Fair Warning
Fair Warning
Hannah Alexander
Cop's wife, mother-to-be, respected ICU nurse–Willow Traynor had a rich life. Then her husband was shot, and she was hit by a speeding car. Doubting it was an accident, she quit her job and fled.In the Ozarks, Willow hoped to find peace. But arson destroyed everything she had and almost killed her brother. Now she was certain: someone was targeting her. The support of new friends, especially Dr. Graham Vaughn and his sister, rekindled her hope for a fresh start. But meanwhile her stalker was getting closer, bolder and more determined….
Critical Praise for
HANNAH ALEXANDER’S
Hideaway Novels
GRAVE RISK
“The latest in Alexander’s Hideaway series is filled with mystery and intrigue. Readers familiar with the series will appreciate how the author keeps the characters fresh and appealing.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
FAIR WARNING
“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
LAST RESORT
“The third novel in Alexander’s Hideaway romantic suspense series (after the Christy Award-winning Hideaway and Safe Haven) is a gripping tale with sympathetic characters that will draw readers into its web. The kidnapped Clarissa’s inner dialogue may remind some of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.”
—Library Journal
SAFE HAVEN
“Safe Haven has an excellent plot. I was hooked from the first page and felt like I was riding a roller coaster until the last. Ms. Alexander’s three protagonists kept my adrenaline-racing. But Fawn stole the show—who could resist a sixteen-year-old running for her life? This writer is a crowd pleaser.”
—Rendezvous
HIDEAWAY
“Genuine humor and an interesting cast of characters keep the story perking along…and there are a few surprises…an enjoyable read.”
—Publishers Weekly
Fair Warning
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In loving memory of June James,
born July 16, 1922, passed on to heaven
January 29, 2005. Aunt June was filled with
the life and laughter that inspired
the character of Ginger Carpenter.
Acknowledgments
Joan Marlow Golan, executive editor of Steeple Hill, runs a tight ship and is a constant encourager. This attitude infects the rest of her staff, and we are the ones who benefit. We appreciate you all!
Also going above and beyond the call of duty yet again is Lorene Cook, mom extraordinaire, who supports, encourages, runs errands and markets like a pro. Thanks, Mom.
Thanks to retired Battalion Chief Fred Baugher, who knows fire and doesn’t mind his niece picking his brain from time to time.
Thanks to Captain Powell of Branson Police Department for great information about the station and protocol.
Thanks to Susan May Warren, fellow novelist and former missionary to Russia, who gave us some great insights.
Thanks to Barbara Warren for your word-slashing ability, and to Jackie Bolton for personal insights.
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 One
W illow Traynor’s eyes opened to the blackness of deep night as the noise and flash of an overbusy dream receded into the mist of her subconscious.
She held her breath as her eyes adjusted to the square edges of the dresser across the room, the dim reflection of light in the mirror, the ghostly drift of gauzy white curtains above the heat register. Something had awakened her.
She knew the dream had not been a nightmare, because in the past two years it seemed as if nightmares had become her constant companions. She would have recognized the aftereffects. She didn’t feel them now—no racing heart, no night sweats, no rush of relief upon waking to discover that she was still alive.
Something else, then. A noise? Perhaps a passing car, or a boat on the lake? The neighbors in the apartment complex? Sometimes the two little Jameson girls got rambunctious late at night, and Mrs. Bartholomew in the unit next door called to complain.
Willow sat up and peered toward the small digital numbers on the nightstand clock. Two-thirty, April 1. Probably wasn’t the children.
It might be something as insignificant as the unfamiliar silence. Even after two weeks she hadn’t yet adjusted to the move—or rather, the escape—from bustling Kansas City to her brother’s rural log cabin six miles south of Branson in the Missouri Ozarks. Major change.
She had never lived this far out in the country. Although the eight-unit apartment lodge her brother managed meant they weren’t exactly isolated from civilization, it was nothing like city life. Living in the cabin, situated on the shore of Table Rock Lake, was more like being on permanent vacation. Willow still struggled to come to grips with the comparative solitude.
As she stared into darkness, the square of sliding glass door at the far end of her room seemed to emit a pulsing glow. She blinked to clear her vision, but the glow increased. Headlights from a boat on the lake, perhaps? Except she heard no sound of a boat motor.
She turned her back to the light and plumped her pillow. “None of my business anyway,” she whispered into the darkness.
Her brother, Preston, certainly didn’t want her help keeping track of the renters. As he’d told her several times in the past two weeks, she needed to take a break and heal.
After a little more than twenty-three months, she’d almost given up hope of that. True, she no longer relived the night she’d received the visit from the police chief to tell her that her husband had been killed in the line of duty. At least, she didn’t relive it every single night. Maybe more like once a week now.
And she no longer had the nightly awakenings to cries of her forever unborn child. Only a couple of times a week did she cringe when someone invaded her personal space.
People did that all the time now, because her personal space had extended, in the past twenty-three months, to include whatever room she was in. She usually allowed people she knew into her personal space, but there were still those times when she could do nothing but withdraw from the world.
Since two attempts had been made on her own life after Travis was killed, she’d found herself suspecting practically everyone. She had known when she married Travis that he had one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable—not only was he a cop, but he was an undercover narcotics agent.
Here in Missouri, the Bible Belt, the heart of the nation, a war raged against illegal drugs, particularly methamphetamines. She had never dreamed the danger would extend to the cop’s family. But with Travis’s death, it most certainly had.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, exhaled, tempting sleep with as much entreaty as she could muster, willing her body to relax. The art of relaxing had become a lost skill for her.
Since arriving here in the middle of March, she’d assured herself daily that the only things she had to fear in this place were her memories. If she died, it would be a side effect of the grief that had imprisoned her since the day she lost Travis.
There’s nothing out there. It’s your imagination. Again.
Wasn’t that what everybody kept telling her? Even Preston. They hadn’t exactly told her they thought she was imagining the attempts on her life, but after the investigations turned up no evidence of foul play, she had felt her friends and her brother looking at her differently.
Try as she might, her eyes refused to remain closed. A faint flash of light greeted her again from the wall. She sighed and rolled from the bed, irritated by her exaggerated sense of responsibility. Maybe one of the renters was wandering around the yard with a flashlight, or maybe there was a party going on.
She slipped noiselessly to the glass door and unlatched it. All she needed was to prove to herself that no one hovered in the shadows watching her, waiting for her to go back to sleep so they could pounce.
And yet, what if someone was there this time?
She slid the door open and frowned. She caught a faint whiff of smoke, with an underlying scent of something else, pungent and strong.
What was it? Turpentine? Like the bottle of stuff Preston had been using in the shed a couple of days ago? No. Not turpentine…kerosene?
No.
Her frown deepened. Had Preston left the door open to the utility shed in the back? He’d spilled some gasoline on his clothes yesterday when he was working on the boat motor, preparing it for the coming warm days of spring.
She sniffed again. Smoke. Fuel.
She caught her breath. Smoke? “Preston!” she cried over her shoulder. “Fire!”
She shoved the door wide and dashed onto the cold deck. The wood chilled her bare feet. The odor of smoke blasted her. She scrambled down the steps and around the west side of the cabin, racing between it and the east wall of the apartment lodge.
Light flared as she reached the front corner of the cabin. To her horror, she saw several jagged lines of flame streaking across the yard—snakes of fire, winding through the darkness.
She blinked and stared, stumbling in the grass, fighting confusion. What was going on? The flames pitched in headlong flight directly toward the cabin.
“Preston!” she screamed. “Oh, Lord, help us!” Please, let this be another dream.
She raced toward the front door. She couldn’t shake the impression that she’d stepped into one of those B movies where a long, glowing fuse raced toward a bomb. Fuses. That was what those ribbons of flame looked like.
Before she reached the front steps, she saw her brother’s dark form stumbling out the door onto the porch.
“Get away!” he called. “Willow, get—”
A curtain of flames suddenly blasted across the wooden porch with all the force of an explosion. Preston leaped free of the fire and caught Willow in a tackle that rocked her backward. They crashed into the privacy hedge separating the cabin’s yard from the wider lawn encircling the entire complex.
He shoved her forward, through the hedge. She cried out as roots and stones bruised her bare feet. Preston kept pushing her farther from the danger.
They collapsed into the grass.
“Willow, you okay?” Preston asked, his deep voice harsh with alarm, breathing as if he’d run for miles.
“Yes. What’s happening?” She stumbled to her feet and drew back the hedge branches to stare at the fire, nearly deafened by the roar.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her around to face him. “Listen, Willow, help me get the others out. I’ll call 9-1-1 as soon as I get to a phone, so don’t worry about that, just get the people out of here! Take the top level, I’ll take the bottom, but keep a close watch on the fire.”
She swallowed hard, her attention returning to the holocaust as if she were a human moth.
He took her by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh with urgency. “Willow, go now. Hurry!”
Slipping on the damp grass, she scrambled toward the first unit. The lodge was built into a hillside, so both floors were at ground level, and both had scenic views of the lake below.
She reached unit One A and pounded on the door as she rang the doorbell, remembering the two little girls and their single mom who lived there.
“Sandi!” she shouted. “Get the girls and get out. Sandi, please wake up!”
She glanced over her shoulder. Preston was gone. Fire engulfed the cabin. Smoke billowed into the sky, casting an eerie glow. It was crazy! Those streaks of fire…like fuses…what was happening? As she watched, headlights came on about a quarter of a mile away, brushing the treetops with their probing beams.
No one answered at Sandi Jameson’s apartment. Willow picked up a decorative flowerpot on the porch and flung it through the glass pane in the door. The crash of shattering glass should have awakened anyone inside.
“Sandi?” she shouted through the gaping hole. “Fire! Get out of there. Now!” She reached through the window, fumbled for the door latch and snapped it open, catching her right arm on a glass shard as she withdrew her hand. The sharp point sliced through the tender flesh of her inner forearm.
Gasping, she bent over with the shock of pain. There was no time to deal with it. She shoved her way inside. No light, no one came running into the room. Could they be gone?
She rushed through a kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes and trash of unbelievable proportions, past the living room. She found her way to the bedrooms at the far west end of the hall.
“Sandi!”
She heard a startled squeal through one of the doors and burst inside to find Sandi’s two little girls, Brittany and Lucy, huddled together on the lower level of a set of bunk beds. They wore tattered, oversize T-shirts for nightgowns.
“Girls, it’s okay,” Willow said, rushing to them. “We’ve got to get out of this apartment now. Where’s your mother?”
“Sissy, she’s bloody!” five-year-old Brittany wailed, clinging to her older sister.
Willow looked down at her right arm and saw the blood dripping at a rate that alarmed her. “It’s okay, honey. I’ll take care of it later. Right now we’ve got to get you out of here. Please tell me where your mother is.”
“Not here,” said seven-year-old Lucy. “We can’t leave the apartment. Mom said never leave the apartment when she’s not here.”
“Your mother’s gone?”
The girls stared at her, one pair of green eyes and one pair of brown eyes wide with apprehension.
“Your mother will want you to leave this time,” Willow said. “I need to get you out of here to safety. You can trust me. I’m not going to hurt you.” She reached for Brittany, who cried out and backed away, staring at Willow’s arm.
“But what’s wrong? What’s happening?” Lucy asked.
“Preston’s cabin is on fire.” Willow forced her voice to remain gentle and reassuring, though she felt anything but calm. “We need to get you out of here because the cabin is too close to the lodge.”
“A fire?” Brittany wailed.
“It’s okay, I’ll get you to safety.” Willow would deal with the negligent mother later. She switched on the overhead light and reached into the connecting bathroom for a towel.
In deference to the squeamish child, she wrapped her wound with the not-so-clean towel, then scooped the youngster into her arms and grabbed the older sister’s hand. “Girls, you’ll have to trust me. This way.”
Brittany trembled in Willow’s arms, but held tightly around her neck and burrowed against her shoulder.
There were more people who needed to be warned. Would she reach them all in time?
Graham Vaughn snapped awake at the first trill of his cell phone on the bedside stand. He wasn’t on call tonight, but still he reacted instinctively, like one of Pavlov’s beleaguered animals, when he heard that particular sound. Somehow he’d expected to break that unwelcome habit when he left the practice.
He’d obviously been demented to even consider such a possibility. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d stopped taking patients—he’d just stopped getting paid for it.
He glanced at the numbers on his clock. Two thirty-five. He grabbed the cell phone, but didn’t recognize the number on the screen. A patient in trouble? He pressed the green button. “This is Dr. Vaughn.”
“Graham, it’s Preston. I need help. My cabin is on fire and it could spread at any minute.”
The news didn’t register for a moment. “Uh, Preston?”
“Did you hear me?” The man’s voice rose in panic. “Fire!”
Graham lurched from the bed and reached for the clothes he’d dropped onto the floor three hours ago. “I’ll be there. Have you called 9-1-1?”
“Yes. Help is on its way, but there are two other fires in the Branson area tonight. They’re shorthanded. Hollister’s responding, but I think we’ll need some extra hands to help us evacuate, and the renters will need a place to stay tonight. Can you get here in time?”
“I’m on my way now. Where are you?” Graham pulled on his jeans with one-handed awkwardness, then reached for his shirt, shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers. Preston was right—Graham couldn’t possibly get there in time to help with evacuation, but he was ultimately responsible.
“Down below at Two B. I’m using Carl Mackey’s cell phone.” There was a sound of pounding, then Preston’s voice as he shouted for the occupant.
Graham had purchased the lodge at a greatly reduced price last year and had invested a good deal of sweat equity in it since then. He’d spared no expense on safety, and in spite of the high rent, Preston, his manager, had filled all the units in record time.
People liked to live in the country, except for times like this, when help was farther away.
“Has it spread past the cabin?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Preston said.
“It shouldn’t. We took every precaution when we refurbished that lodge.”
“You’re right, it shouldn’t spread naturally,” Preston said. “But this monster doesn’t look natural to me. I’ve never seen green grass burn either, until tonight.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this doesn’t look accidental. Look, I’ve got to go,” Preston said. “Rick Fenrow’s not answering his door, and I didn’t think he was scheduled to work tonight. Carl’s gone up to see if Rick’s car’s in the carport.”
“Okay, but be careful. Don’t let anyone go back inside for belongings. And don’t you go back in for anything.”
“No chance of that. My place is an inferno. If my sister hadn’t awakened, we wouldn’t have made it out. Got to go.”
The connection ended. Graham shoved the phone into his shirt pocket, then immediately retrieved it. He pressed a number he knew well and grabbed his jacket on the way out the front door.
He ran down the hillside from his house and pounded across the wooden dock that stretched out into the private cove that fed into Table Rock Lake. He was jumping onto his jet bike when the groggy voice of his friend splintered a half-conscious greeting through his cell phone.
“Dane? Graham. Sorry to do this, but can I use your speedboat? I need to get to my rental lodge fast.” He explained the situation in terse, shouted sentences as he revved the motor of his jet bike and raced from the protected cove to the other side of the lake. The chill of the moist, early-spring air bit into his skin, and he realized he’d be frozen by the time he reached his destination.
“I’m coming with you.” Dane Gideon’s voice barely carried over the noise of the jet bike. “I’ll meet you down at my dock.” The connection broke, and Graham shoved the phone back into his pocket as he faced the freezing blast of cold air that rose from the lake and mingled with the spray of lake water in his face.
Moments later, pulling up to the dock at the boys’ ranch that Dane owned and managed, Graham cut the motor and drifted into an empty slip.
The echo of another motor drifted across the surface of the water from the opposite shore. He glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed a set of headlights bobbing a quarter of a mile west of his own place, from the municipal dock at Hideaway.
The residents of their small village, set along the shore of Table Rock Lake, depended almost as much on boats as automobiles for transportation locally. At this time in the early-morning hours, however, Hideaway slept.
Graham looked up the hill to see the bouncing beam of a flashlight. Footsteps rushed down from the huge farmhouse that provided shelter for twelve boys. Okay, he saw two bouncing beams.
“I called Taylor Jackson and Nathan Trask.” Dane’s calm but breathless voice sounded as he reached the dock, followed by Blaze Farmer, a college student and part-time resident of the ranch.
“Is that who’s coming across the lake?” Graham asked.
“That’s right.” Dane’s silver-blond hair gleamed in the flashlight and headlight glow as he and Blaze released the Mystique from its moorings and pushed it from the slip. “Get in. They’re going to follow us in Taylor’s Sea Ray.”
Blaze rubbed his ebony hands together in obvious anticipation. “I think they just want to race. They’ve been threatening to go head-to-head ever since Taylor got his pride and joy, but I never thought they’d do it at night.”
“We’re not racing,” Dane said.
“Looks like it to me,” Blaze said.
Dane waited until they idled past the no-wake zone, then gunned the motor and flashed his lights at the approaching boat. “We’re just leading the way.”
Chapter Two
A s Willow ran to the final apartment on the top level, she glanced over her shoulder to see a knot of renters gathered in the large gazebo in the middle of the lawn, watching the inferno. She prayed with fervent passion that it wouldn’t spread beyond Preston’s place.
Something exploded within the maelstrom. Sparks rose in the night sky, mingling with plumes of smoke and flames. The roar intensified and the heat reached across the expanse of air to warm her skin.
She peered through the darkness at the empty porches. It had taken more time than she’d expected to rouse all the residents and get them outside to safety; some were elderly, hard of hearing, and had removed their hearing aids to sleep.
Was Preston having this much trouble? Where was he?
She knocked on the final door, rang the doorbell, peered through the window, then heard the excited yap of a small dog inside. She knocked again, then tested the door. It wasn’t locked.
If she remembered correctly, she’d seen an elderly woman entering this apartment three days ago, carrying a bag of groceries. Preston had called her Mrs. Engle.
Pushing the door open, Willow switched on the light. “Hello? Mrs. Engle, are you here?”
The dog, a tiny Pomeranian, yapped at her from the hallway to the right, then raced into the other room. Its fluff-ball form flitted in a ghostly shadow from the glow of the fire through the front window.
Willow followed the little animal to an open door on the right. “Mrs. Engle?”
Another explosion burst through the night. The windows rattled at the far side of the bedroom. The blast of light illuminated a frail-looking figure on the carpeted floor on the other side of the bed.
“Could you help me?” came a shaky voice. “I think I’ve broken my hip.”
Willow switched on the overhead light and rushed to the woman’s side. “Mrs. Engle, there’s a fire on the property. We need to get you out of here.” There would be no time to call 9-1-1 and expect a timely response, not in this place, so far from help.
“Honey, you’re not going to be able to lift me,” Mrs. Engle said. “Where’s Preston?”
