the top edge, pulling herself up, kicking hard to swing herself over. Splinters gouged her arms and legs, and she gasped with the pain as she dropped to the asphalt on the other side.
The shriek of sirens continued to split the air as Fawn limped to a concrete loading dock. She climbed the steps and tested the door. It slid open, and she slipped inside to be overwhelmed by the smell of roast beef and onions, and the clatter of cookware. A kitchen. As late as it was, they would be cleaning up after a banquet, maybe. Or this could be a dinner theater. Judging by the size of the five-story structure, this, too, was a hotel-theater complex, which was a good thing.
She passed by a broad doorway and crept as quietly as she could along the shadowy hall. If she could find her way to the connecting hotel—
“Hey, you!” came a sharp male voice from the bright kitchen.
Going cold all over, she turned to see a thin-haired man standing beside a stack of pots and pans at a huge sink. He wore a white shirt and slacks and an apron.
“You lost?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. Where’s the ladies’ room?”
“Back out the Staff Only entrance and to your right,” he said drily, tossing a towel over his shoulder as he gave her a once-over.
She nodded and continued along the service corridor until she knew she’d be out of sight of the kitchen, then she opened a door to her right. The lights were off, of course, but the hallway fluorescents revealed a small office. No good place to hide. She checked the next room down on her left, but it was locked. Several yards farther, the next door on her right, was a linen room, complete with huge stacks of towels, aprons and uniforms.
This could work! They did it in all the movies—people sneaking into the closet of a hospital and pulling on a doctor’s lab coat so they could blend in with the hospital staff. She could blend in. She’d worked at a hotel for a couple of weeks.
After a hopeless search for a light switch in the room—this must be one of those places where a master switch was located elsewhere—she pulled a tiny key-chain flashlight from her purse, stepped into the room, closed the door behind her. The thin stream of light flickered, threatening to go out as she grabbed a set of whites from the top of a stack in front of her. The pants would’ve fit an elephant. The next set in the stack looked as if they might fit. She pulled a hairnet from a package on the shelf beside the clothes. Of course there were no shoes.
She stripped off her dress and shoved it deep behind a stack of tablecloths. The clothes fit—the bottoms were a little too snug around her hips, but she could still move without ripping them. She pulled the black hairnet over her head and tucked her bangs beneath it. With the clip holding her hair up off her shoulders, she might get away with this. Except for her shoes. Still, she couldn’t go barefoot.
The tiny flashlight flickered out as she tugged on her shoes. She couldn’t coax any more from it. Should’ve changed the battery last week.
She felt around in the darkness for her purse, and was slinging the strap over her head when she heard the sound of purposeful footsteps and a man’s deep voice.
“…police department. I need to ask you some questions.”
The footsteps stopped, and Fawn caught her breath.
“I don’t think any crooks or bad guys came through here tonight, if that’s what you mean,” came the voice of the dishwasher who’d given her directions to the bathroom. “Just people from the dinner theater.”
“Is the show over?”
“Should have been over about fifteen minutes or so ago.”
“Did anyone come through this way recently? A woman in a blue dress, blond hair?”
Fawn bit the inside of her cheek. No, please don’t tell him.
“Hey, you kidding? Sure did,” came the reply. “Blue dress? Really pretty?”
“Sounds right.”
“She was in here just a few minutes ago. Looked a little spooked, if you ask me. What happened, Officer?”
“We just need to question her.” There was a sound of static, like one of those walkie-talkie things Fawn’s Uncle Ralph used to have. “We need to have a look around.”
“Okay by me, but I’m not the one you have to ask. My boss—”
“We’ll take care of that. If you don’t mind, you just ease out of the building for a few minutes. There’s been a double murder, and we’re investigating.”
“Murder! You’re not kidding me? Right here in Branson?”
Fawn froze. Oh, Bruce, no. She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned softly.
There was a thunk on the linen-room door, and then the knob turned slightly. “What’s in here?”
Fawn braced herself to make a dive for the floor.
“Towels and stuff.”
“Okay, we’ll want to check it, too. Why don’t you go ahead and get hold of your boss, and I’ll have a talk with him, get the master switch turned on down here. But meanwhile we need to get some backup in here.” The voices became somewhat fainter, but they didn’t go away completely. Fawn slid down beside a rack of towels and buried her face in her hands. She was trapped.
Oh, Bruce…he was really dead. Harv had killed him. And who else had he killed? The bellman?
And what was she going to do?
Karah Lee huddled against the passenger door of the ranger’s SUV, doing her best to control Monster’s movements within the circle of her arms as the ranger took the sharp curves at a sedate speed. “It wasn’t the bump on the head that made me sick. Really. Ouch!” She eased Monster’s front paws up and away from her shoulder, wincing as the sharp claws dug into her flesh in an effort to remain attached. “I was sick long before I saw those deer in the road.”
“Look, it’s never convenient to have to seek medical care in the middle of the night, but there are times—”
“I heard you, okay?” she snapped, then bit her lower lip. She knew the speech. She’d given it enough times, herself. And here she was behaving like one of her most obnoxious patients. Next time she would remember how irritable pain could make a person. “Trust me,” she said more gently. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, really?” His sarcasm was still in evidence. “You have a sixth sense about these things, do you?”
She frowned at him. What was his problem? So she was refusing care—it shouldn’t be a big deal to him. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” she said, then grimaced when her loving pet attempted to tenderize her right leg. “You know what, Monster? Some people think cat tastes just as good as chicken. I’m tempted to see if they’re right.”
Ranger Taylor Jackson skidded a glance her way.
“Joke,” she said. “It’s a joke. See? I’m making jokes, I’m thinking clearly, I’m—”
Monster yowled, and the impact of the sound reverberated through the interior of the SUV. Karah Lee covered the cat’s face with her left hand. He nipped at her thumb, and she jerked away.
“Do you think he’s hurt?” Taylor asked.
“If you’re asking if he’s behaving abnormally, no.” She’d checked him over, as much as he would allow, and had found no damage. “I’d still like to find a veterinarian. You say there’s none in Hideaway?”
“There’s a kid at a boys’ ranch across the lake who could probably look at him. Everybody around here takes their pets to him. Besides him, the closest vet is Kimberling City.”
“A kid?”
“About seventeen, good kid.”
Monster yowled again, and again Karah Lee attempted to comfort him.
“You say he’s always like that?”
She nodded, then realized he probably couldn’t see the gesture in the dim glow from the console. “He misses his previous owner. We aren’t exactly soul mates.”
There was a soft snort of laughter, and Karah Lee glared at the ranger’s silhouette.
The amusement left his expression. “Sorry. You’re staying at the Lakeside?”
“That’s right. I’m renting a house in town, and it won’t be ready for a week and a half.”
“You’re staying alone?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “Except for Monster. Why?”
“I simply wondered if you’d be alone tonight, without anyone to check on you.”
“You offering?” The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she wished she could tie a knot in her tongue. She hadn’t meant that the way it sounded. Not at all.
Even in the faint light from the dash she thought she could see him blush. He had the coloring for it, with faint freckling across the bridge of his nose, and hair the color of aged bronze. He had straight, fierce eyebrows—no, not exactly fierce, they just made him look earnest, like a younger version of Billy Graham.
She sighed. She had spent too much time in the company of a sarcastic hospital staff, and she’d grown accustomed to the cynical, occasionally coarse joking. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine, and if anything happens, I promise not to hold you personally responsible, okay?”
“That isn’t what I—”
“I know about head-sheet protocol, I know what to look for and I know what to do in case of emergency.”
There was a short silence. “That’s fine.” The reply was tight and clipped, and she realized she’d probably offended him. In fact, thinking about it, what she’d said had sounded offensive. Again. Disgusted with herself, she sighed and leaned back.
They rounded a curve, and there was a break in the heavy overgrowth of trees. Moonlight reflected from the glassy surface of a lovely lake below, and Karah Lee caught her breath. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it is down here.”
From the corner of her vision, she saw him glance at her. “You’ve been here before?”
“My family came here a lot when I was growing up. It was one of my favorite places in the world.”
There was a brief silence. Even the cat had settled into Karah Lee’s lap without destroying any more flesh or further taxing her eardrums.
“I think you’re going to find a few changes,” he said softly.
“The roads have changed, for sure. When I was a kid, this was a gravel road. I like the improvement.”
“It might have backfired on us.”
“What do you mean?”
He steered the vehicle along the downhill curve of the road toward town. “We’ve been overrun by tourists this year. Some company came in last fall and bought several of the houses along the shore of the lake, then opened a shop on the square this spring that rents out mountain bikes, canoes and kayaks. They take excursion trips into Branson for evening shows, by boat. They’ve been advertising big-time online, and all over Branson. The crowds are swarming here. I can’t believe you even found a place to stay.”
“I made reservations early.”
“You’re lucky.”
“No, I’m smart enough to think ahead.”
“These people have also purchased some prime property at the eastern end of town, and they’re building a ten-story condominium. Can you believe that? Right here in Hideaway.”
She glanced at him as he pulled into the circle drive in front of the bed-and-breakfast. “You sound like you think that’s a crime.”
“I transferred here from the Grand Canyon. I’ve seen the kind of damage overcrowding can cause. It could devastate the whole area. Our mayor called a council together to try to enact some zoning laws, but by then it was too late.”
“I’m sorry.” But was she? After all, she owed her new job to the sudden increase in tourism. “Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing, though.”
Taylor parked and got out of the Jeep, then walked around the front to open her door. “The crime rate has already begun to rise,” he told her. “I think it could be a disaster. I’ll help you with your things.”
She shoved Monster back into his pet taxi and braced herself. The yowling commenced. She noticed the ranger grimace. “I’ll be fine,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the sudden din. “I can take care of my own luggage.” The sooner she could haul this animal to her own private cottage and block out the sound, the happier everyone would be.
“I’ll make sure you’re settled,” he said as he carried both her heavy suitcases along a lighted footpath to a broad front porch. Someone had left the porch light on, and he set the cases down and reached for the screen door.
She grabbed the handle before he could. “Look, I’m serious, I’ll be fine.” She regretted the rough tone in her voice, but the guy was a ranger, not a bellman, and he’d already gone out of his way to help her. She refused to take advantage of him. She didn’t need a chaperon to see her inside. She knew small towns—had grown up in one, herself—and word could get out in a hurry that she’d had to be escorted to her room by a law officer.
“Really,” she said more gently. “I’ll be fine, and you probably have work to do. I’m a big girl, I can take care of myself. Thank you for the ride, and I’m sorry about the…the mess I made.”
Without waiting for a reply, she shouldered past him and pushed open the door, carrying her angry cat with her. She’d suffered all the humiliation she planned to endure tonight.
Darkness and silence settled into the linen room like one of the thick quilts Fawn’s great-grandma used to tuck around her when she spent the night. The sounds outside had faded just a few seconds ago—but not before Fawn heard the crackly voice of the policeman’s radio informing him they were surrounding the place.
She pulled off her shoes once again. She couldn’t run well in them, especially with the twisted ankle. She crept through the darkness, feeling her way along the edge of the shelves until she reached the doorway with the narrow line of light edging the bottom. No sound came from beneath that door.
Holding her breath, she reached for the doorknob and started to turn it. The hard metal felt cold in her hand. There was a soft click, and she froze again.
“Check all these rooms,” came a man’s voice, echoed by the sound of brisk footsteps. “Don’t take any chances, she could be armed.”
There came the sound of a latch turning, and Fawn caught her breath. It wasn’t this door. They must be searching the room across the hall. They would come here next.
She plunged her hand into her purse and felt for the book of matches she’d taken from an ashtray in the suite. As the sound of new footsteps reached her, she ripped a match out and struck it hard against the base. It flared, and she held it high to search for any vents or removable grates along the wall or ceiling—she’d seen people escape that way a lot in movies.
The footsteps drew closer. The flame burned her fingers and she dropped the match, stifling a cry of pain. Tucking her purse beneath her arm, she struck another match, then braced herself and touched the flame to the entire book of matches, holding the tip of the cardboard cover.
It flared brightly, startling her. She gasped, bit her tongue.
There was no grate, no vent she could squeeze into. But she might be able to scoot beneath two stacks of towels in the corner, if she curled herself into a tight ball. She shook the flaming matchbook before it could burn her fingers again, just as a door closed across the hall.
“Not in here. Block this—”
The scream of an alarm shot across the room, smacking Fawn with an almost physical force. The ceiling started to rain.
Instinctively, she scuttled toward the stacks of towels where she’d intended to hide, and plunged through a tumble of terry cloth. She heard muffled shouts from the hallway and more footsteps, but the door remained closed.
Her teeth had begun to chatter before she realized she must have been the one to set off the alarm with her matchbook flare. If she hadn’t already been in big trouble, she would be now, for sure. What happened to a sixteen-year-old convicted of murder and attempted arson?
She had to get out of here!
The shriek of the alarm continued to blast her as she worked up the guts to climb from her hiding place and creep back across the room. She opened the door, bracing for a gang of uniformed men to surround her and shove her to the ground.
No one stood outside the door. She peered out, both directions. Nobody. That wouldn’t last long. Tucking her purse under her arm, she turned right and plunged along the brightly lit hallway, hopefully in the direction of the hotel section of the building—and an exit door.
The alarm paused, and a tinny voice came from a speaker overhead. “Attention. Attention. The automatic fire alarm has been activated. Please proceed to the nearest staircase to exit the building. Do not use the elevators.”
If she could find a service elevator, maybe she could get upstairs. That way she could blend in with the crowd of hotel guests who would be making their way to the stairwells.
“Guard those doors!” came a voice from up ahead, just past a corner in the hallway.
Another alarm blast nearly deafened her from a speaker just overhead, followed by the same announcement.
“…can’t block the people from getting out of the building,” came the reply, and the echo of footsteps, and the sound of excited breathing…coming closer…
“Of course we can’t stop them,” came the sharp retort. “Just look for the woman!”
She came to a door and shoved it open, stumbled inside just as the sound of footsteps echoed through the hallway. She hovered in the darkness, afraid to breathe for several seconds, until the men continued along the hallway in the direction she had been going. She waited until the sound dwindled, then scuttled back into the shadows. In the dim light that came through the open door, Fawn could tell this was a prop room, with a black cape and top hat on a table in the front right corner. She saw a chest—or a cart—beside the table. A magician’s cape? A magic show of some kind?
“Did you check that room?” came another man’s voice as footsteps once again echoed in the hallway. “Hurry. Search where you can.”
“But the alarm—”
“Just check the room!”
Fawn skittered toward the cart and dived behind it. She had worked backstage at a theater with a magic act in Las Vegas. These carts were big enough for someone to hide inside…if she could just remember how to unlatch—
“Can’t find the light switch.”
She found the latch and slid the panel sideways, scrambled inside just as the overhead light came on. Under cover of the echo of footsteps, she slid the panel shut behind her, plunging herself into the protective blackness, afraid to breathe.
“Anything?”
“Of course not. I told you she wouldn’t still be here, even if she was here in the first place, which I don’t think—”
“Just cover the exits and make sure she doesn’t slip through.” The voices faded.
Fawn crouched in the dark for a few more seconds, then slowly, with the alarms still sounding all along the hallway, she slipped out of the magician’s cart and skittered to the open door. The corridor was empty. She caught sight of an elevator door a few yards down and sighed with relief. After another quick glance along the hall in both directions, she ran to the elevator doors and pressed the button, hoping this wasn’t one of those places that disabled their elevators during a fire alarm.