Willow peered outside. She’d been wondering that, herself. She unlatched the window and shoved it open. “I need some help in Four A,” she called to the growing crowd that now huddled in the gazebo.
The people were too far away. No one heard her over the roar of the fire.
“Hello!” she shouted. “Can anyone—”
Another explosion shook the floor as a flash brightened the sky to day. Someone screamed, and the light illuminated a group of men running up from the direction of the boat dock. The roar of the boats blended with the roar of the fire and with another sound—the reassuring whine of a siren in the distance. Help was apparently on its way.
Willow went to the phone at the bedside stand and dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher could immediately call the arriving firemen to help her with Mrs. Engle.
Living this far out in the sticks, emergency personnel were seldom just a phone call away. That was something Willow had seriously considered before deciding to come here, and she now questioned her sanity for her decision. She had hoped to find peace and safety here.
After giving her information to the dispatcher, she returned to the injured woman and knelt at her side. “Mrs. Engle, I don’t want to move you if I can avoid it.” As a former ICU nurse, Willow knew the damage that could be done if she tried to lift an injured patient.
She pulled a thick comforter from the bed and settled it beside Mrs. Engle. If the situation became desperate, she could wrap the comforter around the lady and pull her as gently as possible to safety. For now, however, that could wait.
The shriek of the siren drew closer.
Sharp tongues of fire stabbed the night sky, reflecting its fury across the surface of the lake as Graham rushed up the hillside from the boat dock. Emergency lights flashed red in the treetops in concert with the flames. A siren accompanied the crackle and hiss of the burning building.
The first fire truck pulled into the lot, and its crew rushed to connect to the hydrant. Unfortunately, it seemed Preston was correct about the firefighting personnel and equipment being spread thin tonight.
Graham glanced at the sky out of old habit from his E.R. days. Superstition or not, it had always been his experience that more chaos reigned on nights with a full moon. Tonight, however, the moon formed a crescent against the blackness of the western horizon. He’d have to blame something else for the tragedies taking place in the Ozarks this early April Fool’s morning.
He cut across the lawn at the far corner of the complex and caught movement from the corner of his eye. He turned to catch sight of a tall, slender woman with black hair stepping from the entryway of Four A, Esther Engle’s place.
The last time he’d seen that silhouette, the woman had been holding a camera, flashing pictures of a crime scene at a local music theater. Jolene Tucker called herself a photojournalist, and she passed up no opportunity to see her byline in a local paper. She had her finger on every pulse of gossip in the Branson community, but how had she managed to beat the fire engines here?
Though Graham had seen her only from a distance, he’d heard horror stories about the trouble she caused her hapless victims in her weekly gossip column.
Graham switched directions and marched toward her. She had no right to be here. Her presence endangered not only her, but any others who might feel called upon to remove her from harm’s way. What was she doing inside his building?
To his amazement, when the woman caught sight of him through the darkness she gave him a frantic wave and started toward him across the yard. “Sir, are you with the fire department? I could use some help with—”
“Where’s your camera?” he snapped.
She slid to a stop on the grass and stared at him through the smoky murk. “What are you talking about? Why aren’t there more emergency personnel here? There’s no time to—”
“Ms. Tucker, you’ve got some gall coming into a situation like this,” he said without breaking his stride. He reached for her arm. “You’re on private property. My property, and I want you off within the next ten seconds or I’ll give the police a call.”
She took a step backward, evading his grasp. “But you don’t understand. There’s a—”
“I don’t want to hear it. If you want to complain, just write it up in one of your columns.” He led her from the yard. “This place is dangerous, and you need to leave. It’s an insurance risk.”
She jerked away from him. “Insurance? That’s all you’re worried about?” She scrambled back across the dark lawn toward Esther Engle’s front door. “There are still people who need help. Mrs. Engle’s fallen in her apartment and we need a stretcher—”
“I’ll take care of Mrs. Engle,” he said, rushing after her. “You hightail it on home for once. Your nose for news doesn’t belong here.” He thrust his thumb in the direction of the parking lot. “Out!”
She gave a long-suffering sigh and did as he told her this time. “You’ll get Mrs. Engle?”
“That’s where I’m headed right now.” He saw Blaze and Dane, Taylor and Nathan running up the hill and commandeered Taylor’s help—Taylor Jackson was a tough Ranger with the heart of a paramedic. Often it seemed necessary to utilize the full range of Taylor’s skills on the field when responding to accidents.
The fire seemed to have limited itself to Preston’s cabin, though it could easily spread to the utility building east of the lodge. Graham prayed it would go no farther. When he’d refurbished the lodge, he’d made sure the building was above code. Now he would see if the additional efforts paid off.
Baffled and incensed by the behavior of the manhandling owner, who seemed to be confusing her with someone he knew, Willow waited until he and another man entered Mrs. Engle’s front door. She stepped gingerly from the gravel to the grass to protect her feet, and rushed toward the small crowd of people who had left the shelter of the gazebo to watch the firemen spraying the flames. Another siren wailed through the trees. An orange-and-white ambulance arrived on the scene, pulling to a stop at the edge of the lot.
Willow waved at the driver and directed the crew toward Mrs. Engle’s apartment when they stepped from the vehicle. Finally more help had arrived.
“Has anyone here seen Preston?” she asked Carl Mackey, who lived in the apartment below Sandi Jameson’s.
The older man pointed toward the shed. “I thought I saw him headed in that direction just before the fire truck arrived. Figured he wanted to move the gasoline tank before it blew with the rest of the building.”
“He didn’t come back out?”
Carl shrugged. “Nope, and we called for him.”
She heard the shouts of the firemen above the snap and pop of the flames and the sizzle of water from the fire hoses. No way would her brother go into that mess. He was brave and strong, but he wasn’t foolish, and he didn’t have a death wish.
Carl stepped to Willow’s side. He wore bright orange flannel pajamas, and his hair stuck up in all directions. “Young lady, you’ve got a nasty wound.” He gestured to the bloodstained towel around Willow’s arm. “Why don’t we get that seen to? I grabbed my car keys on the way out the door, and I can get you to the hospital before—”
“Thanks, Carl, but I’ve got to find Preston.” Willow rushed back across the shadows of the front yard. “Preston!” she called. “Has anyone seen my—”
A strong, firm arm caught her from behind and swung her around. She looked up into the angry face of the same jerk who had yelled at her before.
“You don’t listen well, do you, Jolene?”
She yanked away from him. “Look, bud, you may be the owner of this place, but I’m not Jolene, whoever that might be, and if you don’t get out of my face I’m going to kick you!”
The man’s expression froze, mouth open mid-rant. He blinked at her, looked down at her torn, mud-and-grass-stained pajamas.
“Where’s Preston?” Willow demanded. “Have you seen my brother?”
The expression of dismay on his face was priceless. For a fraction of a second she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
Yet another explosion rocked the earth. Willow gasped, then turned instinctively in the direction of the sound, toward the building behind the burning cabin.
“It’s the utility shed!” a fireman shouted. “It’s collapsing.”
“Preston was headed in that direction!” Willow cried as another fire truck rumbled into the ruckus. Oh, dear God, no. Not Preston!
Graham grabbed the panicking woman before she could run across the lawn to the shed, and wasn’t surprised when she fought him. So this was the gentle sister of whom Preston had so often spoken.
“We’ve got to get him out of there!” the frantic woman cried.
“The firemen are doing that.” He gestured toward the two men in fire gear, who were already forcing back the flames and entering the inferno.
Preston’s sister—what was her name…something about a tree…Rowan? No, Willow. That was it. Willow struggled from Graham’s grasp, and as she pulled away a red-and-white towel unwound from her right forearm. Blood gushed from a deep injury in the flesh above her wrist.
“Hold it right there,” Graham said, feeling like an idiot as well as a bully. Why hadn’t he noticed this sooner? “You need medical attention.” He reached for her arm.
She pushed away from him. “I need to see about my brother first. Is everyone evacuated?”
“Mrs. Engle was the only one left. Blaze has her dog.”
Willow’s eyes widened. “Blaze?”
“It’s the name of a friend. The dog’s in good hands,” he said gently. “I’m telling you, that wound is actively bleeding.”
She placed her hand over the cut and turned again toward the fire. “And I’m telling you that I want to see about Preston.”
Graham caught sight of Taylor Jackson, who had just finished helping the attendants load Mrs. Engle into the waiting ambulance. “Jackson!” He waved to catch the attention of the tall man with a stern and caring expression, who had followed Graham, Dane and Blaze from Hideaway in his own boat.
“What’s up?”
“Over here. I’ve got a patient for you. Is there another ambulance on the way?”
“Yep, ETA of three minutes or less,” Taylor said as he hefted his backpack of medical supplies over his shoulder and carried it toward them. When he reached them, he frowned at Willow’s arm and gave a soft whistle. “Looks like the E.R.’s going to be hopping tonight.”
Willow gasped, then gave a weak, horrified cry. Graham looked up to see the two firemen carrying a limp man between them through the smoking, flaming shed. Preston.
His sister fainted. Graham caught her, then lowered her to the ground so she could lie flat. “Get a pressure dressing,” he said over his shoulder. “And start an IV. She might have lost too much blood.”
Taylor already had out a handful of four-by-four gauze pads. He placed them onto the bleeding gash and wrapped it tightly with gauze dressing with the swiftness of an expert.
“That should hold it until we can get it sutured,” Graham said, checking her pulse. It was fast, but that could be from a rush of excess adrenaline. As he checked her more closely, he noticed her skin wasn’t cool or clammy to the touch, and she had a good capillary refill.
“She doesn’t appear to be in shock. Did you bring a cardiac monitor on the boat?” he asked.
Taylor nodded. “I prepare for the worst.”
“Let’s check her out, just in case.”
Willow moaned and shifted. “No. I’m okay,” she murmured, her voice barely carrying above the roar of activity around them.
“Let us be the judges of that. You’re not in any position to complain,” Graham said.
She raised her good arm, blinking against the light of the arriving ambulance as she pushed away from Graham. “No monitor and no IV. I need to get to Preston. Where is he?”
Willow had endured enough of this pushy man’s attitude. She caught sight of the firemen loading a gurney into the back of the ambulance and saw a man with a blackened face turn toward her and open his eyes.
It was Preston. He was alive and awake. She had to get to him.
“We should call an ambulance for you, as well,” the pushy man said.
“There’s no reason why I can’t ride with Preston, is there?”
“Sorry, not right now. They’re only equipped to handle one patient at a time. You fainted, and that could be a—”
“From the shock of seeing my brother like that. Please,” she said, pushing away the monitor line the tall newcomer was attempting to attach to her. She would stand up and walk to the vehicle without their help if they were going to be so obstinate. She scrambled to her knees, hand to the ground to retain her balance.
“Okay,” said Preston’s boss, obviously a trifle irritated now. “We’ll help you to the ambulance. Just hold on, will you? I’d take you myself, but I don’t have a car right now.”
She allowed the men to help her to her feet, and glanced down at the dressing on her arm. Obviously someone knew what he was doing.
She blinked at the white of the dressing as her vision seemed to waver. So maybe she wasn’t as strong as she’d hoped. She guessed she’d let these men help her to the ambulance, where she would sit quietly in the corner until they reached the hospital.
Chapter Three
G raham stepped down the western corridor of the emergency department of Clark Memorial Hospital, south of town. Even at four in the morning, more than half the treatment rooms were filled and the staff was kept hopping with everything from chest pain to broken arms to the unusual occurrence of a knife wound.
There were also the more common cases of croupy children and upset tummies. The emergency department was a way station for all the area’s unwell, no matter how minor or serious the condition.
He entered the third treatment room on the right and found Willow lying on the bed, her face pale. A monitor was connected by wires to her chest. It beeped in steady rhythm.
She looked up as he entered, and her eyes widened. They were blue-gray, large, fringed with long dark lashes. She had her brother’s bone structure, though more delicate and refined. There was a watchfulness about her—an almost fearful tension.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine—just waiting to hear about Preston’s condition. They’re working on him in the trauma room, and they refuse to let me in there.”
“I just spoke with him and with Dr. Teeter, the E.R. doc,” Graham said. “Preston’s stabilized. X-rays confirmed multiple rib fractures and a pneumothorax. They actually have him in CT now.”
She raised her head and tried to sit up. Graham pressed a button to raise the bed for her. “He’s in good hands, Willow, and he’s asking about you. I’ve assured him you’re fine. Try not to worry. Dr. Teeter is pretty busy right now, so it may be a while before he can see to your arm himself, so we’ve decided—”
“Hold it a minute.” She lifted her unhurt arm. “Why is it you know so much more about my brother’s care than I do? And how do you know my name?”
“Preston and I are friends. He’s told me about you.” Though Preston hadn’t mentioned the firm point of his sister’s charmingly dimpled chin, or the vulnerable look in her dark-lashed eyes. “He said you’re an ICU nurse.”
“I used to be.” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. “That still doesn’t tell me why you’ve been allowed to speak with him and I haven’t.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll see if that can be arranged as soon as he returns from CT. In the meantime,” Graham said, “please allow me to apologize for behaving like a total fool earlier.” Now that he had a chance to observe her more closely, he couldn’t believe he’d mistaken her for the reporter.
Whereas Jolene had closely cropped straight hair, so black it reflected blue lights, this woman had dark curls with a sheen of polished mahogany, the same shade as her brother’s hair. She looked younger than Jolene by about ten years, though Graham knew that Preston’s little sister was only two years younger than Preston. Since Preston was one year younger than Graham, that would make Willow thirty-six.
Graham gestured toward her right forearm, still wrapped with gauze. “Why don’t we see about getting your wound taken care of while we wait for Preston?”
“We?” She blinked up at him, and that firm chin rose a few millimeters. “Mister, who are you?”
Again he could have kicked himself. Graham, you moron, first you bully her, then you scare her to death and now you’re ordering her around like… “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself much sooner. I’m Dr. Graham Vaughn, and besides being the jerk who mistook you for an unsavory local reporter, I’m the only surgeon here right now who has admitting privileges in this hospital and is also available to show immediate attention to your arm.”
She stared at him for a full five seconds. “You’re kidding.”
“No. This is a busy place, and you’d be wise to take treatment when you can get it.”
Her eyes narrowed only slightly, but he could still see the wariness in those blue-gray depths.
“As I said, Dr. Teeter has his hands full,” he said.
She rested her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes. “I still have almost four hours to get sutures, and I’d like to be available in case they tell me I can see my brother.”
“The six-hour rule only applies to wounds not prone to infection,” Graham said.
“I’ll take my chances just a little longer, if you don’t mind.”
Time to treat her like a frightened patient, because that was exactly what she was right now, and he’d added to her fears. “If I had sliced my arm open on a broken—what, window?—and then exposed it to all the dust and grime and debris at a fire site, I don’t think I would want to push the golden hours past their limit.”
Her eyes opened again. “You’re really a surgeon?”
He grimaced at the lingering doubt in her expression. “You can ask the staff, if you’d like. Would you let me take a look at your arm? I promise not to bite. I’ll even try to get you one of the popsicles our nurses hand out to children who have been especially good during the suturing process.”
Her scowl would have withered a sumo wrestler.
He couldn’t suppress a smile. She fully shared Preston’s self-sufficient personality trait. “Please let me help you, Willow. Your brother is a good and trusted friend, and those are often hard to come by. I’m not going to jeopardize my friendship with him by hurting his baby sister, I promise. And I also promise to have you sewn up and ready to see him by the time he’s able to see you.”
Her response was a reluctant, heartfelt sigh. “Fine, then. Do your worst.”
He grimaced. Not exactly the response he’d have hoped for, considering the circumstances, but if he had just gone through what she’d endured tonight, he doubted he’d be at his charming best, either. Time to make this lady’s life a little easier.
Willow winced and stifled a cry of pain. She watched Dr. Vaughn stop and reach for a bottle of sterile saline solution, which he poured over the adhered bandage.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I should be able to get the rest off without any more discomfort.”
She waited, noting with surprise the depth of the wound. He was right—it did need sutures soon. A nurse had already set up a sterile tray and assisted with the anesthetic and suture material, then left him to his work as she rushed to more emergencies.
This place resembled downtown Kansas City in Friday-evening rush hour. Why was it that some of life’s worst catastrophes happened in the wee hours of the morning, when help was hardest to find?
He adjusted the overhead light to get a better look at her arm. She couldn’t help noticing, for the first time, that he’d changed into surgical scrubs.
The guy wasn’t really a jerk. She could tell that. In fact, he was probably a nice guy. Preston was a good judge of character. Graham Vaughn was even a nice-looking man with short, sandy-brown hair that had some silvering along the temples and eyes the color of rich toffee, with lines of friendliness around the perimeters. Preston hadn’t bothered to mention his boss was a surgeon—he had, however, mentioned that he was single.
And she’d snapped at Preston for even hinting, in any way, that she would be interested in whether or not a man was single, since she didn’t consider herself to be single.
She was a widow, and there was a big difference between being a widow and just being single. That fact was brought home to her nearly every night, when she discovered that her heart was still broken into splinters, and every morning, when she awakened alone.
“The edges of the wound are a little jagged, but still pretty well approximated.” Dr. Graham Vaughn reached for a package of sterile, cotton-tipped swabs, startling her from the preoccupation that caught her so often in its grasp. “I’m going to explore the wound now. This could hurt some.”
She braced herself. “Go for it.”
He lifted one edge of the wound and inserted the sterile swab.
Willow caught her breath and stiffened.
After a quick probe, he removed the swab. “The cut extends to the subcutaneous fat, but the fascia over the muscles appears intact. I don’t think there’s any tendon injury or deep nerve or blood vessel involvement. Of course, I still need to check for that possibility.”
He started his neurovascular exam by gently pinching each of her fingers, taking special care to also pinch the web space between her thumb and first finger, as well as check her pulse. “I’m screening for any sensory damage to any of the three major nerves that could have been damaged. Can you feel everything okay? Nothing feels dull to my touch?”
“Everything feels fine,” she said. In fact, it felt better than fine. The man now focused so intently on her injury was a different man from the one who had come striding across the lawn, yelling at her.
Okay, so he hadn’t exactly been yelling.
“Preston says you come from Kansas City,” the doctor said, his kind gaze flitting over her with apparent interest. “Which hospital did you work in?”
“Truman,” she said, touching each finger to thumb as Graham now turned his attention toward searching for any motor damage to the nerves. “But as I said, I’m not working now.”
“You came down here for a rest?” He indicated for Willow to spread her fingers apart.
She performed the maneuver without difficulty. “Something like that.”