Once again came the sound of footsteps. She tensed, ready to run, but the door slid open. She plunged inside as the footsteps grew louder, and tapped the third-floor button desperately. The doors took their time, then slowly closed as the footsteps quickened.
Fawn closed her eyes and slunk into the corner, sure the searchers would catch sight of her before she could escape. They didn’t. The doors clanked shut, and she finally allowed herself to breathe again.
When the elevator deposited her at the third floor, she rushed into the hallway and joined a small crowd of sleepy-eyed, confused-looking people. She limped along beside a man dressed only in a pair of boxer shorts and a hotel terry robe. The woman with him wore a nightgown. As Fawn joined the others on the guest stairwell, she glanced down at her clothes, then reached up to feel her head. The net was still there, and her hair was wet, which would darken its blond color. They would think she was an employee, or someone in her pajamas.
More people came up behind her as she limped downstairs. They reached the ground floor and stepped through the emergency exit out into the night, where three men in uniform stood watching them closely.
She yawned and rubbed her eyes.
They didn’t stop her. Nobody called out as she joined the rest of the growing crowd in the glow of the outside lights.
As the first fire engine raced into the parking lot behind the building, Fawn crept closer to the edge of the crowd, then slipped out into the night. She hadn’t needed her shoes, after all.
Chapter Four
The telephone beside Karah Lee’s bed rang long before the alarm clock did on Thursday morning. Without opening her eyes, she reached for the receiver. Her left hand knocked it from the cradle and she barely caught it before it could hit the hardwood floor. This wasn’t going to be a good day.
“Hello.” She sounded like a frog.
“Hi, this is Taylor Jackson doing damage control,” came the baritone-gilded voice.
She cleared her throat and pried her eyes open. Good grief, it was practically still dark outside. “Damage control?”
“You had a wreck last night, remember? At least you’re awake and talking.”
She tried to sit up in bed, but the movement made her head pound, and she lay back against the lilac-scented pillow. “Don’t you ever have downtime?”
“Not lately. I’ve seen some bad reactions after an impact like last night’s. I didn’t want to take any chances.”
Her nausea was almost gone, but her head hurt where she’d bumped it, and her shoulder ached where the seat belt had grabbed her. Even worse, she cringed with humiliation every time she thought about her nauseating display in front of—and on—the poor guy.
“Well. Okay.” She glanced toward Monster through the semidarkness, and saw his huge outline, belly up, legs in the air, paws clinging through the holes in the top of the pet taxi. It was the way he usually slept—except he usually avoided the pet taxi.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Taylor prompted.
“I’m doing fine, no blurred vision, and I feel a lot better.”
“Usually after an impact like the one you sustained, the victim feels worse the next day.”
She gave a quiet sigh. Nothing better than a skeptic paramedic—unless it was a cat that snored. “Okay, but when you factor in the bulldozer running me over, I’m doing pretty good.”
No reply.
“You know, considering.” He obviously had been born without a sense of humor, or the gift of gab. “Look, Taylor, I’ll be fine.”
“The tow truck picked up your car.” He had a very attractive voice. “The mechanics will be checking it out today. I gave them the number of the Lakeside in case they need to get in touch with you.”
“You’re kidding. You did all that?”
“The guy’s shop is just three blocks from the square.” Yes, that was definitely a nice voice, maybe a little impatient because she wasn’t admitting to her misery. Maybe he was wondering why he’d even gone to the trouble to help her in the first place.
She was touched in spite of his curtness. After all, she was definitely a noncompliant patient. She wouldn’t have been nearly so forbearing in his place.
“Well. Thanks again, Taylor. And really, don’t worry about me. I’ll be checking in at the clinic about eight-thirty this morning.”
“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “You will?”
“Of course.” To work. She had specifically not mentioned that fact to him last night, because she knew how quickly word traveled in the medical community, in spite of the new Federal regulations about patient confidentiality. She did not want her stupid behavior last night to precede her. “Thanks a lot for calling, Taylor.” Her head continued to throb. She needed aspirin, and fast. “Goodbye.”
There was a pause, and then, “Goodbye.” It almost sounded like a question, as if he still wasn’t convinced she was okay.
She moaned and allowed the receiver to fall back into its cradle, hoping she wouldn’t have to face him again until the stain faded from his uniform. Unfortunately, one did not easily forget a six-foot-tall woman with red hair.
Her stomach rumbled, harmonizing with Monster’s early-morning growl of welcome, and she dragged herself from the comfortable bed to open the pet-taxi door. She had assured the elderly proprietress of the Lakeside Bed-and-Breakfast that her furry ball-and-chain had the intelligence to use the ever-present litter box, and that he didn’t scratch furniture because he’d been neutered in a former cat-life.
Monster rushed to the kitty-litter box in the bathroom while Karah Lee followed him and dug aspirin from her overnight case. Checking her appearance in the mirror, she groaned aloud. Her forehead was mottled red and blue and the skin was broken. She might possibly pull enough bangs down over it to conceal the bruise from the clinic staff, but it would take a better actress than she was to conceal the fact that her head was throbbing so hard it nearly crossed her eyes.
But she would be there, no matter what.
Fawn Morrison opened her eyes to dim, green-shaded light and the sound of tires on blacktop only a few yards from where she lay. She unwound herself from the tight-little-ball position in which she always slept, and brushed aside a pine branch that scratched at her cheek with the puff of every breeze. Her stomach cramped. Her feet hurt from the cuts and bruises she’d gotten from her barefoot run through the hazard-pocked darkness last night. Her ankle ached.
From the jumbled-together restaurants up the hill on Highway 76, she caught a whiff of frying bacon, and it reminded her how hungry she was in spite of her stomachache. It also reminded her where she was, and why.
Last night, she’d raced away from the crowd as fast as she could run, tripping over curbs in the dark, stumbling into bushes she couldn’t see and, finally, scrambling down a steep, muddy embankment to this place. Unable to go farther, and hurting too much to care if she got caught, she’d curled up and cried.
Again this morning, the tears blurred her vision. Bruce was murdered! The police thought she was the murderer, and Harv knew what she looked like. He couldn’t afford to let a murder witness live. And if she was right about that flash drive storage device in her purse, Harv would be after it. She couldn’t afford to let him—or the police—get to her.
She couldn’t let anybody find her—which meant she couldn’t let anyone recognize her.
Another car swept past, and Fawn eased herself farther down the muddy, tree-lined bank to a tiny creek that trickled over some rocks in the shadows. It didn’t smell like a sewer, so she stooped down and splashed some of the chilly water on her face. She couldn’t believe this hidden place was so close to congested Highway 76.
Her head ached, and her eyes felt swollen from crying. For the past couple of years she’d been sure she’d never cry again. She thought she’d seen everything—and done everything. But just as Great-Grandma used to say, life had a way of changing. Why couldn’t things just settle for once? Why couldn’t people learn to be nice?
Fawn missed Bruce. He’d been good to her—as good as he’d known how to be. He wasn’t one of those fine, law-abiding citizens or anything. He had a business, and it wasn’t banking. But she’d also seen him give money to the soup kitchen down the street from the mall in Las Vegas, and he was a big tipper. He was good to a lot of people. So much better than her stepfather had ever been to her…considering Bruce didn’t know how old she really was…considering he’d never forced her to do anything she didn’t pretend to want to do.
Teardrops joined the creek water on her face, and again she let herself cry. “Oh, Bruce,” she whispered. “Why’d you have to blow the whistle on those people? Why’d you have to make it such a big deal?” People broke the rules every day. He broke the rules every day. Why’d he have to pick yesterday to change his ways?
And then she couldn’t help wondering about the big, ugly crime he said they were committing in Hideaway. What kind of danger were those people in? And what would happen to them now that Bruce wasn’t there to stop whatever was happening?