He looked up at her with a brief question in his eyes, then refocused on his work. He had her flex her wrist, then her thumb, then each finger individually as he carefully observed the wound, looking for any evidence of a cut tendon.
Willow liked his thoroughness.
“Your brother loves you very much, and I know he’s been worried about you these past few months.”
She grimaced. How much had Preston told this man? “They say the grief process can take between two and four years. My husband died twenty-three months ago, Dr. Vaughn. It still isn’t an easy subject to discuss.”
He nodded, obviously already aware of her situation. “I’m sorry—believe me, I understand. Though I’m not a widower, I was plunged very reluctantly into the single world again after years of marriage. It’s been three years for me, and I still haven’t recovered.”
She looked up at him with interest. Why was he telling her this? Was he just trying to hold a conversation to keep her mind off the pain? Pretty heavy discussion to hold with a complete stranger.
“Dr. Vaughn, I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t know what my brother told you about me, but he tends to be a little overly protective.”
“Please call me Graham,” he said. “Now, I’m going to numb the wound before I begin to clean it.” He started to remove his gloves, obviously to change to sterile gloves.
“No, I’m a big girl.” There were times Willow would have much preferred physical pain over the emotional pain she’d battled for so long. “You don’t need to numb it until you start sewing.”
He looked at her. “Are you sure? It can be very uncomfortable.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, but as soon as you think it’s becoming too painful, you let me know and we’ll take the pain away.”
In spite of his gentle technique, Willow had to grit her teeth as he cleansed the wound, and she nearly asked for the anesthetic.
“Preston’s been an answer to a prayer for me,” Graham said as he worked.
“Hope you didn’t tell him that,” Willow said. “He probably wouldn’t appreciate the designation.”
Graham nodded. “He definitely isn’t interested in talking about spiritual things, is he?”
“No.”
“And you?”
“If you’re asking if I’m a Christian, yes, but don’t expect me to burst into song about the everlasting joys of living the spirit-filled life.”
He gave her a look of inquiry, and she shook her head. How could she explain, without getting too maudlin, that she and God weren’t exactly on speaking terms at this time? According to the books on grief written by the experts, she should be past that stage of the process. She’d left those books back in Kansas City. They were useless to her now.
“How was Preston an answer to prayer for you?” she asked, hoping to deflect the attention from herself.
“He and I met a few years ago at a weekend seminar on real estate investment, at Chateau on the Lake here in Branson. I discovered Preston wanted to work with rentals while he learned the business and earned the money that would make it possible for him to invest in his own property. I, on the other hand, needed to invest money immediately and needed a manager for my properties.”
“He worked as an accountant and financial adviser in Springfield for ten years after graduating from SMSU,” Willow said. “Then he got bored.”
“Well, he doesn’t have a problem with that now,” Graham assured her. “In fact, until tonight, I was pretty sure he was having the time of his life.”
“What are your renters going to do about a place to stay?” she asked.
“I’ve already made some calls, and they have rooms at a condominium down on Lake Taneycomo until they can return to their lodge. Preston’s cabin was the only building destroyed.”
“Any idea what caused the fire?”
“Not yet. I haven’t had time to worry about that. I’ve had my hands full with other things. Though the cabin was a few years old, I had it checked out before I purchased it, and it was in good shape structurally.”
“My uncle was a fireman before he retired,” she said. “He told me once that the investigation begins as soon as the first fireman arrives on the scene.”
“What first alerted you and Preston to the fire?”
“I saw a light outside. When I stepped out the back door I smelled something pungent, like turpentine or some kind of fuel. Then I smelled the smoke.” She paused, remembering. “When I reached the front, there were streaks of fire shooting toward the house across the lawn.”
He didn’t pause in his movements, but she felt, rather than saw, his sudden, startled interest. “Streaks?”
She nodded. “I remember thinking at the time about fuses. You know, like to a bomb.”
“Has anyone from the fire department or police department contacted you?”
“Yes, as soon as I arrived here with Preston, there was someone here to talk to me. I told him what I’m telling you.”
“I’ll have a talk with them. For now, you just relax.” After cleansing the site and setting up for sutures, Graham changed into sterile gloves and picked up the syringe filled with anesthetic solution to numb the wound.
He completed a two-layer closure in less than ten minutes.
After wiping the wound one last time with a saline-soaked swab, he invited Willow to examine the finished job. She nodded with admiration. The guy was good.
Graham removed his gloves and excused himself.
Willow laid her head back and closed her eyes in silent, automatic prayer for her brother’s life.
A moment later she heard a quiet footfall and jerked upright, eyes snapping open. A man in the doorway looked slightly familiar. In his mid-thirties, he had curly dark hair, a long face and warm, friendly brown eyes.
“Everyone okay in here?” he asked, taking a step closer to the bed.
“There’s just me, and I’m fine,” she said, frowning at him. Then she placed him. “You’re Rick Fenrow. Apartment Three B, right? Did you know about the fire?”
“Yes, I heard. You’re Preston’s sister, aren’t you?” He had a low tenor voice, with a northern accent.
“That’s right. I didn’t know until tonight that you worked here.”
“I haven’t been here that long. Did you know another tenant, Carl Mackey, works part-time at the hospital, as well? He’s in the pharmacy. The way things are looking tonight, we could have the whole complex here by the time the sun rises.”
“The fire hadn’t spread to the lodge when I left,” she assured him.
“That’s what the fireman told me. It’s a relief, too. Everything I own is in that place.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“Orderly. I usually work on the floor, but they were extra busy tonight, so I got called down here.” He looked at the chair that held her pajamas. “Caught you off guard, did it?”
“I’d say.”
Rick held up a hand. “I’ll be right back.” He winked and left the room. Moments later he came back, carrying a set of green scrubs. “These should fit.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“And don’t worry about Preston—he’s one tough guy. He’ll get through this just fine.”
“Have you seen Mrs. Engle?”
“She’s in some pain, but they’ve already called an orthopedist. She’ll be okay.” He patted her foot, then turned and left the room.
Less than thirty seconds later Graham returned to Willow’s treatment room. “Preston’s ready to see you before they take him to surgery.”
Holding her hospital gown with her good arm, she eagerly followed him into the trauma room, where Preston had been prepped for surgery. Blood infused through one of the two IVs in his arms, and a well-taped chest tube protruded from the left side of his chest, ending in an underwater seal device standing on the floor.
Preston’s upper chest and forearms had reddened; his skin was mildly blistered. EKG electrodes, an automatic blood pressure cuff and a fingertip pulse oximetry unit all connected him to a portable monitoring unit, which beeped with steady rhythm.
Willow noted that Preston’s blood pressure was a little low, his heart rate a little fast, but his oxygen saturation was excellent, and the cardiac monitor showed a strong, steady heartbeat.
“You get yourself into more trouble,” she said loudly enough for him to hear over the mechanical noise.
He opened heavy-lidded eyes. “Sis,” he whispered through his oxygen mask. “You okay?”
“Doing great. What’s up with you?”
Preston sighed, closing his eyes as if he were drifting off. But he opened them again. “Seems the CT scan showed I have a fractured liver, and my spleen’s bleeding.” His voice deepened, sounding as rough as gravel churning in a concrete mixer. “They’re taking me straight to surgery.” His eyes closed again. “Not sure how a person fractures a liver.”
“Well, if anyone can do it, you can,” she said.
“Guess they’ll have to put a cast on it, huh?” His voice drifted to silence. A snore punctuated the mechanical sounds of the room.
The nurse came to wheel him to surgery. Willow turned to find Graham stepping up behind her.
“You’re being released,” he said. “But you don’t have anything to wear out of here except your filthy pajamas or that hospital gown.” He gestured to her attire.
“Rick Fenrow brought me a set of scrubs to change into.”
“He’s on duty tonight? Preston was worried when he couldn’t find him at the lodge. There’s a private waiting room where you can relax until we receive word. You look as if you could use some rest.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
“You’re welcome.”
Back in her treatment room, she fingered the soft material of the scrubs and felt a flick of bittersweet memories. Would she ever escape them?
What was she going to do? Everything she had brought with her to Branson had been destroyed in that inferno. Her driver’s license, her credit cards, her checkbook, even her cash were gone. The only thing she owned that had been spared was her car, because it was parked in the carport across the drive. And she didn’t even have her keys.
This was a different kind of nightmare.
Chapter Four
A predawn light touched the western horizon when Graham entered the private room where Willow had been waiting for news about her brother. The lights had been turned off, and only the glow from the hallway and window filtered into the room.
Word had come a few moments earlier that the fire had been contained and the other buildings were out of danger. Now came the tedious duty of cleanup and paperwork. Graham hated paperwork.
He saw Willow lying on the sofa, her breathing soft and even. He hated to wake her. Still, she would want to see Preston.
Graham smiled to himself. He understood the strong bonds of family. His sister was on her way here now. He had high hopes that she could charm Willow, after his gruffness had brought out her iciest response at their first encounter. Though she had thawed considerably once she realized he wasn’t the ogre she’d first deemed him to be, he knew she hadn’t yet warmed completely. Her guard was up. He couldn’t blame her.
For some reason he didn’t want her to be alone right now. In spite of her self-reliance, there was something about her that seemed so…breakable.
Her soft, even breathing stopped for a few moments, then a moan seemed to shake her. Her eyes sprang open. She uttered a cry of such pain that he stiffened, wondering if her arm could be hurting her that badly.
“Willow, it’s okay,” he said.
Her lips parted in obvious alarm. She focused a terrified gaze on him, and he thought she might scream.
“It’s okay,” he said gently. “It’s just me, Graham.”
She shot a quick look around the room, then seemed to realize where she was. “What are you doing here?” she croaked, her voice tense and hoarse.
“Working on my bedside manner.” He noticed she’d changed into the scrubs. “It’s the least I could do after harassing you so mercilessly earlier.”
She rubbed her eyes. “Preston?”
“He’s doing fine, recovering in surgical ICU. I’ve been working on my landlord duties. You have a place to stay, as of right now.”
She blinked, then slumped against the overstuffed arm of the sofa. “Can’t believe I fell asleep,” she murmured softly, as if to herself.
“Bad dream?” Graham ventured.
She blinked again, straightened her shoulders and returned her attention to him as she scrambled out of the depths of the overstuffed sofa. “Nothing new about that.” She winced as she accidentally placed her weight on her injured arm.
“I don’t think you need to stay alone right now,” Graham said.
She stood up, and for the first time he noticed she was nearly as tall as his five feet ten inches, maybe an inch or two shorter. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about that,” she said.
“I have a suggestion.”
She grew still, silent. Again, that wariness. Was this a natural part of her personality or a result of her husband’s death?
“My sister is staying with me in a house down on the lake near Hideaway,” he said. “It’s a large house, so there’s plenty of room for you. When Preston gets out of the hospital, there will also be room for him to stay while he recuperates.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she were cold—or as if the bad dream continued to terrorize her. “How far do you live from this hospital?” she asked.
“It’s a bit of a drive, but—”
“No. I appreciate your concern, Dr. Vaughn—”
“It’s Graham, remember?”
She reached up with slender fingers and rubbed at her eyes again. At this moment she appeared closer to sixteen than thirty-six. “I prefer to stay close in case Preston needs me. Until I can get a new set of keys for my car, I’ll find a room nearby so I can walk.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Graham said. “I’ve already arranged for someone to make a set of keys for you. Everything’s being taken care of, but I wish you would—”
“I’m sorry, Graham,” she said gently as she edged past him and reached for the door. “It’s so kind of you to offer, but you have plenty to keep you busy. I can take care of myself.”
Without waiting for him to argue, she slipped through the door and let it swing shut behind her.
Willow stood by Preston’s bedside and watched the rise and fall of his chest. His mouth hung slack, and the fan of his long black lashes seemed unsinged. His eyebrows hadn’t fared so well, and a blister framed the left side of his face.
Unwilling to awaken him, she watched in silence. I know better than to ask why, Lord. I know I won’t get an answer. But how about a “when”? As in “When will it stop?”
A film of tears blurred her vision. She sniffed and dashed them away, and when she returned her attention to Preston, his eyes were open.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.
He reached his right hand out to her. She took it gently, feeling the calloused ridge along the top of his palm from too many hours holding a hammer while working on one of his rental properties.
He looked down at the hand he held in his. “You’re shaking.”
“Do you blame me?” She attempted her usual dry, casual tone with him. It didn’t come out right.
His gaze went to her bandaged forearm. “How bad?”
“Not too.”
“Graham fix you up?”
“How did you know?”
“He told me, dummy.” His teasing grin didn’t quite reach his eyes, but she could see it through the oxygen mask. The eyes held only worry, deep worry.
She shrugged. “He’s good.”
He nodded, satisfied, then indicated her apparel with a look. “Did you get a job here?”
She grimaced as she glanced down at the green scrubs. “One of your renters took pity on me and found these for me.” She gestured toward Preston’s upper lip, also visible through the mask. “Your mustache is in awful shape.” It, too, had been singed.
Preston shifted as if he would try to sit up.
“Don’t even think about it,” Willow said, pressing a hand against his shoulder.
“He still around?”
“Who?”
He scowled at her. “Who fixed your arm?”
“I don’t know where he went. Would you just relax and focus on getting well? I’m sure he told you they’ve got the fire under control, and he seems capable of taking care of the renters.”
Preston gave an impatient shake of his head. “I need to talk to him about—”
“You don’t need to do a thing right now, my friend.” A familiar baritone voice came from behind Willow’s left shoulder. “I’ve got a handle on it all, and if I can’t deal with it I know someone who can.”
Willow turned and looked at Graham Vaughn, struck afresh by his solid, friendly appearance. He had that “smile with your eyes” trick down perfectly. There was a warmth in his expression that would, of course, serve to encourage his patients to trust him.
In spite of what she’d said to him earlier this morning, he did have a good bedside manner, and he did engender trust. Willow knew she tended to be a little grumpy when stressed, and she was working on that.
“Willow, there’s someone I want you to meet as soon as you finish visiting with Preston,” Graham said.
“Someone like who?” she asked.
“Someone who can take you shopping for some necessary items until you receive the keys to your car,” Graham said. “You’ll also want some cash, and the claims adjuster will have that to us later this morning. I’ve got surgery today, but my sister can—”
“His sister can speak for herself.” A new voice spoke from the doorway.
Willow turned to encounter a fresh, smiling, freckled face. The woman, possibly in her late forties, had short, graying red hair the color of antiqued copper. She wore blue jeans and a chambray shirt that suggested she might have been working outside when she received the call from her brother and hadn’t taken the time to change.
“I’m Ginger Carpenter,” the woman said, stepping forward with an outstretched hand.
Willow took the hand, appreciating the firm grip. “Willow Traynor. I take it you’re the sister Graham mentioned?”
“Guilty as charged. Graham offered me the opportunity to help someone else spend money. That’s like a dream come true for me. We need to get you fixed up with some clothes, a place to stay until we can find something more permanent, and we’ve got some money to spend, courtesy of my brother’s bank account until the checks arrive later.”
“But I don’t—”
“Insurance money,” Ginger said. “I’ve turned shopping on a shoestring into an art form. You’d be surprised at the bargains I’ve learned to dig up in the Branson shops in the past few weeks. I could open your world to a new way of shopping.”
Willow gave her borrowed scrubs another perusal. “I wouldn’t mind a couple of pairs of jeans.”
Ginger patted her own well-endowed fanny. “Honey, I’d give you some of mine, but you’d float around in them. Let’s go paint the town green, okay? Looks like Preston’s in great hands.” To Willow’s surprise, Ginger leaned over the bed and gave Preston a quick, sisterly kiss on the cheek. “Loan Willow to me for a few hours, okay?”
Preston nodded. “You’ve got her. I’ll take a nap.”
Graham couldn’t help observing Preston’s watchful silence as Ginger cajoled Willow from the room. It was a foregone conclusion, at least to Graham, that no one but Ginger could have pulled off this feat. Willow tended to skitter away from people like a half-wild kitten. The woman was intriguing.
At this point, so was her brother. What was up with these two? Yes, they had been through quite an ordeal tonight, but Graham had noticed Preston’s body language when he’d spoken of Willow recently. He was worried about her. Preston didn’t worry about much, so when something concerned him, Graham homed in on it like a beacon.
With a final glance over her shoulder at Preston, Willow disappeared down the hallway with Ginger.
“I need your help,” Preston said quietly the moment the women were out of earshot.
Graham returned his attention to his friend. “You’ve got it, you know that. Don’t worry about a thing. Ginger can help with the renters until—”
Preston gave an impatient wave. “Not that. We can deal with the renters later. I’ve kept an off-site set of computer records for months now, so that’s no problem.” His voice grew raspy, and he raised his hand to his throat. “I need help with Willow.”
Graham reached for a couple of ice chips and gave them to Preston. “Sorry I can’t do any better than that, but you can’t have anything else so soon after surgery. Why don’t you stop trying to talk? You inhaled a lot of smoke, and you need to rest your voice.”
Preston took the chips, coughed, shook his head. “I need you to know some things about Willow.”
“You mean you haven’t already told me everything there is to tell?” He had heard Preston talk about his sister for several months. Obviously Preston cared a great deal about her.
“I haven’t told you everything,” Preston said quietly. “She’s afraid, Graham.”
“Of what?”
“That’s what we need to talk about. It’s complicated.” Preston placed the small ice chips in his mouth.
Graham pulled a chair over to the bed and slumped into it. Last night had been a hard one, and it didn’t look as if he’d be getting much rest before his first patient today. “Tell me.”
Preston closed his eyes. “Just remember, in my drugged state I may tell you more than Willow would approve of. Don’t let this get back to her.”
Graham shook off his drowsiness. “What’s going on?”
Willow stepped into the hospital parking lot behind Ginger and immediately spotted a sign that advertised lodging.
“Are there several hotels or motels near here?”
“Are you kidding?” Ginger gave a snort that was barely ladylike. “Honey, you’ve got hundreds of rooms within walking distance, depending on how fast you walk and what kind of shape you’re in.” The freckled redhead gave Willow an appraising look over the top of her glasses, then nodded with satisfaction. “From the looks of it, you could walk a few miles to get here if need be, but Graham was hoping you’d stay with us at the house, and I’d love—”
“He didn’t tell you that I’m planning to stay near the hospital to be with Preston as much as possible?” Willow asked.
“He did mention that, but since Graham drives into town every day you could easily come in with him.”
“I like to be able to come and go in my own car. Graham says you live in Hideaway.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a long way to Hideaway from here.” Willow wasn’t in the mood to move in with complete strangers, even if those strangers seemed trustworthy.