Now she knew why he’d planned to take her there this weekend. He’d told her they could play—riding jet bikes and floating down a local river and hiking on some fancy new trail—but she’d known from the beginning he’d had something else on his mind.
A loud truck muffler startled her with its racket on the road. She sniffed and wiped her face, then slumped back against the bank of the creek. “What am I going to do now?”
She picked up the purse she’d used as a pillow last night, and pulled out the tiny lipstick with mirror Bruce had given her last week. From what she could see in the reflection, she had mud all over her face, and her hair was one big mat of tangles and dirt and leaves. One of her contact lenses had come out, and now she had one blue eye and one brown.
She’d have to clean up before anybody saw her.
She sniffed and blinked away the tears, then dropped to her knees and rinsed her hair and clothes as well as she could in the cold creek water to get some of the mud out. The gravel dug into her knees, adding to the pain of her cut and bruised feet.
Last night, she’d scrambled through the deserted parking lot of a mall about a half mile or so up the hill from here. Maybe she could go back there and get some clothes before it got busy this morning. And maybe she could get some other supplies, as well.
She pulled the cash from her purse and stuffed it into the pocket of her pants. She transferred the rest into her shirt pocket—including the teensy computer data storage device Bruce had told her to keep—and buried her pretty, blue-beaded purse that matched the dress she’d looked so good in. And so grown-up.
Now it was time to be a kid again. Maybe she could get away with that here in Branson, at least for a little while. Branson was nothing like Las Vegas.
Except there were murderers here, too.
The rumble of Monster’s outraged cries still echoed in Karah Lee’s ears as she stepped through the entrance of the two-story Victorian lodge that held the main office where she had checked in last night. The cat did okay alone most of the time, but he hated new places, and he let everybody know about it. Karah Lee only hoped he didn’t blast the windows out with his caterwauling today.
Maybe someone at the clinic could tell her how to contact that kid who treated animals. Monster didn’t appear to be injured, but she didn’t want to take any chances with the life of her grumpy roomie.
Drawn by the irresistible aroma of a country breakfast, Karah Lee strolled through the comfortable-looking lobby, with its Victorian sofa and chairs and fireplace, to a wide hallway that led to a large dining area with fifteen tables decorated with cut-glass vases holding fresh carnations.
This morning, the only diners in evidence sat outside on a deck overlooking the lake. Karah Lee glanced toward a steam table near the wall to her right. A white-haired octogenarian stooped over the table, stirring a pot of gravy. There were steel trays containing sausage patties, omelettes, waffles and all kinds of toppings, fresh fruit, biscuits, hash browns with onions…the aromas made Karah Lee dizzy with hunger.
“There you are.” The lady set down her platter of biscuits and gestured toward a table beside a window that overlooked the deck—and the sparkling blue lake just a few yards away. “You’re Dr. Fletcher, ain’t you?” she called across the room.
“That’s me.”
She studied Karah Lee’s scrubs and lab coat. “Cheyenne sure is looking forward to seeing you.”
“Good. I’ll walk over there as soon as I finish my breakfast.”
“She’ll be glad of that.” The woman dusted her floury hands on her apron as she crossed to Karah Lee’s table. “Nobody can believe how fast her business grew this year, and what with her signed on to work down at Dogwood Springs for the rest of the summer, to boot, she’s been working night and day sometimes, it seems like to me.” She held her hand out.
Karah Lee took it in a gentle grip, looking for a name badge that wasn’t anywhere in evidence. “You must be Edith Potts’s business partner.”
The lady’s dark eyes lit with a gleam of amusement. “Called me that, did she? ‘Idiot partner’ is more like it. I’m the one who talked her into this fool idea last fall when the former owner retired.”
“You mean this bed-and-breakfast?”
“That’s right. Can you believe it?” She gestured around the room, then plopped a biscuit in a plate, split it in half, and stepped to the warming table to spoon some gravy over the top of it. “Two old women, each with a foot in the grave, and we’re buying this place from somebody younger than we are by ten years.” She shook her head as she set the plate in front of Karah Lee. “You look like a gal who likes rib-sticking food. Oh, where’re my manners? My name’s Bertie Meyer. I’ll get you some coffee and freshly squeezed juice. You can have anything here you want to eat, you don’t have to eat what I stick under your nose.”
“I love biscuits and gravy.”
“You sure? Red always griped at me for being too pushy.”
“Biscuits and gravy are my favorites for breakfast except for waffles and strawberries and cream. Who’s Red?” Karah Lee took a bite of tender biscuit and perfectly seasoned gravy.
“That was my husband,” Bertie said. “He died last year. He was eighty-five or eighty-seven years old, we’re not sure which.”
“How could he not know how old he was?”
“When he applied for social security he thought he was seventy, and those people told him he was two years older than he thought. We knew better than to argue with the government, so we just let ’em think what they wanted.”
“Why do you think buying this bed-and-breakfast was a bad idea?”
Bertie snorted. “You kidding? I must’ve lost my senses when I talked Edith into buying this place.”
“Obviously Edith didn’t think it was a bad idea.”
“Most folks didn’t at the time, but that was before a bunch of greasy-handed scoundrels called the Beaufont Corporation bought up most of the town.” She glanced toward the steam table, then leaned toward Karah Lee. “You like black walnuts?”
“Love ’em.”
Bertie’s face crinkled in a pleased smile. Nearly a foot shorter than Karah Lee, she moved with a quickness that contradicted her professed elderliness as she poured coffee and juice and decorated a plate with a thick Belgian waffle, strawberries, whipped cream. White running shoes peeped out from beneath crisp green slacks as she quick-stepped back to the table.
“This here’s my specialty.” She set the platter in front of Karah Lee with a flourish. “Black walnut waffles made with milk and eggs from our own private supplies. My pet goat, Mildred, donated the milk.”
Karah Lee held her breath for a moment, then sniffed, closed her eyes, exhaled slowly. “Black walnut waffles,” she whispered. “I haven’t had one of these in years.”
“Aha! So you do appreciate fine dining.” Bertie glanced over her shoulder, then leaned forward, lowering her voice. “Don’t tell Cheyenne I said so, but she could use a little culture. Poor gal can’t tolerate black walnuts.” She pulled a chair out and seated herself across from Karah Lee. “You go ahead and eat, and I’ll fill you in on some of the stuff that’s been going on around here lately.”
“You mean like the greasy scoundrels who bought up the town?”
“Two men in nice coveralls and bill caps, posing as farmers, came along with a deal I couldn’t pass up. I should’ve known they was fakes when their hats didn’t have a single sweat mark on ’em, and the overalls were brand-new. Red and I worked hard on that farm all our married life, and you know what? Those frauds couldn’t farm a two-bit garden. I should’ve seen it, but I was so crazy with loneliness after Red died, I couldn’t think straight.”
“They offered you a lot of money?” Karah Lee asked between bites of a delicacy so scrumptious it was making her high.
“The money wasn’t bad, nosiree. To boot, I told myself they was real farmers, and the land needed to be farmed. Now those so-called farmers are subdividing my home, and I can’t hardly stand it. I’m just glad I sold our milk goats to the boys’ ranch across the lake. No telling what those idiots would’ve done to my babies.”
“Someone mentioned there was a local boys’ ranch.”
Bertie nodded. “Dane Gideon—he’s our mayor?—he runs it. Wouldn’t be surprised if your boss ended up over there at that ranch with him. Wouldn’t be surprised at all.”
“Dr. Allison?”
“Cheyenne. She and Dane’ve been sweet on each other since before Red died—that’s how I count time now—Before Red, and After Red.”
The food was so distractingly delicious, Karah Lee couldn’t keep up. She blinked in confusion.
Bertie gave an inspection of Karah Lee’s empty coffee cup, then carried it over to the pot for a refill. “Dane Gideon also owns the general store down the street from the clinic. I should’ve listened to him. He warned me to check out that offer a little closer, but did I listen? Oh, no, not me. In a few months, when they change the whole look of our town and get that monster condominium built and sold to the poor saps who’ve been flocking in here, Edith and I’ll be out of a job, sure enough.”
“Why do you say that?”
Bertie shook her head. “Honey, I’ve seen the tourists pour in here like this before. It was a regular holiday boomtown back when Branson got put on the maps with all those singing stars. Half those famous people came right here to this little place to stay when they wasn’t performing. Then the developers built more of them fancy hotels closer to Branson, and we lost a lot of business. Mark my words, when that condo building’s finished, it’ll suck all the attention away from our little bed-and-breakfast. Tourists are fickle folk.”
“I bet you’re wrong.” Karah Lee savored the final mouthful of strawberries and whipped cream, then wiped her mouth and pushed away from the table. “You’ve got what, ten cottages along the shore?”
“That’s right, and three more rooms upstairs in this building, though the top floor ain’t finished yet. Too quaint for the crowd the big boys are trying to reel in. Why, they’re building them an honest-to-goodness hiking trail, and renting out kayaks and bicycles, and running one of them starlight-dinner boat rides into Branson. Ain’t any way Edith and I can compete with that. And jet bikes! I never heard of such a thing around here. It’ll scare all our fishermen away. They’ll hate it.”
“Seems to me you’ll get a good clientele from those who just want peace and quiet, not all that crazy activity,” Karah Lee commented.
Bertie leaned forward, the skin around her eyes crinkling with worry. “But I know our customers, and they ain’t going to stay around here with all that activity. That company is set to take over this whole town. We won’t be the same.”
Karah Lee remembered what Taylor had said on that subject last night. Was his forecast of a disaster accurate after all? Bertie seemed to think so.
Dressed in new jeans, a pink T-shirt with LOVE BRANSON in big blue letters across the front and white canvas tennis shoes, Fawn carried the rest of her purchases across the parking lot of the outlet mall with the bright blue roof. Her ankle still felt stiff, but she tried really hard not to limp. She wanted to continue blending into the crowd—until she could escape it.
As soon as she reached the quiet backside of the mall, she cut behind the strip of buildings where no one could see her, then pulled out a compass and a map of Branson and studied the map for a minute to get her bearings.
She’d gone on a wilderness trek with a church youth group a couple of years ago—some friends of hers had tried for a few months to “save” her soul. All that Jesus and God talk didn’t make much sense to her. Why would she want another father? They weren’t good for anything but leaving. Or worse.
Anyway, the trek had been fun, and she’d learned some great stuff, like how to use a compass and how to wrap a sprained ankle. Judging by the map, she needed to cross Highway 76 and find a nightly condorental place down by Lake Taneycomo. If she pulled her con right, without getting caught, she might be able to find a place to hide out for a few days, until the police decided she’d left town.
But first, she needed to make a few changes. Still trying not to limp, Fawn scrambled back down to the bank where she’d slept the night before and opened her bags of purchases. She pulled out the denim backpack she’d gotten for half price at the wilderness outfitter store, tore off the tags and opened the zipped pockets so she could stuff it full. She stuck toiletries into the pockets, along with food, extra underwear and some shorts. By the time she filled the compartments, they would hardly zip shut.
She shoved the pack to the side and pulled out a food-coloring kit she’d purchased at the kitchen-supply outlet. In that whole mall, she hadn’t found a single hair-color kit, so she’d have to make do. She was allergic to the hair-color developer, anyway.
Beside the little plastic bottles she set a tiny bottle of shampoo, a pair of rubber gloves, a mirror, comb, scissors. When she got finished with this rig, nobody’d recognize her from last night.
Before Fawn went to Las Vegas, she’d been an emancipated minor living with two older girls. One of her roommates had been a beautician and had taught her some of the basics, but there wasn’t time for anything fancy right now. She whacked her hair off in long chunks, then buried the telltale blond strands beneath the mud along the bank, just in case someone came looking for her here. She couldn’t afford to let them know what she might look like after she finished this.
She washed her hair, combed it out, trimmed it again. Using the rubber gloves, she mixed the food coloring until it was the same sort of burgundy brown a lot of kids sported, and spread it onto her hair, adding water from the creek to get it soaked through. The food coloring stained her cheeks—she had to scrub hard and even then didn’t get it all off. Still, it looked like a big birthmark, so maybe she’d get by with it.
By the time she finished her makeover, Fawn didn’t even recognize herself. She was a new person. Again. She’d done that a lot lately.
Sometimes it seemed as if she might go through the rest of her life becoming a new person every few weeks—as if the old person wasn’t good enough.
When would the real Fawn Morrison ever be accepted as she was?
Chapter Five
Taylor Jackson inhaled the sweet scent of honeysuckle through the open window of his truck as he pulled into the scenic overlook above Hideaway. The Beaufont Corporation had just completed their new hiking trail along this ridge, and even though he wasn’t crazy about all the disimprovements those people were making, he liked this trail. It was the only smart move they’d made, in spite of the difficulties with zoning laws and purchase of the land. Their efforts would help draw the business they would need to fill that ten-story condominium eyesore under construction at the east edge of town.
He might even use that trail himself, from time to time. One thing he missed about his job at the Grand Canyon—one of the only things—was the hiking.
As the echo of hammers, saws and the rumble of the crane drifted up to the cliffs from the construction site, Taylor climbed out of the truck, taking his coffee with him. He glanced at the ashtray and considered, for just a moment, pulling a cigarette from the pack he kept stashed there. But he was trying hard to quit. He’d managed to do it three times already in the past year. Amazing how hard it was for a guy to live healthy when there were times that he saw the futility of living at all.
Gravel crunched beneath the soles of his boots as he strolled to the edge of the pavement to gaze down on the village of Hideaway. Settled comfortably on a small peninsula along the shore of the Table Rock Lake, the tiny town with a population of barely over a thousand always held him spellbound. He came to this spot often to remind himself why he’d requested the transfer to the Ozarks. The contrast between this view and the view from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon often made him feel as if he had traveled to a different planet.
Of course, he loved the starkly angled vistas of one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. He couldn’t imagine anyone who wouldn’t gaze in awe across the shadowed gorges from the South Rim to the North Rim and marvel at God’s artwork. Part of his heart would always belong to the Canyon. But he no longer wanted to live with the memories the place continued to evoke.
Here in Missouri, he’d made no memories except those from childhood, when he had traveled historic Route 66 with his parents on vacation, and they’d made a detour south to this place.
The beauty of this area began with the lush June green of an abundant Ozark Garden of Eden, brilliant with flowers that dotted the grass and trees like enormous jewels. Generously proportioned gazebos dotted the broad lawn that reached into the lake on a peninsula down below. The Victorian angles and gingerbread trim of those gazebos blended with the bright yellow, green, blue and pink cottages of the Lakeside along the shore at the west edge of town.
Okay, so a guy could live without the pink, but the overall effect wasn’t bad.
A large new dock, crowded with boats, extended from the shore, and it appeared as if construction had begun on still another dock to the east—another project of Beaufont. Across the lake, a tree-topped cliff—twin to the one on which Taylor stood—embraced the water and held captive vines of honeysuckle and wild roses.
The village municipal district was a square of connected brick-front buildings facing outward to the street that surrounded it on four sides. Each doorway had a flower box, and each box held red, blue, yellow or purple blooms. From Taylor’s position, he could see nearly everything that went on below, from the dock all the way back to the ancient, abandoned barn directly below him in the shadow of the cliff. The barn was old, constructed of weathered gray board, old corrugated aluminum roof, loft door broken, barely hanging, old hay spilling out. A dilapidated wood fence caged nothing more than a herd of wildly tangled weeds in the corral.