She’d trusted before—trusted that as long as she and Travis were doing God’s will, they would not have to worry about enduring any of the shocking tragedies that so often took people by surprise. She now felt foolish for holding that irrational belief.
“As the crow flies, Hideaway isn’t terribly far from here,” Ginger said.
“I’m not a crow.”
“The drive isn’t that bad. You could get to the hospital from Hideaway in forty minutes—thirty if you catch the traffic right. Believe me, you’d be more than welcome to stay with us.”
The woman was a bit pushy. Willow slowed her steps and fixed Ginger with a look. “You need to understand that I won’t be doing that. While I appreciate the offer, my answer is no. Please don’t argue with me.” With some people it was necessary to establish her boundaries in the beginning. If they didn’t like it, they could move on and rescue someone else.
To her surprise, Ginger chuckled. “Well, I see you’re a lady who knows her own mind. Good. But as my brother reminds me often enough, I’m a nag. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Now let’s enjoy the morning.”
Willow caught sight of a motel marquee down the street that announced vacancies. “I think I’ll see if I can get a room over there. At least for a while.” She refused to think of the multiple reasons she should accept Ginger’s offer.
As she’d told Graham and the fireman that had interviewed her earlier, those streaks of flame she’d seen rushing toward the house—like fuses racing to a bomb—had definitely raised her suspicions and already found their way into her nightmare.
Those weren’t just naturally occurring phenomena. They had a direction, an object of attack. She had seen headlights in the forest beyond the apartment complex. Someone else had been out there. She didn’t need any further investigation to tell her that much.
She didn’t want to be alone right now, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to move in with strangers. The fireman had informed her that there had been two other fires last night, and theirs had most likely been a random attack. As soon as they found the perpetrator, all would be settled.
Too bad she couldn’t convince herself of that. She wasn’t up to being logical this early in the morning with so little sleep after barely escaping with her life.
But she was a grown woman, able to take care of herself. She didn’t need keepers.
She would go shopping with Ginger, enjoy the female company and buy some things she desperately needed. Then she would rent a room and settle in.
Graham listened to Preston’s worries with growing concern. “Willow’s husband was murdered?”
Preston shifted in his bed and took another ice chip. “He was killed in the line of duty during a drug raid, but Willow isn’t convinced his death had anything to do with the drug raid.”
“What does she think happened?”
“She’s convinced of some kind of conspiracy, either within the department or from an old enemy from another case. The trajectory of the bullet was wrong, and the bullet didn’t match any of the firearms confiscated after the raid.”
“I’m sure there was an investigation, right?” Graham asked.
“Of course. No other shooter was found. It was decided that one of the perpetrators must have gotten away. End of case. But Willow can’t accept it. Ever since Travis’s death, she hasn’t been herself.”
Graham could tell the poor guy was miserable, but his heightened concern for Willow kept him vigilant even now, with the aftereffects of the surgery. “You’re saying she still has some major emotional issues connected to her husband’s death?”
“To put it mildly.” Preston’s eyes closed, and he grimaced with pain. “And that’s not the only problem.”
“We need to see about getting you some more medication,” Graham said.
Preston sighed and nodded. “Okay, but please, please watch Willow for any signs of trouble.” He caught his breath, then moaned softly.
“I’ll make sure she’s safe, though I don’t have to tell you how independent she can be.” Graham motioned for the surgical ICU nurse.
Preston opened his eyes again, and this time Graham could plainly see the fear in them. “Everyone knows that when a person is having some kind of emotional problem, they try to make sure that the last thing it affects is their job. Well, Willow lost her job six months ago.”
“She was fired?”
“No, she quit. She hasn’t worked as a nurse since. After her husband’s death she started talking about these…bad dreams. She insists her husband’s murderer is after her, and believe me, after what just happened, she’s even got me spooked, and I should know better.”
The nurse joined them and made note of Preston’s vitals, then looked at Graham expectantly. “You wanted to see me, Doctor?”
“Yes. Did Dr. Glessner leave orders for pain meds? Mr. Black is having some pain.”
“Of course. I’ll set it up immediately.”
As soon as she left, Preston reached for more ice, then fell back against the pillow. “You probably need to know this. Willow was pregnant when Travis died.”
“She was?” That would be doubly tragic, for a child to be on the way when the father is killed.
“About a month after he died,” Preston continued, “Willow was leaving work one morning after a long night and walked out in front of a car. It hit her and knocked her down. She lost the baby. She was convinced someone ran her down intentionally.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know. She was irrational by the time I got to her in the hospital, out of her mind with grief, so I wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe, at the time, I was so overwhelmed myself with the situation that I wasn’t willing to consider her suspicions.”
Graham felt a surge of sympathy for the woman who had endured so much tragedy. Now it was obvious why she held everyone at arm’s length. He’d be suspicious, too, if he’d gone through that.
“One good thing about all this,” Preston continued as the nurse returned with his medicine. “Willow happened to be awake last night, or we’d probably both be dead.”
“Has she said anything more about what woke her?”
“We didn’t have a chance to talk about it. She’s been too worried about me. But mark my words, she’ll be wondering about last night’s fire.”
Graham knew that, among other things, Willow had already been interviewed by the fire captain, and no one was talking about it.
“If it was arson,” Preston said, “Willow will be convinced it was set by her husband’s killer.”
Graham felt a chill slither down his spine at the thought that there could be a murderer in Branson.
Chapter Five
W illow carried an armload of packages into the motel room that she had just rented for the week. Ginger followed close behind, also loaded down with packages.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Ginger released her burden onto the cheap, floral-print spread that covered the only bed in the small room. “The guest bedroom at the house where I’m staying is three times this size, the ambiance is—”
“I’m sure it’s a paradise.” Willow suppressed a smile, surprised by the rapport she had developed with this woman with the big mouth and the bigger…uh…fanny.
For the past three hours, after treating Willow to a generous feast at a breakfast buffet, Ginger had played tour guide between stops at the outlet malls. The woman had given a rundown of the shortcuts and backstreets that would help Willow avoid Highway 76—the Branson creep show during the busy months, when traffic crept along more slowly than the tourists on the sidewalks.
Ginger pulled some articles of clothing from one of the bags and spread them on the bed. “Well, anyway, as I said, I don’t know that it’ll benefit you much to stay right here so close to the hospital when you already know the shortcuts through town. Graham gave the other renters condo suites. Insurance covers it.”
“Is there a condo nearby?”
“Here in Branson, there’s always a condo nearby. There’s a furnished duplex over on Blackner that’s always looking for renters. The manager’s a friend of your brother’s. It’d be barely a five-minute drive to the hospital from there.” Ginger quirked an unplucked, copper-bronze eyebrow. “However, the best place to stay is—”
“I know, I know.” Willow chuckled. “Hideaway. You sound like a commercial for the place.” She had almost weakened a time or two under Ginger’s determined but sweet-natured onslaught, especially since she enjoyed this woman’s laid-back attitude and up-front sense of humor.
But she couldn’t allow others to control her life right now, no matter how well-meaning they were. They didn’t know her situation, and she needed that control.
Ginger held up the one purchase she’d made for herself at the Dress Barn. “Mind if I use your bathroom to try this on?” She glanced toward the tiny room. “If I can fit into that broom closet. I want to see if our all-we-could-eat breakfast has affected my dress size in the past couple of hours.”
While Ginger changed, Willow unpacked socks, shoes, jeans, T-shirts, toiletries and a flashlight, while listening to Ginger’s comments, accompanied by an occasional grunt from the bathroom.
“This dress is the gift Graham’s getting me for my birthday,” Ginger said through the crack in the door, which she’d left ajar. “He just doesn’t know it yet. I plan to spring it on him before he can buy me something totally inappropriate.”
Willow unwrapped a package of socks. “When’s your birthday?”
“Next Tuesday. I’ll be fifty-three.”
“No way.”
“Big way. My age is one of the reasons I was forced to come back to America.”
Back to America? “Fifty-three isn’t old.”
“It is to some people.”
“Where were you living?”
Another grunt, then a low mutter about too many buttons. “Belarus. I’m a physician’s assistant, and for ten years I worked at a mission clinic on the outskirts of Minsk.”
“You’re a missionary?” Now that she thought about it, Willow realized that Ginger hadn’t talked much about herself today, nor had she asked any personal questions about Willow. What she had done was fill Willow in on the Branson hot spots and tell her all about the charms of Hideaway and its residents. And she’d called the hospital every hour for a progress report on Preston, who was still sleeping.
Ginger had been the perfect hostess, putting Willow totally at ease—quite an accomplishment. Until today, Willow would have thought that would be impossible.
“Was,” Ginger said. “Was a missionary. Big difference.”
“Why did you have to come back?”
“Heart problems. Mine got broken one too many times by some of the children who came through our clinic. Of course, the chest pains might’ve had something to do with it, as well.”
“Chest pains?” Willow asked.
“Yes, and some big mouth told Graham about it, and he insisted I come back to the States for a workup. So here I am. I had the workup, found a little problem, nothing worth mentioning, and while I was away, some new med school grad replaced me.” She came out the door, her face flushed from exertion. “But I’m not bitter.”
She wore a leopard-print dress that made her look like a very fluffy female stuffed animal with Grand Canyon cleavage. “Well, what do you think?”
Willow tried to keep all expression from her face. “About what?”
Ginger held her arms out and did an ungainly model’s pirouette. “How do I look?”
Oh, boy.
“Come on, give it to me straight.”
“The color looks good,” Willow said. “Excellent color choice.”
“You really think so?” Ginger pattered barefoot to the small dresser and did another pirouette, straining to turn her head far enough to see the back of the dress. “You know, this is the first time in years I’ve had a chance to go shopping for something nice like this. I don’t even know what’s in fashion anymore.”
“Nose rings and tattoos,” Willow said dryly.
“That I cannot do. I’m not a fan of pain. So you really think this dress looks good on me?” She turned to face Willow, hands on hips.
No way was Willow going to lie to this woman. “Um. What I said was that the color is good on you.”
Ginger blinked. “The color?” She turned back to the mirror and frowned. “Granted, I’d have to do something drastic to rein in the neckline, but don’t you think the print gives me a certain flair?”
“Maybe a vertical tiger-print top with a slim black skirt.”
“Oh-oh.” Ginger patted her derriere, chuckling. “Looks like my love for pig fat, borscht and potato pancakes has caught up with me. You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted kholodets.”
“How long have you been back in the States?”
“Going on a month,” Ginger said, turning again to check her reflection. “You don’t think a nice wide black belt would do the trick?”
Willow made a face.
Ginger grimaced. “Didn’t think so.”
“What did you do before you went to Belarus ten years ago?” Willow asked.
“Oh, the usual. Had to get married at seventeen, was a scandal in our small hometown and a disgrace to the family. I was divorced at eighteen, got married again at twenty-five, was widowed at twenty-nine.” Ginger’s gaze sought Willow’s in the reflection of the mirror. “Life does go on, even though I didn’t want it to back then.”
Willow held the gaze. She swallowed. “Any children?”
“Two boys. Twins. They were the reason for the first marriage, and the reason why I did keep going after the divorce and after their stepfather died. They’ve got families of their own now, teenagers and all, paying for their raising.” She winked at Willow. “You?”
Willow closed her eyes and nodded. “I lost a little girl when I was four months along, a month after my husband’s death. Pedestrian versus car.” She didn’t know this fun-loving missionary well enough to confess that she suspected the “accident” was no accident. Saying that in the past had earned her some uncomfortable looks, and even more disconcerting comments.
Ginger turned from the mirror and walked over to plop down onto the chair beside the bed. “Oh, honey, you’ve been through it, haven’t you?”
Willow didn’t want to sink into grief today. She wanted to forget the nightmare for once and forget the reason she was here, doing this right now—because there had been a fire.
She’d become so lonely and overwhelmed by her dreams and her fears that she’d finally given in to her brother’s insistence that she move in with him and forget about what was happening in K.C. He was worried about her emotional stability.
Her own brother probably thought she was neurotic, maybe even psychotic.
And now he needed her, and she wasn’t even sure if he would be willing to accept her help, or if he’d try to micromanage her life, even from his hospital bed.
She realized Ginger was watching her closely.
“You doing okay, hon?”
Willow sighed, surveying the jumble of plastic bags and clothing strewn across the bed. “I’m just a little overwhelmed right now.”
“You didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I think I’ll change back into my comfy duds, repackage this wild outfit and take it back to the Dress Barn. That way I’ll be out of your hair and you can take a nap.”
Willow looked at the clock. It was after lunchtime, but at last check, Preston had still been sleeping. Maybe a nap would be exactly what she needed. “I think I could use some rest, but I need to get the key and pick up my car.”
“You don’t have to do any of that right now,” Ginger said, patting Willow’s arm as she rose from the bed. “I’m still full as a tick from that late breakfast, but how about an early supper in a few hours? I’m desperate for some girl talk. I love Graham, but he hasn’t had a lot of time since I’ve returned to listen to my chatter.”
Willow looked at the clock beside the bed, then nodded. “You’ve got a date. Give me a couple of hours?”
“I’ll give you three. Try to get some sleep.”
Graham completed the sutures on a five-year-old child who had run through a window, reassured the little boy’s mother one last time that the wound should heal with very little scarring and handed her a sheet of printed instructions for wound care. He also made an appointment card for her, with the date for suture removal.
The phone had rung almost constantly since he’d begun the repair, and his assistant had gone to lunch early today to run errands for the clinic. He needed more help.
He’d thought about asking Ginger to fill in a couple of days a week. As he expanded the clinic—a necessity if he was going to keep up with the needs of so many patients—he would be able to utilize her skills. Right now, however, he needed another volunteer office assistant, someone to answer phones, make appointments, follow up on patient care.
An additional nurse would be great, as well, and a PA such as Ginger would be a blessing from heaven, especially if Graham had to start moonlighting in the E.R. for income.
That was a definite possibility after last night. He could lose renters over this. In fact, one of his renters, Carl Mackey, a transplant from up north, often pitched in here when he wasn’t on duty at the hospital.
As the mother and child left the office, he finished his report on the little boy’s accident, then checked his messages. He had fifteen.
He should never have come to the clinic today. But then, the woman who had just left the office would have incurred a major bill in the emergency department, particularly since she had no insurance. She could barely afford to keep a roof over her head as it was.
Winters in Branson could be difficult for people in the service and entertainment industries. The downtime put a lot of people on the unemployment lines between January and March. April and May were often catch-up months for those with financial struggles. Several of the units at the lodge had only recently been occupied by newcomers to Branson.
Graham rubbed his eyes wearily, then picked up the telephone and dialed the number of the last person to leave a message—the Hollister fire captain.
Graham had been in close contact with the fire department all morning.
As the phone rang, he thought again about Preston’s remark that Willow would probably take the fire personally. She seemed like a perfectly sane, capable woman who was obviously wary of strangers. If she truly had experienced attacks from the person who had killed her husband, it would be a little strange if it hadn’t affected her to some degree.
Preston’s problem right now was his helplessness. Graham would be the one to make the decisions for him in the next few days…maybe even weeks. Those decisions might also affect Willow.
One of the messages on the machine was from Ginger, informing him that Willow had insisted on securing her own lodging, which was a motel near the hospital.
It disappointed him, but he wasn’t surprised.
The phone was answered on the seventh ring. It was the fire captain.
“Hello, Captain Frederick. Graham Vaughn here. Do you have any good news for me this time?”
There was a long sigh, then the captain’s deep voice, with nasal twang, came over the line. “Sorry. We knew pretty much from the first arrival that it was arson, Dr. Vaughn.”
“Graham. Just call me Graham.”
There was a pause. “Don’t think so, Doc. You operated on my wife four years ago when she had that burst appendix. She was scared spitless, and you took such good care of her it was like she was your own. You’re the Doctor.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“So that’s why I can’t figure out why anybody’d want to hurt your property.”
Graham closed his eyes. “Neither can I. How was the fire started?”
“Pretty simple. The perp used the old cigarette-and-matchbook trick. Attach a cigarette to an open book of matches, so the matches will ignite when the cigarette burns down, giving the arsonist time to get away. Looks like the perp took plenty of precaution—used four of these babies, after pouring a stream of lighter fluid from each matchbook to the house, which he had liberally doused with gasoline. It’s no wonder Ms. Traynor smelled the fuel.”
“Any leads?”
“Not much to go on right now. My men and women are good, and we’ve got a lot of help on this case, but we haven’t found a culprit yet, only the sighting of a black sedan in the neighborhood sometime before the fire began.”
“Who saw that?” Graham asked.
“A neighbor down the road from you, coming home from working a late party.”
“There are a lot of people with black sedans,” Graham said. “That doesn’t tell us much.” Carl Mackey had a black sedan, as did the Jasumbacks.
“You’re right, it doesn’t. We’ll check out your renters, of course. We’ve already started the interview process. We did receive a call later this morning about Jolene Tucker. She was run off the road and injured when driving back into town after a trip out to your place for a quick photo shoot just before first light this morning.”
Graham frowned. He’d known she would show up sooner or later. “Who would have run her off the road?”
“I can think of a few people who’d like to do it,” the man muttered.
“Where is she now?”
“No idea, but she earned herself a trip to the E.R. via ambulance. She had a banged-up leg, was treated and released. She insisted it was deliberate.”
“Did she get a description of the automobile that ran her off the road?”
“Sure did,” the captain said. “We even have the vehicle impounded. It was a brown Ford Expedition stolen from a convenience store two blocks from Clark Memorial Hospital earlier this morning because some trusting idiot left his keys in the ignition while he went in to get a cup of coffee. Bet he doesn’t do that again.”
“So no leads there.”
“Nope. The police found the vehicle abandoned later, also near the hospital. Might not be any connection to our fire, but we’re checking all possibilities. You can bet the incident will be in tomorrow’s paper. Jolene’s need for attention might even be a good thing right now, if it attracts a witness or two.”
Graham thought again about Preston’s concerns for Willow and her fears that someone might be after her…and last night’s case of mistaken identity. “What kind of car was Jolene driving?”
“It’s a red Kia Sportage, which is the reason she didn’t sustain any more damage than she did. Good little cars. My wife drives one.”
As the captain lapsed into rhapsody about the delights of his wife’s car, Graham closed his eyes and recalled a detail from the fire last night. He’d come out of the apartment with Mrs. Engle and seen the row of vehicles in the carport across the drive from the lodge, specifically checking to make sure none had been damaged. He’d seen an unfamiliar small dark red SUV among them.
Coincidence? Had to be. But what if it wasn’t?
“Doc, are you there?” Captain Frederick asked.
“Yes, sorry. Jolene did believe the wreck was deliberate?”
“She said it was deliberate, but we all know that woman likes to overdramatize everything.”