A movement redirected Taylor’s attention as the front door to the lodge at the Lakeside opened and a woman with curly red hair stepped onto the quaint, wooden front porch. She wore a long white jacket and a pink jumpsuit of some kind, though he couldn’t tell the design from here. He was pretty sure, however, that the woman was Karah Lee Fletcher. She ducked beneath a low-hanging potted plant and descended the steps to the walkway. When she reached the street, she strolled toward town. Except for the new sidewalk that encircled the town square, Hideaway had no paved public walkways.
Taylor thought about his telephone call to her this morning. He’d obviously awakened Karah Lee, and he felt badly about that. He ordinarily had a little more finesse than to call someone barely past sunrise. After last night’s conversation and this morning’s—during which she’d made clear her eagerness to cut the talk short—he’d decided not to bother her again.
She frustrated him. Last night she’d shown obvious signs of injury, and yet she’d refused any kind of treatment. Her hostile response to his concern still rankled. His main concern had been her physical safety, and even though she looked perfectly healthy to him now as she walked along the road, last night she had not seemed well.
Too many people delayed medical care after an accident, and they paid the price for it later. Was he wrong to show a little human compassion this morning, knowing she was alone, with possible brain injury?
He just needed to keep reminding himself this wasn’t the Grand Canyon, where the hot, dry climate had added a dash of danger to every situation during his shifts. The climate in the rolling hills of these Missouri Ozarks was more forgiving. But this was about an accident, not heatstroke, and on his watch, nobody was going to die from neglect.
The figure below crossed the street as she reached the square, and Taylor nodded with satisfaction. She was going to the clinic, just as she’d promised.
Static from the radio on his belt interrupted the rumble of the crane below, and Taylor returned to the truck as he listened to a message about the manhunt—which was actually a woman hunt. The murderer who had killed the Las Vegas businessman and the hotel employee last night in Branson had not yet been apprehended. No surprise there.
He glanced at the faxed report he’d received this morning and studied the unfocused picture of a sexy blonde in a blue dress. The image had been caught on a security camera as she ran from the scene of the crime last night. The police had lost her trail in a theater-hotel complex a few blocks away when a fire alarm went off. They’d been forced to evacuate the building. Details—and a better picture of the woman—were to follow sometime today.
Since murders were not a common thing in this area of the country, the press would be all over this. It wouldn’t surprise Taylor if the picture of this woman made the front page of the local and regional papers.
He took a sip of his coffee and automatically reached for a cigarette. He had it out of the pack and halfway to his mouth before he caught himself and returned it. He hated these things.
On impulse, he carried the pack to the trash can alongside the trail, squashed the cigarettes as if they were a hand-exercise ball and tossed them in the can. People were murdering each other in Branson, Missouri, the heart of the Bible Belt. He didn’t need any help to put himself in the grave.
Of course, he knew he’d probably break down and buy another pack tomorrow, but it felt good to make this gesture, expensive as that gesture had become lately.
He was just about to drive away, when he received another call, this one more typical for Hideaway. A child had bumped his head this morning, and the parents were concerned about a concussion. Taylor answered the call. He could get to their location in five minutes. Seemed as if he was on a roll with the concussion patients lately.
Karah Lee raised her face to the morning light—the sun had not yet appeared over the tall pine trees that stood sentinel over an outward-facing, redbrick town square. The majority of commerce in this thriving little town concentrated itself on a peninsula of land surrounded by the diamond-blue glitter of Table Rock Lake.
As she stepped across the street from the broad lawn to the sidewalk that encircled the square, she caught sight of the reflection of herself in the front window of the general store next to the brick-front clinic. She grimaced at the same tall woman with flyaway curls of red hair who watched her from the mirror every morning—and whose image she tried to avoid every chance she got.
She had never taken any delight in her appearance. She not only towered over other women, she was also taller than most men, and many of her male colleagues seemed intimidated by her.
This was her first job outside the supervision of the hospital or her trainer, and Karah Lee felt awkward. It wasn’t that she doubted her skills—her grades had always been good, her supervisors and trainers had always given her excellent reviews, and she’d breezed through med school and residency with surprising ease. If only social situations had been so easy.
When she was growing up—and up, and up—Mom had always encouraged her to hold her head high and be proud of her height. Even Dad had told her to “suck it up,” because someday she was going to be a beautiful woman.
So when did “someday” come? At thirty-four, Karah Lee did not feel attractive.
She knew what she looked like. One elderly patient a couple of months ago had called her “handsome,” whatever that meant. At least her facial features were even, and her waist was still slightly narrower than her hips. Slightly.
This morning she wanted to make a good first impression, instead of blurting out the first thing that entered her brain—which was a habit she hadn’t been able to break. People who knew her became accustomed to this tendency, but strangers didn’t always know what to think about her—last night with poor Ranger Jackson being a prime example.
She took a final breath of the sweet, cedar-scented air and pulled open the glass door on the right. The sign on the window beside it stated Hideaway Walk-in Clinic. For Emergencies, call 911.
She walked quietly across the tile floor as the door whisked shut behind her. The clinic brooded in dim silence, not quite open for business this morning. To the immediate right were two vending machines, one with candy and chips and one with drinks; they combined with the row of windows behind her to provide the sole source of illumination at the moment. Another set of doors stood open to an empty, seemingly deserted hallway that held the smell of an old building, scrubbed to a shine with a lemon cleanser.
Voices and laughter reached her from the left, and she turned and glanced through another open door to find a waiting room and reception window. Lights blinked on in the office behind the window as she watched. Good, she wasn’t late.
She took a step in that direction, but then she saw a movement in the shadows at the far side of the vending machines. There was a thump, and a grunt, and she recognized with amusement the posterior section of someone bent forward from the waist, squeezed between the machine and the wall.
She cleared her throat. There was another thump, and a low mutter of words she couldn’t decipher. Definitely male.
“Hello,” she called out to him.
“’Morning,” he said without straightening. Though muffled, his voice sounded deep and youthful.
“We need to call an electrician to get this outlet fixed,” he said. “Dane’d kill me if I tried to do it. The light was blinking when I came in. Is it okay now?”
Karah Lee turned her attention to the steady glow against the potato-chip wrappers. “Looks fine to me.”
“Great, maybe that’ll hold it until they can get over here. I’m glad the pop machine didn’t kick off in the night.” There was a shuffle of feet as he backed out toward her, then straightened to turn. “I’d hate to have to replace all those cans of—” He saw her, and his thick, black eyebrows raised in surprise.
The young guy was obviously in his teens. He had broad, muscular shoulders, ebony skin, and very short, kinky dark hair. He wore green scrubs that matched the color of the cedars outside. As all this registered with her, Karah Lee saw the realization dawn in his expressive brown eyes that he hadn’t exactly greeted her—a stranger—with dignity. He grimaced with dismay.
He recovered quickly and gave her a broad display of straight, even teeth. “Hi, you must be our new doctor.”
Karah Lee nodded and held out her hand. He took it, and she was pleased by the confident grip. “Karah Lee Fletcher.”
“Gavin Farmer, but nobody calls me by my real name. You can call me Blaze.”
She gestured to his clothing. “Are you a nurse or a tech?”
“Tech and chief flunky. I help out here when I’m not in school.” He gestured toward the machines. “I’ve just been placed in charge of potato chips and soda, and I’ve already failed.” He didn’t sound upset about it. In fact, he struck Karah Lee as one of those terminally cheerful morning people who tended to get on her nerves.
“College?” she asked.
His grin broadened with pleasure. “Really? I look like a college kid?”
She nodded.
“Not for another year. Come on, I’ll introduce you to the rest of the staff and show you around the place, if they’ll let me.” He led the way across the cozy waiting room toward the reception window where a woman sat with her back to the room, listening to an ambulance radio at the far side of the oblong office space.