“Something just occurred to me, Captain. I may be overreacting here, but it’s possible that Willow Traynor might drive a red Subaru Outback. She looks enough like Jolene in low light that someone could have mistaken Jolene for her. I made that mistake myself.”
“Where is Ms. Traynor right now?”
“I hope she’s safely shopping with my sister, but I think I’ll make sure. Meanwhile, a friend of mine was having a replacement key made for Willow’s car. He had to get the particulars from Preston because I didn’t have them. I wasn’t involved in that conversation.”
“Better keep your friend away from the car. We don’t want to pass up any leads, even if they seem far-fetched. We’ll need to check out that car first.”
“Check it out?”
“What if someone did intentionally run Jolene Tucker off the road because they mistook her car for Ms. Traynor’s? If they were serious enough to do that kind of damage, and if they discovered later that they had the wrong car, they might take it another step and set a booby trap of some kind. Stranger things have been known to happen.”
“I’ll call my friend now. Then I think I’ll take a drive out to the complex.”
“Can you get us the key?” the captain asked. “The officers can jimmy the lock with no problem, but it would be better if we didn’t have to.”
“If we have Willow’s permission, I’ll gladly give the police the key. I’ll just have my friend meet us there.”
“They’ll get her permission before they make any attempts to enter the car, of course. I don’t suppose Ms. Traynor would know about anyone who might have a reason to hurt her, would she?”
Graham thought again about his conversation with Preston. Would she? “It’s possible, Captain.”
“Well, this could be a long shot, but right now we don’t have any other leads on any of the fires that were set last night.”
Graham remembered the other fires that had spread the department so thin last night. “Are you telling me they were all arson?”
“That’s right. All three of them, same M.O., same everything.”
“Was last night the first time this has happened?”
“First I’ve ever seen. How’s Mr. Black doing?”
“He’s in a lot of pain right now.”
“Think he might have made an enemy? Maybe a former renter?”
“We haven’t had any complaints.”
“Well, you just let me know as soon as you find Ms. Traynor, will you?”
Graham promised to do so, then hung up, praying that he was jumping to faulty conclusions, praying that they all were.
He pressed Ginger’s speed dial number, hoping against past experience that this time, for the first time, she would actually be carrying the cell phone he’d given her.
Nope. Not Ginger. She’d probably left it in her car somewhere, relegated to the glove compartment, or perhaps beneath the seat.
He left a message on her voice mail, knowing she probably wouldn’t check it. In fact, her phone could even be out of juice.
And he needed to talk to her right now.
Chapter Six
D ark eyes hovered in the thickness of night, staring up at Willow from the coffin, their depths drawing her down. Something…they wanted her to know something…
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Hannah Alexander
Cop's wife, mother-to-be, respected ICU nurse–Willow Traynor had a rich life. Then her husband was shot, and she was hit by a speeding car. Doubting it was an accident, she quit her job and fled.In the Ozarks, Willow hoped to find peace. But arson destroyed everything she had and almost killed her brother. Now she was certain: someone was targeting her. The support of new friends, especially Dr. Graham Vaughn and his sister, rekindled her hope for a fresh start. But meanwhile her stalker was getting closer, bolder and more determined….
Critical Praise for
HANNAH ALEXANDER’S
Hideaway Novels
GRAVE RISK
“The latest in Alexander’s Hideaway series is filled with mystery and intrigue. Readers familiar with the series will appreciate how the author keeps the characters fresh and appealing.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
FAIR WARNING
“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
LAST RESORT
“The third novel in Alexander’s Hideaway romantic suspense series (after the Christy Award-winning Hideaway and Safe Haven) is a gripping tale with sympathetic characters that will draw readers into its web. The kidnapped Clarissa’s inner dialogue may remind some of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones.”
—Library Journal
SAFE HAVEN
“Safe Haven has an excellent plot. I was hooked from the first page and felt like I was riding a roller coaster until the last. Ms. Alexander’s three protagonists kept my adrenaline-racing. But Fawn stole the show—who could resist a sixteen-year-old running for her life? This writer is a crowd pleaser.”
—Rendezvous
HIDEAWAY
“Genuine humor and an interesting cast of characters keep the story perking along…and there are a few surprises…an enjoyable read.”
—Publishers Weekly
Fair Warning
Hannah Alexander
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
In loving memory of June James,
born July 16, 1922, passed on to heaven
January 29, 2005. Aunt June was filled with
the life and laughter that inspired
the character of Ginger Carpenter.
Acknowledgments
Joan Marlow Golan, executive editor of Steeple Hill, runs a tight ship and is a constant encourager. This attitude infects the rest of her staff, and we are the ones who benefit. We appreciate you all!
Also going above and beyond the call of duty yet again is Lorene Cook, mom extraordinaire, who supports, encourages, runs errands and markets like a pro. Thanks, Mom.
Thanks to retired Battalion Chief Fred Baugher, who knows fire and doesn’t mind his niece picking his brain from time to time.
Thanks to Captain Powell of Branson Police Department for great information about the station and protocol.
Thanks to Susan May Warren, fellow novelist and former missionary to Russia, who gave us some great insights.
Thanks to Barbara Warren for your word-slashing ability, and to Jackie Bolton for personal insights.
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 One
W illow Traynor’s eyes opened to the blackness of deep night as the noise and flash of an overbusy dream receded into the mist of her subconscious.
She held her breath as her eyes adjusted to the square edges of the dresser across the room, the dim reflection of light in the mirror, the ghostly drift of gauzy white curtains above the heat register. Something had awakened her.
She knew the dream had not been a nightmare, because in the past two years it seemed as if nightmares had become her constant companions. She would have recognized the aftereffects. She didn’t feel them now—no racing heart, no night sweats, no rush of relief upon waking to discover that she was still alive.
Something else, then. A noise? Perhaps a passing car, or a boat on the lake? The neighbors in the apartment complex? Sometimes the two little Jameson girls got rambunctious late at night, and Mrs. Bartholomew in the unit next door called to complain.
Willow sat up and peered toward the small digital numbers on the nightstand clock. Two-thirty, April 1. Probably wasn’t the children.
It might be something as insignificant as the unfamiliar silence. Even after two weeks she hadn’t yet adjusted to the move—or rather, the escape—from bustling Kansas City to her brother’s rural log cabin six miles south of Branson in the Missouri Ozarks. Major change.
She had never lived this far out in the country. Although the eight-unit apartment lodge her brother managed meant they weren’t exactly isolated from civilization, it was nothing like city life. Living in the cabin, situated on the shore of Table Rock Lake, was more like being on permanent vacation. Willow still struggled to come to grips with the comparative solitude.
As she stared into darkness, the square of sliding glass door at the far end of her room seemed to emit a pulsing glow. She blinked to clear her vision, but the glow increased. Headlights from a boat on the lake, perhaps? Except she heard no sound of a boat motor.
She turned her back to the light and plumped her pillow. “None of my business anyway,” she whispered into the darkness.
Her brother, Preston, certainly didn’t want her help keeping track of the renters. As he’d told her several times in the past two weeks, she needed to take a break and heal.
After a little more than twenty-three months, she’d almost given up hope of that. True, she no longer relived the night she’d received the visit from the police chief to tell her that her husband had been killed in the line of duty. At least, she didn’t relive it every single night. Maybe more like once a week now.
And she no longer had the nightly awakenings to cries of her forever unborn child. Only a couple of times a week did she cringe when someone invaded her personal space.
People did that all the time now, because her personal space had extended, in the past twenty-three months, to include whatever room she was in. She usually allowed people she knew into her personal space, but there were still those times when she could do nothing but withdraw from the world.
Since two attempts had been made on her own life after Travis was killed, she’d found herself suspecting practically everyone. She had known when she married Travis that he had one of the most dangerous jobs imaginable—not only was he a cop, but he was an undercover narcotics agent.
Here in Missouri, the Bible Belt, the heart of the nation, a war raged against illegal drugs, particularly methamphetamines. She had never dreamed the danger would extend to the cop’s family. But with Travis’s death, it most certainly had.
She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, exhaled, tempting sleep with as much entreaty as she could muster, willing her body to relax. The art of relaxing had become a lost skill for her.
Since arriving here in the middle of March, she’d assured herself daily that the only things she had to fear in this place were her memories. If she died, it would be a side effect of the grief that had imprisoned her since the day she lost Travis.
There’s nothing out there. It’s your imagination. Again.
Wasn’t that what everybody kept telling her? Even Preston. They hadn’t exactly told her they thought she was imagining the attempts on her life, but after the investigations turned up no evidence of foul play, she had felt her friends and her brother looking at her differently.
Try as she might, her eyes refused to remain closed. A faint flash of light greeted her again from the wall. She sighed and rolled from the bed, irritated by her exaggerated sense of responsibility. Maybe one of the renters was wandering around the yard with a flashlight, or maybe there was a party going on.
She slipped noiselessly to the glass door and unlatched it. All she needed was to prove to herself that no one hovered in the shadows watching her, waiting for her to go back to sleep so they could pounce.
And yet, what if someone was there this time?
She slid the door open and frowned. She caught a faint whiff of smoke, with an underlying scent of something else, pungent and strong.
What was it? Turpentine? Like the bottle of stuff Preston had been using in the shed a couple of days ago? No. Not turpentine…kerosene?
No.
Her frown deepened. Had Preston left the door open to the utility shed in the back? He’d spilled some gasoline on his clothes yesterday when he was working on the boat motor, preparing it for the coming warm days of spring.
She sniffed again. Smoke. Fuel.
She caught her breath. Smoke? “Preston!” she cried over her shoulder. “Fire!”
She shoved the door wide and dashed onto the cold deck. The wood chilled her bare feet. The odor of smoke blasted her. She scrambled down the steps and around the west side of the cabin, racing between it and the east wall of the apartment lodge.
Light flared as she reached the front corner of the cabin. To her horror, she saw several jagged lines of flame streaking across the yard—snakes of fire, winding through the darkness.
She blinked and stared, stumbling in the grass, fighting confusion. What was going on? The flames pitched in headlong flight directly toward the cabin.
“Preston!” she screamed. “Oh, Lord, help us!” Please, let this be another dream.
She raced toward the front door. She couldn’t shake the impression that she’d stepped into one of those B movies where a long, glowing fuse raced toward a bomb. Fuses. That was what those ribbons of flame looked like.
Before she reached the front steps, she saw her brother’s dark form stumbling out the door onto the porch.
“Get away!” he called. “Willow, get—”
A curtain of flames suddenly blasted across the wooden porch with all the force of an explosion. Preston leaped free of the fire and caught Willow in a tackle that rocked her backward. They crashed into the privacy hedge separating the cabin’s yard from the wider lawn encircling the entire complex.
He shoved her forward, through the hedge. She cried out as roots and stones bruised her bare feet. Preston kept pushing her farther from the danger.
They collapsed into the grass.
“Willow, you okay?” Preston asked, his deep voice harsh with alarm, breathing as if he’d run for miles.
“Yes. What’s happening?” She stumbled to her feet and drew back the hedge branches to stare at the fire, nearly deafened by the roar.
He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her around to face him. “Listen, Willow, help me get the others out. I’ll call 9-1-1 as soon as I get to a phone, so don’t worry about that, just get the people out of here! Take the top level, I’ll take the bottom, but keep a close watch on the fire.”
She swallowed hard, her attention returning to the holocaust as if she were a human moth.
He took her by the shoulders, his fingers digging into her flesh with urgency. “Willow, go now. Hurry!”
Slipping on the damp grass, she scrambled toward the first unit. The lodge was built into a hillside, so both floors were at ground level, and both had scenic views of the lake below.
She reached unit One A and pounded on the door as she rang the doorbell, remembering the two little girls and their single mom who lived there.
“Sandi!” she shouted. “Get the girls and get out. Sandi, please wake up!”
She glanced over her shoulder. Preston was gone. Fire engulfed the cabin. Smoke billowed into the sky, casting an eerie glow. It was crazy! Those streaks of fire…like fuses…what was happening? As she watched, headlights came on about a quarter of a mile away, brushing the treetops with their probing beams.
No one answered at Sandi Jameson’s apartment. Willow picked up a decorative flowerpot on the porch and flung it through the glass pane in the door. The crash of shattering glass should have awakened anyone inside.
“Sandi?” she shouted through the gaping hole. “Fire! Get out of there. Now!” She reached through the window, fumbled for the door latch and snapped it open, catching her right arm on a glass shard as she withdrew her hand. The sharp point sliced through the tender flesh of her inner forearm.
Gasping, she bent over with the shock of pain. There was no time to deal with it. She shoved her way inside. No light, no one came running into the room. Could they be gone?
She rushed through a kitchen cluttered with dirty dishes and trash of unbelievable proportions, past the living room. She found her way to the bedrooms at the far west end of the hall.
“Sandi!”
She heard a startled squeal through one of the doors and burst inside to find Sandi’s two little girls, Brittany and Lucy, huddled together on the lower level of a set of bunk beds. They wore tattered, oversize T-shirts for nightgowns.
“Girls, it’s okay,” Willow said, rushing to them. “We’ve got to get out of this apartment now. Where’s your mother?”
“Sissy, she’s bloody!” five-year-old Brittany wailed, clinging to her older sister.
Willow looked down at her right arm and saw the blood dripping at a rate that alarmed her. “It’s okay, honey. I’ll take care of it later. Right now we’ve got to get you out of here. Please tell me where your mother is.”
“Not here,” said seven-year-old Lucy. “We can’t leave the apartment. Mom said never leave the apartment when she’s not here.”
“Your mother’s gone?”
The girls stared at her, one pair of green eyes and one pair of brown eyes wide with apprehension.
“Your mother will want you to leave this time,” Willow said. “I need to get you out of here to safety. You can trust me. I’m not going to hurt you.” She reached for Brittany, who cried out and backed away, staring at Willow’s arm.
“But what’s wrong? What’s happening?” Lucy asked.
“Preston’s cabin is on fire.” Willow forced her voice to remain gentle and reassuring, though she felt anything but calm. “We need to get you out of here because the cabin is too close to the lodge.”
“A fire?” Brittany wailed.
“It’s okay, I’ll get you to safety.” Willow would deal with the negligent mother later. She switched on the overhead light and reached into the connecting bathroom for a towel.
In deference to the squeamish child, she wrapped her wound with the not-so-clean towel, then scooped the youngster into her arms and grabbed the older sister’s hand. “Girls, you’ll have to trust me. This way.”
Brittany trembled in Willow’s arms, but held tightly around her neck and burrowed against her shoulder.
There were more people who needed to be warned. Would she reach them all in time?
Graham Vaughn snapped awake at the first trill of his cell phone on the bedside stand. He wasn’t on call tonight, but still he reacted instinctively, like one of Pavlov’s beleaguered animals, when he heard that particular sound. Somehow he’d expected to break that unwelcome habit when he left the practice.
He’d obviously been demented to even consider such a possibility. After all, it wasn’t as if he’d stopped taking patients—he’d just stopped getting paid for it.
He glanced at the numbers on his clock. Two thirty-five. He grabbed the cell phone, but didn’t recognize the number on the screen. A patient in trouble? He pressed the green button. “This is Dr. Vaughn.”
“Graham, it’s Preston. I need help. My cabin is on fire and it could spread at any minute.”
The news didn’t register for a moment. “Uh, Preston?”
“Did you hear me?” The man’s voice rose in panic. “Fire!”
Graham lurched from the bed and reached for the clothes he’d dropped onto the floor three hours ago. “I’ll be there. Have you called 9-1-1?”
“Yes. Help is on its way, but there are two other fires in the Branson area tonight. They’re shorthanded. Hollister’s responding, but I think we’ll need some extra hands to help us evacuate, and the renters will need a place to stay tonight. Can you get here in time?”
“I’m on my way now. Where are you?” Graham pulled on his jeans with one-handed awkwardness, then reached for his shirt, shoving his feet into a pair of sneakers. Preston was right—Graham couldn’t possibly get there in time to help with evacuation, but he was ultimately responsible.
“Down below at Two B. I’m using Carl Mackey’s cell phone.” There was a sound of pounding, then Preston’s voice as he shouted for the occupant.
Graham had purchased the lodge at a greatly reduced price last year and had invested a good deal of sweat equity in it since then. He’d spared no expense on safety, and in spite of the high rent, Preston, his manager, had filled all the units in record time.
People liked to live in the country, except for times like this, when help was farther away.
“Has it spread past the cabin?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Preston said.
“It shouldn’t. We took every precaution when we refurbished that lodge.”
“You’re right, it shouldn’t spread naturally,” Preston said. “But this monster doesn’t look natural to me. I’ve never seen green grass burn either, until tonight.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying this doesn’t look accidental. Look, I’ve got to go,” Preston said. “Rick Fenrow’s not answering his door, and I didn’t think he was scheduled to work tonight. Carl’s gone up to see if Rick’s car’s in the carport.”
“Okay, but be careful. Don’t let anyone go back inside for belongings. And don’t you go back in for anything.”
“No chance of that. My place is an inferno. If my sister hadn’t awakened, we wouldn’t have made it out. Got to go.”
The connection ended. Graham shoved the phone into his shirt pocket, then immediately retrieved it. He pressed a number he knew well and grabbed his jacket on the way out the front door.
He ran down the hillside from his house and pounded across the wooden dock that stretched out into the private cove that fed into Table Rock Lake. He was jumping onto his jet bike when the groggy voice of his friend splintered a half-conscious greeting through his cell phone.
“Dane? Graham. Sorry to do this, but can I use your speedboat? I need to get to my rental lodge fast.” He explained the situation in terse, shouted sentences as he revved the motor of his jet bike and raced from the protected cove to the other side of the lake. The chill of the moist, early-spring air bit into his skin, and he realized he’d be frozen by the time he reached his destination.
“I’m coming with you.” Dane Gideon’s voice barely carried over the noise of the jet bike. “I’ll meet you down at my dock.” The connection broke, and Graham shoved the phone back into his pocket as he faced the freezing blast of cold air that rose from the lake and mingled with the spray of lake water in his face.
Moments later, pulling up to the dock at the boys’ ranch that Dane owned and managed, Graham cut the motor and drifted into an empty slip.
The echo of another motor drifted across the surface of the water from the opposite shore. He glanced over his shoulder and glimpsed a set of headlights bobbing a quarter of a mile west of his own place, from the municipal dock at Hideaway.
The residents of their small village, set along the shore of Table Rock Lake, depended almost as much on boats as automobiles for transportation locally. At this time in the early-morning hours, however, Hideaway slept.
Graham looked up the hill to see the bouncing beam of a flashlight. Footsteps rushed down from the huge farmhouse that provided shelter for twelve boys. Okay, he saw two bouncing beams.
“I called Taylor Jackson and Nathan Trask.” Dane’s calm but breathless voice sounded as he reached the dock, followed by Blaze Farmer, a college student and part-time resident of the ranch.
“Is that who’s coming across the lake?” Graham asked.
“That’s right.” Dane’s silver-blond hair gleamed in the flashlight and headlight glow as he and Blaze released the Mystique from its moorings and pushed it from the slip. “Get in. They’re going to follow us in Taylor’s Sea Ray.”
Blaze rubbed his ebony hands together in obvious anticipation. “I think they just want to race. They’ve been threatening to go head-to-head ever since Taylor got his pride and joy, but I never thought they’d do it at night.”
“We’re not racing,” Dane said.
“Looks like it to me,” Blaze said.
Dane waited until they idled past the no-wake zone, then gunned the motor and flashed his lights at the approaching boat. “We’re just leading the way.”
Chapter Two
A s Willow ran to the final apartment on the top level, she glanced over her shoulder to see a knot of renters gathered in the large gazebo in the middle of the lawn, watching the inferno. She prayed with fervent passion that it wouldn’t spread beyond Preston’s place.
Something exploded within the maelstrom. Sparks rose in the night sky, mingling with plumes of smoke and flames. The roar intensified and the heat reached across the expanse of air to warm her skin.
She peered through the darkness at the empty porches. It had taken more time than she’d expected to rouse all the residents and get them outside to safety; some were elderly, hard of hearing, and had removed their hearing aids to sleep.
Was Preston having this much trouble? Where was he?
She knocked on the final door, rang the doorbell, peered through the window, then heard the excited yap of a small dog inside. She knocked again, then tested the door. It wasn’t locked.
If she remembered correctly, she’d seen an elderly woman entering this apartment three days ago, carrying a bag of groceries. Preston had called her Mrs. Engle.
Pushing the door open, Willow switched on the light. “Hello? Mrs. Engle, are you here?”
The dog, a tiny Pomeranian, yapped at her from the hallway to the right, then raced into the other room. Its fluff-ball form flitted in a ghostly shadow from the glow of the fire through the front window.
Willow followed the little animal to an open door on the right. “Mrs. Engle?”
Another explosion burst through the night. The windows rattled at the far side of the bedroom. The blast of light illuminated a frail-looking figure on the carpeted floor on the other side of the bed.
“Could you help me?” came a shaky voice. “I think I’ve broken my hip.”
Willow switched on the overhead light and rushed to the woman’s side. “Mrs. Engle, there’s a fire on the property. We need to get you out of here.” There would be no time to call 9-1-1 and expect a timely response, not in this place, so far from help.
“Honey, you’re not going to be able to lift me,” Mrs. Engle said. “Where’s Preston?”
Willow peered outside. She’d been wondering that, herself. She unlatched the window and shoved it open. “I need some help in Four A,” she called to the growing crowd that now huddled in the gazebo.
The people were too far away. No one heard her over the roar of the fire.
“Hello!” she shouted. “Can anyone—”
Another explosion shook the floor as a flash brightened the sky to day. Someone screamed, and the light illuminated a group of men running up from the direction of the boat dock. The roar of the boats blended with the roar of the fire and with another sound—the reassuring whine of a siren in the distance. Help was apparently on its way.
Willow went to the phone at the bedside stand and dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher could immediately call the arriving firemen to help her with Mrs. Engle.
Living this far out in the sticks, emergency personnel were seldom just a phone call away. That was something Willow had seriously considered before deciding to come here, and she now questioned her sanity for her decision. She had hoped to find peace and safety here.
After giving her information to the dispatcher, she returned to the injured woman and knelt at her side. “Mrs. Engle, I don’t want to move you if I can avoid it.” As a former ICU nurse, Willow knew the damage that could be done if she tried to lift an injured patient.
She pulled a thick comforter from the bed and settled it beside Mrs. Engle. If the situation became desperate, she could wrap the comforter around the lady and pull her as gently as possible to safety. For now, however, that could wait.
The shriek of the siren drew closer.
Sharp tongues of fire stabbed the night sky, reflecting its fury across the surface of the lake as Graham rushed up the hillside from the boat dock. Emergency lights flashed red in the treetops in concert with the flames. A siren accompanied the crackle and hiss of the burning building.
The first fire truck pulled into the lot, and its crew rushed to connect to the hydrant. Unfortunately, it seemed Preston was correct about the firefighting personnel and equipment being spread thin tonight.
Graham glanced at the sky out of old habit from his E.R. days. Superstition or not, it had always been his experience that more chaos reigned on nights with a full moon. Tonight, however, the moon formed a crescent against the blackness of the western horizon. He’d have to blame something else for the tragedies taking place in the Ozarks this early April Fool’s morning.
He cut across the lawn at the far corner of the complex and caught movement from the corner of his eye. He turned to catch sight of a tall, slender woman with black hair stepping from the entryway of Four A, Esther Engle’s place.
The last time he’d seen that silhouette, the woman had been holding a camera, flashing pictures of a crime scene at a local music theater. Jolene Tucker called herself a photojournalist, and she passed up no opportunity to see her byline in a local paper. She had her finger on every pulse of gossip in the Branson community, but how had she managed to beat the fire engines here?
Though Graham had seen her only from a distance, he’d heard horror stories about the trouble she caused her hapless victims in her weekly gossip column.
Graham switched directions and marched toward her. She had no right to be here. Her presence endangered not only her, but any others who might feel called upon to remove her from harm’s way. What was she doing inside his building?
To his amazement, when the woman caught sight of him through the darkness she gave him a frantic wave and started toward him across the yard. “Sir, are you with the fire department? I could use some help with—”
“Where’s your camera?” he snapped.
She slid to a stop on the grass and stared at him through the smoky murk. “What are you talking about? Why aren’t there more emergency personnel here? There’s no time to—”
“Ms. Tucker, you’ve got some gall coming into a situation like this,” he said without breaking his stride. He reached for her arm. “You’re on private property. My property, and I want you off within the next ten seconds or I’ll give the police a call.”
She took a step backward, evading his grasp. “But you don’t understand. There’s a—”
“I don’t want to hear it. If you want to complain, just write it up in one of your columns.” He led her from the yard. “This place is dangerous, and you need to leave. It’s an insurance risk.”
She jerked away from him. “Insurance? That’s all you’re worried about?” She scrambled back across the dark lawn toward Esther Engle’s front door. “There are still people who need help. Mrs. Engle’s fallen in her apartment and we need a stretcher—”
“I’ll take care of Mrs. Engle,” he said, rushing after her. “You hightail it on home for once. Your nose for news doesn’t belong here.” He thrust his thumb in the direction of the parking lot. “Out!”
She gave a long-suffering sigh and did as he told her this time. “You’ll get Mrs. Engle?”
“That’s where I’m headed right now.” He saw Blaze and Dane, Taylor and Nathan running up the hill and commandeered Taylor’s help—Taylor Jackson was a tough Ranger with the heart of a paramedic. Often it seemed necessary to utilize the full range of Taylor’s skills on the field when responding to accidents.
The fire seemed to have limited itself to Preston’s cabin, though it could easily spread to the utility building east of the lodge. Graham prayed it would go no farther. When he’d refurbished the lodge, he’d made sure the building was above code. Now he would see if the additional efforts paid off.
Baffled and incensed by the behavior of the manhandling owner, who seemed to be confusing her with someone he knew, Willow waited until he and another man entered Mrs. Engle’s front door. She stepped gingerly from the gravel to the grass to protect her feet, and rushed toward the small crowd of people who had left the shelter of the gazebo to watch the firemen spraying the flames. Another siren wailed through the trees. An orange-and-white ambulance arrived on the scene, pulling to a stop at the edge of the lot.
Willow waved at the driver and directed the crew toward Mrs. Engle’s apartment when they stepped from the vehicle. Finally more help had arrived.
“Has anyone here seen Preston?” she asked Carl Mackey, who lived in the apartment below Sandi Jameson’s.
The older man pointed toward the shed. “I thought I saw him headed in that direction just before the fire truck arrived. Figured he wanted to move the gasoline tank before it blew with the rest of the building.”
“He didn’t come back out?”
Carl shrugged. “Nope, and we called for him.”
She heard the shouts of the firemen above the snap and pop of the flames and the sizzle of water from the fire hoses. No way would her brother go into that mess. He was brave and strong, but he wasn’t foolish, and he didn’t have a death wish.
Carl stepped to Willow’s side. He wore bright orange flannel pajamas, and his hair stuck up in all directions. “Young lady, you’ve got a nasty wound.” He gestured to the bloodstained towel around Willow’s arm. “Why don’t we get that seen to? I grabbed my car keys on the way out the door, and I can get you to the hospital before—”
“Thanks, Carl, but I’ve got to find Preston.” Willow rushed back across the shadows of the front yard. “Preston!” she called. “Has anyone seen my—”
A strong, firm arm caught her from behind and swung her around. She looked up into the angry face of the same jerk who had yelled at her before.
“You don’t listen well, do you, Jolene?”
She yanked away from him. “Look, bud, you may be the owner of this place, but I’m not Jolene, whoever that might be, and if you don’t get out of my face I’m going to kick you!”
The man’s expression froze, mouth open mid-rant. He blinked at her, looked down at her torn, mud-and-grass-stained pajamas.
“Where’s Preston?” Willow demanded. “Have you seen my brother?”
The expression of dismay on his face was priceless. For a fraction of a second she almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
Yet another explosion rocked the earth. Willow gasped, then turned instinctively in the direction of the sound, toward the building behind the burning cabin.
“It’s the utility shed!” a fireman shouted. “It’s collapsing.”
“Preston was headed in that direction!” Willow cried as another fire truck rumbled into the ruckus. Oh, dear God, no. Not Preston!
Graham grabbed the panicking woman before she could run across the lawn to the shed, and wasn’t surprised when she fought him. So this was the gentle sister of whom Preston had so often spoken.
“We’ve got to get him out of there!” the frantic woman cried.
“The firemen are doing that.” He gestured toward the two men in fire gear, who were already forcing back the flames and entering the inferno.
Preston’s sister—what was her name…something about a tree…Rowan? No, Willow. That was it. Willow struggled from Graham’s grasp, and as she pulled away a red-and-white towel unwound from her right forearm. Blood gushed from a deep injury in the flesh above her wrist.
“Hold it right there,” Graham said, feeling like an idiot as well as a bully. Why hadn’t he noticed this sooner? “You need medical attention.” He reached for her arm.
She pushed away from him. “I need to see about my brother first. Is everyone evacuated?”
“Mrs. Engle was the only one left. Blaze has her dog.”
Willow’s eyes widened. “Blaze?”
“It’s the name of a friend. The dog’s in good hands,” he said gently. “I’m telling you, that wound is actively bleeding.”
She placed her hand over the cut and turned again toward the fire. “And I’m telling you that I want to see about Preston.”
Graham caught sight of Taylor Jackson, who had just finished helping the attendants load Mrs. Engle into the waiting ambulance. “Jackson!” He waved to catch the attention of the tall man with a stern and caring expression, who had followed Graham, Dane and Blaze from Hideaway in his own boat.
“What’s up?”
“Over here. I’ve got a patient for you. Is there another ambulance on the way?”
“Yep, ETA of three minutes or less,” Taylor said as he hefted his backpack of medical supplies over his shoulder and carried it toward them. When he reached them, he frowned at Willow’s arm and gave a soft whistle. “Looks like the E.R.’s going to be hopping tonight.”
Willow gasped, then gave a weak, horrified cry. Graham looked up to see the two firemen carrying a limp man between them through the smoking, flaming shed. Preston.
His sister fainted. Graham caught her, then lowered her to the ground so she could lie flat. “Get a pressure dressing,” he said over his shoulder. “And start an IV. She might have lost too much blood.”
Taylor already had out a handful of four-by-four gauze pads. He placed them onto the bleeding gash and wrapped it tightly with gauze dressing with the swiftness of an expert.
“That should hold it until we can get it sutured,” Graham said, checking her pulse. It was fast, but that could be from a rush of excess adrenaline. As he checked her more closely, he noticed her skin wasn’t cool or clammy to the touch, and she had a good capillary refill.
“She doesn’t appear to be in shock. Did you bring a cardiac monitor on the boat?” he asked.
Taylor nodded. “I prepare for the worst.”
“Let’s check her out, just in case.”
Willow moaned and shifted. “No. I’m okay,” she murmured, her voice barely carrying above the roar of activity around them.
“Let us be the judges of that. You’re not in any position to complain,” Graham said.
She raised her good arm, blinking against the light of the arriving ambulance as she pushed away from Graham. “No monitor and no IV. I need to get to Preston. Where is he?”
Willow had endured enough of this pushy man’s attitude. She caught sight of the firemen loading a gurney into the back of the ambulance and saw a man with a blackened face turn toward her and open his eyes.
It was Preston. He was alive and awake. She had to get to him.
“We should call an ambulance for you, as well,” the pushy man said.
“There’s no reason why I can’t ride with Preston, is there?”
“Sorry, not right now. They’re only equipped to handle one patient at a time. You fainted, and that could be a—”
“From the shock of seeing my brother like that. Please,” she said, pushing away the monitor line the tall newcomer was attempting to attach to her. She would stand up and walk to the vehicle without their help if they were going to be so obstinate. She scrambled to her knees, hand to the ground to retain her balance.
“Okay,” said Preston’s boss, obviously a trifle irritated now. “We’ll help you to the ambulance. Just hold on, will you? I’d take you myself, but I don’t have a car right now.”
She allowed the men to help her to her feet, and glanced down at the dressing on her arm. Obviously someone knew what he was doing.
She blinked at the white of the dressing as her vision seemed to waver. So maybe she wasn’t as strong as she’d hoped. She guessed she’d let these men help her to the ambulance, where she would sit quietly in the corner until they reached the hospital.
Chapter Three
G raham stepped down the western corridor of the emergency department of Clark Memorial Hospital, south of town. Even at four in the morning, more than half the treatment rooms were filled and the staff was kept hopping with everything from chest pain to broken arms to the unusual occurrence of a knife wound.
There were also the more common cases of croupy children and upset tummies. The emergency department was a way station for all the area’s unwell, no matter how minor or serious the condition.
He entered the third treatment room on the right and found Willow lying on the bed, her face pale. A monitor was connected by wires to her chest. It beeped in steady rhythm.
She looked up as he entered, and her eyes widened. They were blue-gray, large, fringed with long dark lashes. She had her brother’s bone structure, though more delicate and refined. There was a watchfulness about her—an almost fearful tension.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
“I’m fine—just waiting to hear about Preston’s condition. They’re working on him in the trauma room, and they refuse to let me in there.”
“I just spoke with him and with Dr. Teeter, the E.R. doc,” Graham said. “Preston’s stabilized. X-rays confirmed multiple rib fractures and a pneumothorax. They actually have him in CT now.”
She raised her head and tried to sit up. Graham pressed a button to raise the bed for her. “He’s in good hands, Willow, and he’s asking about you. I’ve assured him you’re fine. Try not to worry. Dr. Teeter is pretty busy right now, so it may be a while before he can see to your arm himself, so we’ve decided—”
“Hold it a minute.” She lifted her unhurt arm. “Why is it you know so much more about my brother’s care than I do? And how do you know my name?”
“Preston and I are friends. He’s told me about you.” Though Preston hadn’t mentioned the firm point of his sister’s charmingly dimpled chin, or the vulnerable look in her dark-lashed eyes. “He said you’re an ICU nurse.”
“I used to be.” There was a hint of bitterness in her voice. “That still doesn’t tell me why you’ve been allowed to speak with him and I haven’t.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll see if that can be arranged as soon as he returns from CT. In the meantime,” Graham said, “please allow me to apologize for behaving like a total fool earlier.” Now that he had a chance to observe her more closely, he couldn’t believe he’d mistaken her for the reporter.
Whereas Jolene had closely cropped straight hair, so black it reflected blue lights, this woman had dark curls with a sheen of polished mahogany, the same shade as her brother’s hair. She looked younger than Jolene by about ten years, though Graham knew that Preston’s little sister was only two years younger than Preston. Since Preston was one year younger than Graham, that would make Willow thirty-six.
Graham gestured toward her right forearm, still wrapped with gauze. “Why don’t we see about getting your wound taken care of while we wait for Preston?”
“We?” She blinked up at him, and that firm chin rose a few millimeters. “Mister, who are you?”
Again he could have kicked himself. Graham, you moron, first you bully her, then you scare her to death and now you’re ordering her around like… “I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself much sooner. I’m Dr. Graham Vaughn, and besides being the jerk who mistook you for an unsavory local reporter, I’m the only surgeon here right now who has admitting privileges in this hospital and is also available to show immediate attention to your arm.”
She stared at him for a full five seconds. “You’re kidding.”
“No. This is a busy place, and you’d be wise to take treatment when you can get it.”
Her eyes narrowed only slightly, but he could still see the wariness in those blue-gray depths.
“As I said, Dr. Teeter has his hands full,” he said.
She rested her head back against the pillow and closed her eyes. “I still have almost four hours to get sutures, and I’d like to be available in case they tell me I can see my brother.”
“The six-hour rule only applies to wounds not prone to infection,” Graham said.
“I’ll take my chances just a little longer, if you don’t mind.”
Time to treat her like a frightened patient, because that was exactly what she was right now, and he’d added to her fears. “If I had sliced my arm open on a broken—what, window?—and then exposed it to all the dust and grime and debris at a fire site, I don’t think I would want to push the golden hours past their limit.”
Her eyes opened again. “You’re really a surgeon?”
He grimaced at the lingering doubt in her expression. “You can ask the staff, if you’d like. Would you let me take a look at your arm? I promise not to bite. I’ll even try to get you one of the popsicles our nurses hand out to children who have been especially good during the suturing process.”
Her scowl would have withered a sumo wrestler.
He couldn’t suppress a smile. She fully shared Preston’s self-sufficient personality trait. “Please let me help you, Willow. Your brother is a good and trusted friend, and those are often hard to come by. I’m not going to jeopardize my friendship with him by hurting his baby sister, I promise. And I also promise to have you sewn up and ready to see him by the time he’s able to see you.”
Her response was a reluctant, heartfelt sigh. “Fine, then. Do your worst.”
He grimaced. Not exactly the response he’d have hoped for, considering the circumstances, but if he had just gone through what she’d endured tonight, he doubted he’d be at his charming best, either. Time to make this lady’s life a little easier.