“Hey, Jill, look who I found,” Blaze announced as he stepped up to the window. “Our newest staff victim, Dr. Karah Lee Fletcher.”
Without turning around, the woman held her hand up to silence him. She had short hair that resembled a brown football helmet. Karah Lee thought that style had gone out of fashion in the last millennium, but she’d never been one to keep up with fads.
Blaze gave Karah Lee an apologetic glance. “Believe it or not, she’s usually friendly,” he muttered.
“Hush a minute, Blaze,” Jill said, her voice deep and raspy. “I’m waiting for some news.”
He shrugged and leaned toward Karah Lee. “Jill’s our nurse and general troublemaker. And she’s doing secretary-receptionist duties since we don’t have one right now.”
A voice shot over the radio. “Nothing here, Jill. Over.”
She pressed the talk button. “You’re sure about that?” She released the button and glanced over her shoulder at Blaze and Karah Lee. “A friend of mine got a call this morning from Mary Coley, who lives out by the road a few miles from here. Said somebody swerved to miss a deer and ran into a tree last night. That shy ranger, Taylor What’s-his-name, took the call, but he’s tight as a clam and never shares details. You hear anything about a wreck?”
Karah Lee felt a sudden buzz of discomfort.
“Not a peep,” Blaze said. “I want to introduce Cheyenne to Dr. Fletcher before we get too busy to—”
The radio chugged its static over the line again. “…the crew didn’t make any runs to Springfield last night…either dead or alive. Over.”
Blaze gave a long-suffering sigh and stepped forward. “Jill, would you quit playing?” There was a cajoling edge to his voice now. “This is our new doctor. At least say good morning.”
Jill turned from the radio and straightened, grimacing ruefully. “Sorry. Hi, Dr. Fletcher. Nice to meet you. We’ve got a bet going on how many car-versus-animal accident patients we’ll have for the month of June.” She raised her voice, as if speaking to someone in another room. “So far it’s three and I’m winning.”
“Last night doesn’t count until it’s confirmed,” came a slightly familiar voice from down the hallway. “And besides, our bet was on how many patients we received.” The sound of the voice drew closer. “I haven’t seen any patients yet this morning, have you?” The speaker stepped into view, and Karah Lee recognized her new employer, Dr. Cheyenne Allison.
Dr. Allison had hair the color of midnight, cut in a wash-and-wear shag that barely reached her shoulders. She had dark brown eyes and an olive complexion that suggested a Native American heritage. At about five feet seven inches, she had to tilt her head to look up at Karah Lee.
“Oops, you caught us being unprofessional.” Dr. Allison opened the door between the waiting room and the treatment area and stepped out to shake Karah Lee’s hand with the same firm grip Karah Lee remembered from their interview in Branson earlier in the spring.
“Hi, Dr. Allison.”
“Shy.”
Karah Lee frowned.
“Call me Shy. Short for Cheyenne.”
Ah. Chey.
“First order of business,” Cheyenne said, “we’re all on a first-name basis around here, patients, doctors, staff. Some of the older patients like to be called Mr. or Mrs. and they insist on calling me Dr., it makes them feel more secure, but other than that we have a more relaxed office. Call me Chey or Cheyenne.”
“Chey. Fine.” Karah Lee pulled up an office chair and sat down. “I go by Karah Lee. So this is what you do for entertainment around here? Keep tabs on car wrecks?”
Jill and Cheyenne glanced at each other sheepishly.
Blaze chuckled. “Serves you right for betting.”
Jill shrugged. “We’re not betting for money, we’re just competing for one of Bertie’s black walnut pies.”
“Oh, no, you don’t. I’ve got dibs on a goat cheese,” Cheyenne said. “Not black walnut.”
“Ah, that’s right,” Karah Lee said. “I heard you didn’t exactly have a sophisticated palate.”
The gently angular lines of Chey’s face filled with amusement. “Who told you that?”
Jill laughed. “Anybody in town could’ve told her that. Hey, I heard the dummy who caused the accident last night had a cat in the car. Does that count as a patient?”
“No way!” Cheyenne protested. “That’s cheating.”
Karah Lee forced a smile. Time to get this over with. “Since the dummy’s cat suffered fewer injuries than even the dummy herself, I don’t think you can count him as a patient. We might be checking out the dummy later. Depends on how the day goes.”
If she hadn’t been the victim of this unintentional joke, she would have laughed at the expressions of surprise on their faces. Blaze did laugh. Loudly.
She reached up and pushed back her bangs to expose the injury. “Deer ran out in front of me and I swerved and hit a tree. Actually, it was my car that hit the tree. I had sunglasses clipped to the visor, and my head made contact during impact. End of story. My cat’s okay and everything is fine. You got any coffee? I could use another dose of caffeine.”
Static jerked through the ambulance radio and drowned out Jill’s abject apology. A disembodied voice announced the pending arrival of a small child who had slipped and smacked his head against the rocks while chasing a squirrel.
As the radio voice gave specifics, Karah Lee turned to Blaze. “You’d better give me that tour while we’ve still got time.”
Chapter Six
Taylor led the way to the clinic in his truck, checking the rearview mirror to make sure the parents of the injured child were keeping up in their own car. The damage wasn’t bad, but Dr. Allison—who preferred to be called by her first name instead of her title—would probably want to do a suture or two.
The radio buzzed at him again, and he received an updated report about the woman hunt in Branson. For some reason, authorities believed the suspect was still in town. To Taylor, that was stupid. With all the roads that led out of Branson, no murderer was going to hang around to get nabbed by the police.
Taylor switched off the radio as he parked in front of the clinic. He had more important things to take care of right now. Branson could keep its murderers.
Blaze opened the door to the fourth and last exam room. “I’ll never make fun of my patients. If I ever have any.”
Karah Lee glanced at him curiously as she stepped into the room and inhaled the familiar scent of iodine and alcohol. “You’re going to be a doctor?”
“A vet. If I can make the grades. What were you saying about your cat?” Blaze followed her inside. “Did he get hurt in the wreck?”
“He seems fine this morning, but I’d like to have a vet take a look at him.”
“You staying over at Bert’s place?”
“Bert?”
“You know, Bertie Meyer. She and Edith run the Lakeside.”
“Oh, that’s right.” A small town, where everyone knew everyone, just like Karah Lee’s hometown. “Yes, that’s where I’m staying.”
“I can run over there this morning when I get a chance and take a look at him for you. What’s his name?”
“Monster. You already take patients?” She remembered Ranger Jackson telling her about him.
“Right now I’m all Hideaway’s got. My dad was a vet, and I worked with him.”
“So where’s he?”
There was a slight hesitation, then, “He died. My mom and I don’t get along. They were divorced. That’s why I live at the boys’ ranch now.”
“Oh.” There you go, Fletcher, putting your foot in it again. “When did he die?”
“Last year.”
“Oh, man. Sorry. I lost my dad when I was just a little older than you.”
“How’d he die?” Blaze asked.
“He didn’t die. He left.”
It was Blaze’s turned to grimace, and he did it with his whole face, his thick, dark eyebrows drawing close above beautifully expressive eyes. “I think that’d be worse than having him die.”
Karah Lee nodded. “But I don’t think he’d agree.”
Blaze’s grimace lifted.
“So when can you see my cat?”
“Lunch break.”
“Karah Lee?” came her new boss’s voice. “You want to come in here a minute? I need a big, strong, brave patient.”
Karah Lee frowned at Blaze. “Patient?”
He shrugged at her. “Better do what she says. She’s a dead-on shot with pepper spray.”
“I heard that!” Cheyenne called from the other room.
Blaze grinned and rolled his eyes. “I’ll explain later,” he whispered.