Willow winced and stifled a cry of pain. She watched Dr. Vaughn stop and reach for a bottle of sterile saline solution, which he poured over the adhered bandage.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I should be able to get the rest off without any more discomfort.”
She waited, noting with surprise the depth of the wound. He was right—it did need sutures soon. A nurse had already set up a sterile tray and assisted with the anesthetic and suture material, then left him to his work as she rushed to more emergencies.
This place resembled downtown Kansas City in Friday-evening rush hour. Why was it that some of life’s worst catastrophes happened in the wee hours of the morning, when help was hardest to find?
He adjusted the overhead light to get a better look at her arm. She couldn’t help noticing, for the first time, that he’d changed into surgical scrubs.
The guy wasn’t really a jerk. She could tell that. In fact, he was probably a nice guy. Preston was a good judge of character. Graham Vaughn was even a nice-looking man with short, sandy-brown hair that had some silvering along the temples and eyes the color of rich toffee, with lines of friendliness around the perimeters. Preston hadn’t bothered to mention his boss was a surgeon—he had, however, mentioned that he was single.
And she’d snapped at Preston for even hinting, in any way, that she would be interested in whether or not a man was single, since she didn’t consider herself to be single.
She was a widow, and there was a big difference between being a widow and just being single. That fact was brought home to her nearly every night, when she discovered that her heart was still broken into splinters, and every morning, when she awakened alone.
“The edges of the wound are a little jagged, but still pretty well approximated.” Dr. Graham Vaughn reached for a package of sterile, cotton-tipped swabs, startling her from the preoccupation that caught her so often in its grasp. “I’m going to explore the wound now. This could hurt some.”
She braced herself. “Go for it.”
He lifted one edge of the wound and inserted the sterile swab.
Willow caught her breath and stiffened.
After a quick probe, he removed the swab. “The cut extends to the subcutaneous fat, but the fascia over the muscles appears intact. I don’t think there’s any tendon injury or deep nerve or blood vessel involvement. Of course, I still need to check for that possibility.”
He started his neurovascular exam by gently pinching each of her fingers, taking special care to also pinch the web space between her thumb and first finger, as well as check her pulse. “I’m screening for any sensory damage to any of the three major nerves that could have been damaged. Can you feel everything okay? Nothing feels dull to my touch?”
“Everything feels fine,” she said. In fact, it felt better than fine. The man now focused so intently on her injury was a different man from the one who had come striding across the lawn, yelling at her.
Okay, so he hadn’t exactly been yelling.
“Preston says you come from Kansas City,” the doctor said, his kind gaze flitting over her with apparent interest. “Which hospital did you work in?”
“Truman,” she said, touching each finger to thumb as Graham now turned his attention toward searching for any motor damage to the nerves. “But as I said, I’m not working now.”
“You came down here for a rest?” He indicated for Willow to spread her fingers apart.
She performed the maneuver without difficulty. “Something like that.”
He looked up at her with a brief question in his eyes, then refocused on his work. He had her flex her wrist, then her thumb, then each finger individually as he carefully observed the wound, looking for any evidence of a cut tendon.
Willow liked his thoroughness.
“Your brother loves you very much, and I know he’s been worried about you these past few months.”
She grimaced. How much had Preston told this man? “They say the grief process can take between two and four years. My husband died twenty-three months ago, Dr. Vaughn. It still isn’t an easy subject to discuss.”
He nodded, obviously already aware of her situation. “I’m sorry—believe me, I understand. Though I’m not a widower, I was plunged very reluctantly into the single world again after years of marriage. It’s been three years for me, and I still haven’t recovered.”
She looked up at him with interest. Why was he telling her this? Was he just trying to hold a conversation to keep her mind off the pain? Pretty heavy discussion to hold with a complete stranger.
“Dr. Vaughn, I’m sorry to hear that. I don’t know what my brother told you about me, but he tends to be a little overly protective.”
“Please call me Graham,” he said. “Now, I’m going to numb the wound before I begin to clean it.” He started to remove his gloves, obviously to change to sterile gloves.
“No, I’m a big girl.” There were times Willow would have much preferred physical pain over the emotional pain she’d battled for so long. “You don’t need to numb it until you start sewing.”
He looked at her. “Are you sure? It can be very uncomfortable.”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay, but as soon as you think it’s becoming too painful, you let me know and we’ll take the pain away.”
In spite of his gentle technique, Willow had to grit her teeth as he cleansed the wound, and she nearly asked for the anesthetic.
“Preston’s been an answer to a prayer for me,” Graham said as he worked.
“Hope you didn’t tell him that,” Willow said. “He probably wouldn’t appreciate the designation.”
Graham nodded. “He definitely isn’t interested in talking about spiritual things, is he?”
“No.”
“And you?”
“If you’re asking if I’m a Christian, yes, but don’t expect me to burst into song about the everlasting joys of living the spirit-filled life.”
He gave her a look of inquiry, and she shook her head. How could she explain, without getting too maudlin, that she and God weren’t exactly on speaking terms at this time? According to the books on grief written by the experts, she should be past that stage of the process. She’d left those books back in Kansas City. They were useless to her now.
“How was Preston an answer to prayer for you?” she asked, hoping to deflect the attention from herself.
“He and I met a few years ago at a weekend seminar on real estate investment, at Chateau on the Lake here in Branson. I discovered Preston wanted to work with rentals while he learned the business and earned the money that would make it possible for him to invest in his own property. I, on the other hand, needed to invest money immediately and needed a manager for my properties.”
“He worked as an accountant and financial adviser in Springfield for ten years after graduating from SMSU,” Willow said. “Then he got bored.”
“Well, he doesn’t have a problem with that now,” Graham assured her. “In fact, until tonight, I was pretty sure he was having the time of his life.”
“What are your renters going to do about a place to stay?” she asked.
“I’ve already made some calls, and they have rooms at a condominium down on Lake Taneycomo until they can return to their lodge. Preston’s cabin was the only building destroyed.”
“Any idea what caused the fire?”
“Not yet. I haven’t had time to worry about that. I’ve had my hands full with other things. Though the cabin was a few years old, I had it checked out before I purchased it, and it was in good shape structurally.”
“My uncle was a fireman before he retired,” she said. “He told me once that the investigation begins as soon as the first fireman arrives on the scene.”
“What first alerted you and Preston to the fire?”
“I saw a light outside. When I stepped out the back door I smelled something pungent, like turpentine or some kind of fuel. Then I smelled the smoke.” She paused, remembering. “When I reached the front, there were streaks of fire shooting toward the house across the lawn.”
He didn’t pause in his movements, but she felt, rather than saw, his sudden, startled interest. “Streaks?”
She nodded. “I remember thinking at the time about fuses. You know, like to a bomb.”
“Has anyone from the fire department or police department contacted you?”
“Yes, as soon as I arrived here with Preston, there was someone here to talk to me. I told him what I’m telling you.”
“I’ll have a talk with them. For now, you just relax.” After cleansing the site and setting up for sutures, Graham changed into sterile gloves and picked up the syringe filled with anesthetic solution to numb the wound.
He completed a two-layer closure in less than ten minutes.
After wiping the wound one last time with a saline-soaked swab, he invited Willow to examine the finished job. She nodded with admiration. The guy was good.
Graham removed his gloves and excused himself.
Willow laid her head back and closed her eyes in silent, automatic prayer for her brother’s life.
A moment later she heard a quiet footfall and jerked upright, eyes snapping open. A man in the doorway looked slightly familiar. In his mid-thirties, he had curly dark hair, a long face and warm, friendly brown eyes.
“Everyone okay in here?” he asked, taking a step closer to the bed.
“There’s just me, and I’m fine,” she said, frowning at him. Then she placed him. “You’re Rick Fenrow. Apartment Three B, right? Did you know about the fire?”
“Yes, I heard. You’re Preston’s sister, aren’t you?” He had a low tenor voice, with a northern accent.
“That’s right. I didn’t know until tonight that you worked here.”
“I haven’t been here that long. Did you know another tenant, Carl Mackey, works part-time at the hospital, as well? He’s in the pharmacy. The way things are looking tonight, we could have the whole complex here by the time the sun rises.”
“The fire hadn’t spread to the lodge when I left,” she assured him.
“That’s what the fireman told me. It’s a relief, too. Everything I own is in that place.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“Orderly. I usually work on the floor, but they were extra busy tonight, so I got called down here.” He looked at the chair that held her pajamas. “Caught you off guard, did it?”
“I’d say.”
Rick held up a hand. “I’ll be right back.” He winked and left the room. Moments later he came back, carrying a set of green scrubs. “These should fit.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“And don’t worry about Preston—he’s one tough guy. He’ll get through this just fine.”
“Have you seen Mrs. Engle?”
“She’s in some pain, but they’ve already called an orthopedist. She’ll be okay.” He patted her foot, then turned and left the room.
Less than thirty seconds later Graham returned to Willow’s treatment room. “Preston’s ready to see you before they take him to surgery.”
Holding her hospital gown with her good arm, she eagerly followed him into the trauma room, where Preston had been prepped for surgery. Blood infused through one of the two IVs in his arms, and a well-taped chest tube protruded from the left side of his chest, ending in an underwater seal device standing on the floor.
Preston’s upper chest and forearms had reddened; his skin was mildly blistered. EKG electrodes, an automatic blood pressure cuff and a fingertip pulse oximetry unit all connected him to a portable monitoring unit, which beeped with steady rhythm.
Willow noted that Preston’s blood pressure was a little low, his heart rate a little fast, but his oxygen saturation was excellent, and the cardiac monitor showed a strong, steady heartbeat.
“You get yourself into more trouble,” she said loudly enough for him to hear over the mechanical noise.
He opened heavy-lidded eyes. “Sis,” he whispered through his oxygen mask. “You okay?”
“Doing great. What’s up with you?”
Preston sighed, closing his eyes as if he were drifting off. But he opened them again. “Seems the CT scan showed I have a fractured liver, and my spleen’s bleeding.” His voice deepened, sounding as rough as gravel churning in a concrete mixer. “They’re taking me straight to surgery.” His eyes closed again. “Not sure how a person fractures a liver.”
“Well, if anyone can do it, you can,” she said.
“Guess they’ll have to put a cast on it, huh?” His voice drifted to silence. A snore punctuated the mechanical sounds of the room.
The nurse came to wheel him to surgery. Willow turned to find Graham stepping up behind her.
“You’re being released,” he said. “But you don’t have anything to wear out of here except your filthy pajamas or that hospital gown.” He gestured to her attire.
“Rick Fenrow brought me a set of scrubs to change into.”
“He’s on duty tonight? Preston was worried when he couldn’t find him at the lodge. There’s a private waiting room where you can relax until we receive word. You look as if you could use some rest.”
“Thanks,” she said dryly.
“You’re welcome.”
Back in her treatment room, she fingered the soft material of the scrubs and felt a flick of bittersweet memories. Would she ever escape them?
What was she going to do? Everything she had brought with her to Branson had been destroyed in that inferno. Her driver’s license, her credit cards, her checkbook, even her cash were gone. The only thing she owned that had been spared was her car, because it was parked in the carport across the drive. And she didn’t even have her keys.
This was a different kind of nightmare.
Chapter Four
A predawn light touched the western horizon when Graham entered the private room where Willow had been waiting for news about her brother. The lights had been turned off, and only the glow from the hallway and window filtered into the room.
Word had come a few moments earlier that the fire had been contained and the other buildings were out of danger. Now came the tedious duty of cleanup and paperwork. Graham hated paperwork.
He saw Willow lying on the sofa, her breathing soft and even. He hated to wake her. Still, she would want to see Preston.
Graham smiled to himself. He understood the strong bonds of family. His sister was on her way here now. He had high hopes that she could charm Willow, after his gruffness had brought out her iciest response at their first encounter. Though she had thawed considerably once she realized he wasn’t the ogre she’d first deemed him to be, he knew she hadn’t yet warmed completely. Her guard was up. He couldn’t blame her.
For some reason he didn’t want her to be alone right now. In spite of her self-reliance, there was something about her that seemed so…breakable.
Her soft, even breathing stopped for a few moments, then a moan seemed to shake her. Her eyes sprang open. She uttered a cry of such pain that he stiffened, wondering if her arm could be hurting her that badly.
“Willow, it’s okay,” he said.
Her lips parted in obvious alarm. She focused a terrified gaze on him, and he thought she might scream.
“It’s okay,” he said gently. “It’s just me, Graham.”
She shot a quick look around the room, then seemed to realize where she was. “What are you doing here?” she croaked, her voice tense and hoarse.
“Working on my bedside manner.” He noticed she’d changed into the scrubs. “It’s the least I could do after harassing you so mercilessly earlier.”
She rubbed her eyes. “Preston?”
“He’s doing fine, recovering in surgical ICU. I’ve been working on my landlord duties. You have a place to stay, as of right now.”
She blinked, then slumped against the overstuffed arm of the sofa. “Can’t believe I fell asleep,” she murmured softly, as if to herself.
“Bad dream?” Graham ventured.
She blinked again, straightened her shoulders and returned her attention to him as she scrambled out of the depths of the overstuffed sofa. “Nothing new about that.” She winced as she accidentally placed her weight on her injured arm.
“I don’t think you need to stay alone right now,” Graham said.
She stood up, and for the first time he noticed she was nearly as tall as his five feet ten inches, maybe an inch or two shorter. “I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about that,” she said.
“I have a suggestion.”
She grew still, silent. Again, that wariness. Was this a natural part of her personality or a result of her husband’s death?
“My sister is staying with me in a house down on the lake near Hideaway,” he said. “It’s a large house, so there’s plenty of room for you. When Preston gets out of the hospital, there will also be room for him to stay while he recuperates.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, as if she were cold—or as if the bad dream continued to terrorize her. “How far do you live from this hospital?” she asked.
“It’s a bit of a drive, but—”
“No. I appreciate your concern, Dr. Vaughn—”
“It’s Graham, remember?”
She reached up with slender fingers and rubbed at her eyes again. At this moment she appeared closer to sixteen than thirty-six. “I prefer to stay close in case Preston needs me. Until I can get a new set of keys for my car, I’ll find a room nearby so I can walk.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Graham said. “I’ve already arranged for someone to make a set of keys for you. Everything’s being taken care of, but I wish you would—”
“I’m sorry, Graham,” she said gently as she edged past him and reached for the door. “It’s so kind of you to offer, but you have plenty to keep you busy. I can take care of myself.”
Without waiting for him to argue, she slipped through the door and let it swing shut behind her.
Willow stood by Preston’s bedside and watched the rise and fall of his chest. His mouth hung slack, and the fan of his long black lashes seemed unsinged. His eyebrows hadn’t fared so well, and a blister framed the left side of his face.
Unwilling to awaken him, she watched in silence. I know better than to ask why, Lord. I know I won’t get an answer. But how about a “when”? As in “When will it stop?”
A film of tears blurred her vision. She sniffed and dashed them away, and when she returned her attention to Preston, his eyes were open.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said.
He reached his right hand out to her. She took it gently, feeling the calloused ridge along the top of his palm from too many hours holding a hammer while working on one of his rental properties.
He looked down at the hand he held in his. “You’re shaking.”
“Do you blame me?” She attempted her usual dry, casual tone with him. It didn’t come out right.
His gaze went to her bandaged forearm. “How bad?”
“Not too.”
“Graham fix you up?”
“How did you know?”
“He told me, dummy.” His teasing grin didn’t quite reach his eyes, but she could see it through the oxygen mask. The eyes held only worry, deep worry.
She shrugged. “He’s good.”
He nodded, satisfied, then indicated her apparel with a look. “Did you get a job here?”
She grimaced as she glanced down at the green scrubs. “One of your renters took pity on me and found these for me.” She gestured toward Preston’s upper lip, also visible through the mask. “Your mustache is in awful shape.” It, too, had been singed.
Preston shifted as if he would try to sit up.
“Don’t even think about it,” Willow said, pressing a hand against his shoulder.
“He still around?”
“Who?”
He scowled at her. “Who fixed your arm?”
“I don’t know where he went. Would you just relax and focus on getting well? I’m sure he told you they’ve got the fire under control, and he seems capable of taking care of the renters.”
Preston gave an impatient shake of his head. “I need to talk to him about—”
“You don’t need to do a thing right now, my friend.” A familiar baritone voice came from behind Willow’s left shoulder. “I’ve got a handle on it all, and if I can’t deal with it I know someone who can.”
Willow turned and looked at Graham Vaughn, struck afresh by his solid, friendly appearance. He had that “smile with your eyes” trick down perfectly. There was a warmth in his expression that would, of course, serve to encourage his patients to trust him.
In spite of what she’d said to him earlier this morning, he did have a good bedside manner, and he did engender trust. Willow knew she tended to be a little grumpy when stressed, and she was working on that.
“Willow, there’s someone I want you to meet as soon as you finish visiting with Preston,” Graham said.
“Someone like who?” she asked.
“Someone who can take you shopping for some necessary items until you receive the keys to your car,” Graham said. “You’ll also want some cash, and the claims adjuster will have that to us later this morning. I’ve got surgery today, but my sister can—”
“His sister can speak for herself.” A new voice spoke from the doorway.
Willow turned to encounter a fresh, smiling, freckled face. The woman, possibly in her late forties, had short, graying red hair the color of antiqued copper. She wore blue jeans and a chambray shirt that suggested she might have been working outside when she received the call from her brother and hadn’t taken the time to change.
“I’m Ginger Carpenter,” the woman said, stepping forward with an outstretched hand.
Willow took the hand, appreciating the firm grip. “Willow Traynor. I take it you’re the sister Graham mentioned?”
“Guilty as charged. Graham offered me the opportunity to help someone else spend money. That’s like a dream come true for me. We need to get you fixed up with some clothes, a place to stay until we can find something more permanent, and we’ve got some money to spend, courtesy of my brother’s bank account until the checks arrive later.”
“But I don’t—”
“Insurance money,” Ginger said. “I’ve turned shopping on a shoestring into an art form. You’d be surprised at the bargains I’ve learned to dig up in the Branson shops in the past few weeks. I could open your world to a new way of shopping.”
Willow gave her borrowed scrubs another perusal. “I wouldn’t mind a couple of pairs of jeans.”
Ginger patted her own well-endowed fanny. “Honey, I’d give you some of mine, but you’d float around in them. Let’s go paint the town green, okay? Looks like Preston’s in great hands.” To Willow’s surprise, Ginger leaned over the bed and gave Preston a quick, sisterly kiss on the cheek. “Loan Willow to me for a few hours, okay?”
Preston nodded. “You’ve got her. I’ll take a nap.”