After giving a report at the clinic, Taylor left the little boy and his parents in Dr. Allison’s capable care and strolled back toward his truck, glancing along the sidewalk in both directions as he stepped from the curb. He’d seen no tall woman with red hair in the waiting room, and she was nowhere on the street. No way would he ask about her at the clinic. It was no longer his business.
It wasn’t as if he wanted to run into Karah Lee—she might suspect him of stalking her.
He climbed into the Jeep and glanced toward the front doors of the general store next to the clinic. No, he would not buy another pack of cigarettes.
He was driving west on Hideaway Road, when he saw a late-model white Toyota Camry sedan parked alongside the road beneath a heavy overhang of trees. One man crouched beside the right front tire while another man was bent over, apparently searching through the trunk for something that didn’t seem to be there.
Taylor parked and got out of the truck. “Lose your jack?”
Both men looked up at him. He noticed the motor was still running. “Engine problems?”
The man stooping at the right front tire straightened and hurried around the car toward him. He wore a sleeveless white T-shirt, which revealed a tattoo of an eye on his left shoulder. “I’ll say. Thing’s been dying on us all morning, and then this.” He gestured with disgust toward the front, just as a car came speeding around the curve.
Tires squealed on blacktop as the driver caught sight of them and swerved to avoid a collision.
“You say you’ve got a jack?” Tattoo asked. “The one in the trunk’s busted, and it’s a little dangerous here on the road. Trouble is, there’s no shoulder.”
Taylor could only pray a car with a less cautious driver didn’t come barreling around the curve before they could get out of the way. “I’ll get my tools.”
Working as quickly as possible, Taylor helped the guys with their tire and had them on their way within ten minutes.
The last thing he did as the car disappeared from sight around the bend was write down their license number. It was a habit he’d picked up years ago, working the Canyon. Ordinarily, he’d have done a more thorough check immediately, but not with cars screeching around the hairpin curve at double the speed limit.
Thirty minutes later, he received a call about a stolen vehicle.
Karah Lee had her first taste of Cheyenne Allison’s bedside manner in exam room three in the presence of a frightened, screaming five-year-old boy named Jonah.
“There, now, it’ll be okay, sweetheart.” Chey’s voice settled into the room like a soothing blanket. “Let me tell you what I’m going to do. You see this big strong doctor?” She placed a hand on Karah Lee’s shoulder. “She has a bump on her head, too.”
The child and his parents turned their attention to Karah Lee, and she suppressed a groan. So much for confidentiality in this office. Hadn’t these people ever heard of government regulations?
Chey’s hand tightened on Karah Lee’s shoulder, urging her to lean forward; then, with her other hand she brushed Karah Lee’s bangs aside. The child’s eyes widened at the sight of the uncovered wound.
“Why don’t you watch how we fix her head,” Chey suggested. “Then, if she doesn’t cry, you won’t mind letting us do the same thing to you, will you?”
Like magic, Jonah’s tear faucet stopped. He studied Karah Lee with serious intensity, hiccuped, then sighed. “Does it hurt bad?”
“It did when I hit it.” Karah Lee leaned closer to him. “Want to compare? Hey, I think mine’s bigger than yours.” Truly, his injury didn’t look too deep.
From the periphery of her vision she caught sight of Cheyenne winking at the parents. Okay, this could work. Karah Lee had been mothered by manipulative medical personnel before. In fact, she tended to be that way, herself.
With the observant child watching, Cheyenne sat Karah Lee on a stool and cleaned her wound with gentle pressure. She dabbed away the excess moisture and applied a dermatological adhesive instead of sutures or bandages. Her style was a little unorthodox, but Karah Lee approved.
Ordinarily, a wound could be sutured without question up to six hours after the injury. Between six and twelve hours, closure of the wound could be questionable, and after twelve hours Karah Lee never attempted it. No one did. Even though it had been more than six hours after Karah Lee’s injury, the facial skin had a good blood supply, and this should heal quickly in spite of the delay of closure.
“All done,” Cheyenne said a moment after applying the adhesive.
Jonah’s eyes widened. He studied the repair job a moment. “Did it hurt?” he asked Karah Lee.
“I didn’t cry, did I?”
“Grown-ups never cry.”
“Well, it wasn’t as much fun as eating chocolate chip cookies, but it feels better than being socked in the nose by my sister when I was five. Can I fix your forehead now?”
“Will you stick me with a needle?”
Karah Lee glanced at the mother. “Has he ever had a tetanus shot?”
“Last year when he stepped on a piece of tin and cut his foot,” she said.
“Then I don’t think we’ll need to use a needle.” There would be no need for sutures on this one. Kids healed quickly, and Karah Lee held a minimalist approach when it came to risk of traumatization.
As she cleaned Jonah’s wound and soothed him and chatted with him about her big cat named Monster, and his dog named Bo, and her sister who was a bully, and his little brother who still wet his pants, she began to enjoy herself. Kids were so much easier to talk to than adults.
A couple of years ago, when Karah Lee was nearing the end of her first year in residency, one of the third year residents casually remarked that she shouldn’t go into pediatric medicine because her size might scare the kids. Instead of giving in to her knee-jerk desire to punch the dolt in the stomach, she’d challenged him to a duel to see who could finish up the year with the fewest crying kids. According to the nurses, Karah Lee had won by a huge margin.
“Are you done yet?” Jonah asked as Karah Lee held the skin together for the bonding agent to set.
“Can you count to a hundred?”
“Yes,” he said, as if the question were an insult.
“Let’s hear it.”
Though aware Cheyenne was watching her, Karah Lee didn’t feel uncomfortable about being observed. She’d had plenty of that in the past few years.
The staff here seemed friendly, in spite of the disparaging remark Jill had made about reckless drivers. Karah Lee had made a few comments like that, herself, from time to time. Today she was learning a valuable lesson about prejudging patients.
Cheyenne left to take a telephone call before Jonah finished counting, and the treatment ended without mishap, or more tears. As Karah Lee walked the relieved family to the waiting room, Blaze stepped to the reception window and handed Jonah a bright red balloon animal in the approximate shape of a poodle. Jonah laughed and played with the poodle while Jill talked to the uninsured parents about the fee for treatment.
Blaze tapped Karah Lee on the shoulder from behind. “Chey wants to see you in her office as soon as you’re finished.”
“I’m done.”
“Okay, but tell her to make it quick. We’ve got incoming.”
“Tell her yourself. This is my first day on the job, and I have to make a good impression on the boss.”
She found Chey sitting in her office at the desk, reading a medical chart. “You wanted to see me?”
Setting the chart aside, Cheyenne glanced up at her thoughtfully. “Close the door and have a seat.”
“I guess you have paperwork for me to fill out.” The red tape could be daunting for doctors on a new job. Licenses, permits, clearing for insurance—both professional liability and various types of coverage for patients—took up a lot of a doc’s time, and it never seemed to end.
For a moment, Cheyenne remained silent. She didn’t smile as she glanced out the front window that overlooked the broad lawn and the lake.
The silence grew uncomfortable. “Did you have a problem with the treatment I gave Jonah?” Karah Lee asked.
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Hannah Alexander
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современная зарубежная литература
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: A TEENAGE FUGITIVE–Youthful master of disguise Fawn Morrison comes to Hideaway seeking refuge. Now that her dangerous game has turned deadly, she must entrust her safety to strangers.A DOUBTING DOCTOR–Karah Lee Fletcher relishes the challenges offered by Hideaway′s new clinic, until an unsettling discovery shakes her confidence. Despite self-doubt, she reaches out to Fawn and finds unexpected grace.A LONELY RANGER–Their first meeting leaves Ranger Taylor Jackson vowing to avoid strong-willed Karah Lee. Yet, observing her interact with patients, Taylor begins to feel admiration. Could it lead to something deeper?