Graham couldn’t help observing Preston’s watchful silence as Ginger cajoled Willow from the room. It was a foregone conclusion, at least to Graham, that no one but Ginger could have pulled off this feat. Willow tended to skitter away from people like a half-wild kitten. The woman was intriguing.
At this point, so was her brother. What was up with these two? Yes, they had been through quite an ordeal tonight, but Graham had noticed Preston’s body language when he’d spoken of Willow recently. He was worried about her. Preston didn’t worry about much, so when something concerned him, Graham homed in on it like a beacon.
With a final glance over her shoulder at Preston, Willow disappeared down the hallway with Ginger.
“I need your help,” Preston said quietly the moment the women were out of earshot.
Graham returned his attention to his friend. “You’ve got it, you know that. Don’t worry about a thing. Ginger can help with the renters until—”
Preston gave an impatient wave. “Not that. We can deal with the renters later. I’ve kept an off-site set of computer records for months now, so that’s no problem.” His voice grew raspy, and he raised his hand to his throat. “I need help with Willow.”
Graham reached for a couple of ice chips and gave them to Preston. “Sorry I can’t do any better than that, but you can’t have anything else so soon after surgery. Why don’t you stop trying to talk? You inhaled a lot of smoke, and you need to rest your voice.”
Preston took the chips, coughed, shook his head. “I need you to know some things about Willow.”
“You mean you haven’t already told me everything there is to tell?” He had heard Preston talk about his sister for several months. Obviously Preston cared a great deal about her.
“I haven’t told you everything,” Preston said quietly. “She’s afraid, Graham.”
“Of what?”
“That’s what we need to talk about. It’s complicated.” Preston placed the small ice chips in his mouth.
Graham pulled a chair over to the bed and slumped into it. Last night had been a hard one, and it didn’t look as if he’d be getting much rest before his first patient today. “Tell me.”
Preston closed his eyes. “Just remember, in my drugged state I may tell you more than Willow would approve of. Don’t let this get back to her.”
Graham shook off his drowsiness. “What’s going on?”
Willow stepped into the hospital parking lot behind Ginger and immediately spotted a sign that advertised lodging.
“Are there several hotels or motels near here?”
“Are you kidding?” Ginger gave a snort that was barely ladylike. “Honey, you’ve got hundreds of rooms within walking distance, depending on how fast you walk and what kind of shape you’re in.” The freckled redhead gave Willow an appraising look over the top of her glasses, then nodded with satisfaction. “From the looks of it, you could walk a few miles to get here if need be, but Graham was hoping you’d stay with us at the house, and I’d love—”
“He didn’t tell you that I’m planning to stay near the hospital to be with Preston as much as possible?” Willow asked.
“He did mention that, but since Graham drives into town every day you could easily come in with him.”
“I like to be able to come and go in my own car. Graham says you live in Hideaway.”
“That’s right.”
“It’s a long way to Hideaway from here.” Willow wasn’t in the mood to move in with complete strangers, even if those strangers seemed trustworthy.
She’d trusted before—trusted that as long as she and Travis were doing God’s will, they would not have to worry about enduring any of the shocking tragedies that so often took people by surprise. She now felt foolish for holding that irrational belief.
“As the crow flies, Hideaway isn’t terribly far from here,” Ginger said.
“I’m not a crow.”
“The drive isn’t that bad. You could get to the hospital from Hideaway in forty minutes—thirty if you catch the traffic right. Believe me, you’d be more than welcome to stay with us.”
The woman was a bit pushy. Willow slowed her steps and fixed Ginger with a look. “You need to understand that I won’t be doing that. While I appreciate the offer, my answer is no. Please don’t argue with me.” With some people it was necessary to establish her boundaries in the beginning. If they didn’t like it, they could move on and rescue someone else.
To her surprise, Ginger chuckled. “Well, I see you’re a lady who knows her own mind. Good. But as my brother reminds me often enough, I’m a nag. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Now let’s enjoy the morning.”
Willow caught sight of a motel marquee down the street that announced vacancies. “I think I’ll see if I can get a room over there. At least for a while.” She refused to think of the multiple reasons she should accept Ginger’s offer.
As she’d told Graham and the fireman that had interviewed her earlier, those streaks of flame she’d seen rushing toward the house—like fuses racing to a bomb—had definitely raised her suspicions and already found their way into her nightmare.
Those weren’t just naturally occurring phenomena. They had a direction, an object of attack. She had seen headlights in the forest beyond the apartment complex. Someone else had been out there. She didn’t need any further investigation to tell her that much.
She didn’t want to be alone right now, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to move in with strangers. The fireman had informed her that there had been two other fires last night, and theirs had most likely been a random attack. As soon as they found the perpetrator, all would be settled.
Too bad she couldn’t convince herself of that. She wasn’t up to being logical this early in the morning with so little sleep after barely escaping with her life.
But she was a grown woman, able to take care of herself. She didn’t need keepers.
She would go shopping with Ginger, enjoy the female company and buy some things she desperately needed. Then she would rent a room and settle in.
Graham listened to Preston’s worries with growing concern. “Willow’s husband was murdered?”
Preston shifted in his bed and took another ice chip. “He was killed in the line of duty during a drug raid, but Willow isn’t convinced his death had anything to do with the drug raid.”
“What does she think happened?”
“She’s convinced of some kind of conspiracy, either within the department or from an old enemy from another case. The trajectory of the bullet was wrong, and the bullet didn’t match any of the firearms confiscated after the raid.”
“I’m sure there was an investigation, right?” Graham asked.
“Of course. No other shooter was found. It was decided that one of the perpetrators must have gotten away. End of case. But Willow can’t accept it. Ever since Travis’s death, she hasn’t been herself.”
Graham could tell the poor guy was miserable, but his heightened concern for Willow kept him vigilant even now, with the aftereffects of the surgery. “You’re saying she still has some major emotional issues connected to her husband’s death?”
“To put it mildly.” Preston’s eyes closed, and he grimaced with pain. “And that’s not the only problem.”
“We need to see about getting you some more medication,” Graham said.
Preston sighed and nodded. “Okay, but please, please watch Willow for any signs of trouble.” He caught his breath, then moaned softly.
“I’ll make sure she’s safe, though I don’t have to tell you how independent she can be.” Graham motioned for the surgical ICU nurse.
Preston opened his eyes again, and this time Graham could plainly see the fear in them. “Everyone knows that when a person is having some kind of emotional problem, they try to make sure that the last thing it affects is their job. Well, Willow lost her job six months ago.”
“She was fired?”
“No, she quit. She hasn’t worked as a nurse since. After her husband’s death she started talking about these…bad dreams. She insists her husband’s murderer is after her, and believe me, after what just happened, she’s even got me spooked, and I should know better.”
The nurse joined them and made note of Preston’s vitals, then looked at Graham expectantly. “You wanted to see me, Doctor?”
“Yes. Did Dr. Glessner leave orders for pain meds? Mr. Black is having some pain.”
“Of course. I’ll set it up immediately.”
As soon as she left, Preston reached for more ice, then fell back against the pillow. “You probably need to know this. Willow was pregnant when Travis died.”
“She was?” That would be doubly tragic, for a child to be on the way when the father is killed.
“About a month after he died,” Preston continued, “Willow was leaving work one morning after a long night and walked out in front of a car. It hit her and knocked her down. She lost the baby. She was convinced someone ran her down intentionally.”
“Did they?”
“I don’t know. She was irrational by the time I got to her in the hospital, out of her mind with grief, so I wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe, at the time, I was so overwhelmed myself with the situation that I wasn’t willing to consider her suspicions.”
Graham felt a surge of sympathy for the woman who had endured so much tragedy. Now it was obvious why she held everyone at arm’s length. He’d be suspicious, too, if he’d gone through that.
“One good thing about all this,” Preston continued as the nurse returned with his medicine. “Willow happened to be awake last night, or we’d probably both be dead.”
“Has she said anything more about what woke her?”
“We didn’t have a chance to talk about it. She’s been too worried about me. But mark my words, she’ll be wondering about last night’s fire.”
Graham knew that, among other things, Willow had already been interviewed by the fire captain, and no one was talking about it.
“If it was arson,” Preston said, “Willow will be convinced it was set by her husband’s killer.”
Graham felt a chill slither down his spine at the thought that there could be a murderer in Branson.
Chapter Five
W illow carried an armload of packages into the motel room that she had just rented for the week. Ginger followed close behind, also loaded down with packages.
“You’re sure you want to do this?” Ginger released her burden onto the cheap, floral-print spread that covered the only bed in the small room. “The guest bedroom at the house where I’m staying is three times this size, the ambiance is—”
“I’m sure it’s a paradise.” Willow suppressed a smile, surprised by the rapport she had developed with this woman with the big mouth and the bigger…uh…fanny.
For the past three hours, after treating Willow to a generous feast at a breakfast buffet, Ginger had played tour guide between stops at the outlet malls. The woman had given a rundown of the shortcuts and backstreets that would help Willow avoid Highway 76—the Branson creep show during the busy months, when traffic crept along more slowly than the tourists on the sidewalks.
Ginger pulled some articles of clothing from one of the bags and spread them on the bed. “Well, anyway, as I said, I don’t know that it’ll benefit you much to stay right here so close to the hospital when you already know the shortcuts through town. Graham gave the other renters condo suites. Insurance covers it.”
“Is there a condo nearby?”
“Here in Branson, there’s always a condo nearby. There’s a furnished duplex over on Blackner that’s always looking for renters. The manager’s a friend of your brother’s. It’d be barely a five-minute drive to the hospital from there.” Ginger quirked an unplucked, copper-bronze eyebrow. “However, the best place to stay is—”
“I know, I know.” Willow chuckled. “Hideaway. You sound like a commercial for the place.” She had almost weakened a time or two under Ginger’s determined but sweet-natured onslaught, especially since she enjoyed this woman’s laid-back attitude and up-front sense of humor.
But she couldn’t allow others to control her life right now, no matter how well-meaning they were. They didn’t know her situation, and she needed that control.
Ginger held up the one purchase she’d made for herself at the Dress Barn. “Mind if I use your bathroom to try this on?” She glanced toward the tiny room. “If I can fit into that broom closet. I want to see if our all-we-could-eat breakfast has affected my dress size in the past couple of hours.”
While Ginger changed, Willow unpacked socks, shoes, jeans, T-shirts, toiletries and a flashlight, while listening to Ginger’s comments, accompanied by an occasional grunt from the bathroom.
“This dress is the gift Graham’s getting me for my birthday,” Ginger said through the crack in the door, which she’d left ajar. “He just doesn’t know it yet. I plan to spring it on him before he can buy me something totally inappropriate.”
Willow unwrapped a package of socks. “When’s your birthday?”
“Next Tuesday. I’ll be fifty-three.”
“No way.”
“Big way. My age is one of the reasons I was forced to come back to America.”
Back to America? “Fifty-three isn’t old.”
“It is to some people.”
“Where were you living?”
Another grunt, then a low mutter about too many buttons. “Belarus. I’m a physician’s assistant, and for ten years I worked at a mission clinic on the outskirts of Minsk.”
“You’re a missionary?” Now that she thought about it, Willow realized that Ginger hadn’t talked much about herself today, nor had she asked any personal questions about Willow. What she had done was fill Willow in on the Branson hot spots and tell her all about the charms of Hideaway and its residents. And she’d called the hospital every hour for a progress report on Preston, who was still sleeping.
Ginger had been the perfect hostess, putting Willow totally at ease—quite an accomplishment. Until today, Willow would have thought that would be impossible.
“Was,” Ginger said. “Was a missionary. Big difference.”
“Why did you have to come back?”
“Heart problems. Mine got broken one too many times by some of the children who came through our clinic. Of course, the chest pains might’ve had something to do with it, as well.”
“Chest pains?” Willow asked.
“Yes, and some big mouth told Graham about it, and he insisted I come back to the States for a workup. So here I am. I had the workup, found a little problem, nothing worth mentioning, and while I was away, some new med school grad replaced me.” She came out the door, her face flushed from exertion. “But I’m not bitter.”
She wore a leopard-print dress that made her look like a very fluffy female stuffed animal with Grand Canyon cleavage. “Well, what do you think?”
Willow tried to keep all expression from her face. “About what?”
Ginger held her arms out and did an ungainly model’s pirouette. “How do I look?”
Oh, boy.
“Come on, give it to me straight.”
“The color looks good,” Willow said. “Excellent color choice.”
“You really think so?” Ginger pattered barefoot to the small dresser and did another pirouette, straining to turn her head far enough to see the back of the dress. “You know, this is the first time in years I’ve had a chance to go shopping for something nice like this. I don’t even know what’s in fashion anymore.”
“Nose rings and tattoos,” Willow said dryly.
“That I cannot do. I’m not a fan of pain. So you really think this dress looks good on me?” She turned to face Willow, hands on hips.
No way was Willow going to lie to this woman. “Um. What I said was that the color is good on you.”
Ginger blinked. “The color?” She turned back to the mirror and frowned. “Granted, I’d have to do something drastic to rein in the neckline, but don’t you think the print gives me a certain flair?”
“Maybe a vertical tiger-print top with a slim black skirt.”
“Oh-oh.” Ginger patted her derriere, chuckling. “Looks like my love for pig fat, borscht and potato pancakes has caught up with me. You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted kholodets.”
“How long have you been back in the States?”
“Going on a month,” Ginger said, turning again to check her reflection. “You don’t think a nice wide black belt would do the trick?”
Willow made a face.
Ginger grimaced. “Didn’t think so.”
“What did you do before you went to Belarus ten years ago?” Willow asked.
“Oh, the usual. Had to get married at seventeen, was a scandal in our small hometown and a disgrace to the family. I was divorced at eighteen, got married again at twenty-five, was widowed at twenty-nine.” Ginger’s gaze sought Willow’s in the reflection of the mirror. “Life does go on, even though I didn’t want it to back then.”
Willow held the gaze. She swallowed. “Any children?”
“Two boys. Twins. They were the reason for the first marriage, and the reason why I did keep going after the divorce and after their stepfather died. They’ve got families of their own now, teenagers and all, paying for their raising.” She winked at Willow. “You?”
Willow closed her eyes and nodded. “I lost a little girl when I was four months along, a month after my husband’s death. Pedestrian versus car.” She didn’t know this fun-loving missionary well enough to confess that she suspected the “accident” was no accident. Saying that in the past had earned her some uncomfortable looks, and even more disconcerting comments.
Ginger turned from the mirror and walked over to plop down onto the chair beside the bed. “Oh, honey, you’ve been through it, haven’t you?”
Willow didn’t want to sink into grief today. She wanted to forget the nightmare for once and forget the reason she was here, doing this right now—because there had been a fire.
She’d become so lonely and overwhelmed by her dreams and her fears that she’d finally given in to her brother’s insistence that she move in with him and forget about what was happening in K.C. He was worried about her emotional stability.
Her own brother probably thought she was neurotic, maybe even psychotic.
And now he needed her, and she wasn’t even sure if he would be willing to accept her help, or if he’d try to micromanage her life, even from his hospital bed.
She realized Ginger was watching her closely.
“You doing okay, hon?”
Willow sighed, surveying the jumble of plastic bags and clothing strewn across the bed. “I’m just a little overwhelmed right now.”
“You didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I think I’ll change back into my comfy duds, repackage this wild outfit and take it back to the Dress Barn. That way I’ll be out of your hair and you can take a nap.”
Willow looked at the clock. It was after lunchtime, but at last check, Preston had still been sleeping. Maybe a nap would be exactly what she needed. “I think I could use some rest, but I need to get the key and pick up my car.”
“You don’t have to do any of that right now,” Ginger said, patting Willow’s arm as she rose from the bed. “I’m still full as a tick from that late breakfast, but how about an early supper in a few hours? I’m desperate for some girl talk. I love Graham, but he hasn’t had a lot of time since I’ve returned to listen to my chatter.”
Willow looked at the clock beside the bed, then nodded. “You’ve got a date. Give me a couple of hours?”
“I’ll give you three. Try to get some sleep.”
Graham completed the sutures on a five-year-old child who had run through a window, reassured the little boy’s mother one last time that the wound should heal with very little scarring and handed her a sheet of printed instructions for wound care. He also made an appointment card for her, with the date for suture removal.
The phone had rung almost constantly since he’d begun the repair, and his assistant had gone to lunch early today to run errands for the clinic. He needed more help.
He’d thought about asking Ginger to fill in a couple of days a week. As he expanded the clinic—a necessity if he was going to keep up with the needs of so many patients—he would be able to utilize her skills. Right now, however, he needed another volunteer office assistant, someone to answer phones, make appointments, follow up on patient care.
An additional nurse would be great, as well, and a PA such as Ginger would be a blessing from heaven, especially if Graham had to start moonlighting in the E.R. for income.
That was a definite possibility after last night. He could lose renters over this. In fact, one of his renters, Carl Mackey, a transplant from up north, often pitched in here when he wasn’t on duty at the hospital.
As the mother and child left the office, he finished his report on the little boy’s accident, then checked his messages. He had fifteen.
He should never have come to the clinic today. But then, the woman who had just left the office would have incurred a major bill in the emergency department, particularly since she had no insurance. She could barely afford to keep a roof over her head as it was.
Winters in Branson could be difficult for people in the service and entertainment industries. The downtime put a lot of people on the unemployment lines between January and March. April and May were often catch-up months for those with financial struggles. Several of the units at the lodge had only recently been occupied by newcomers to Branson.
Graham rubbed his eyes wearily, then picked up the telephone and dialed the number of the last person to leave a message—the Hollister fire captain.
Graham had been in close contact with the fire department all morning.
As the phone rang, he thought again about Preston’s remark that Willow would probably take the fire personally. She seemed like a perfectly sane, capable woman who was obviously wary of strangers. If she truly had experienced attacks from the person who had killed her husband, it would be a little strange if it hadn’t affected her to some degree.
Preston’s problem right now was his helplessness. Graham would be the one to make the decisions for him in the next few days…maybe even weeks. Those decisions might also affect Willow.
One of the messages on the machine was from Ginger, informing him that Willow had insisted on securing her own lodging, which was a motel near the hospital.
It disappointed him, but he wasn’t surprised.
The phone was answered on the seventh ring. It was the fire captain.
“Hello, Captain Frederick. Graham Vaughn here. Do you have any good news for me this time?”
There was a long sigh, then the captain’s deep voice, with nasal twang, came over the line. “Sorry. We knew pretty much from the first arrival that it was arson, Dr. Vaughn.”
“Graham. Just call me Graham.”
There was a pause. “Don’t think so, Doc. You operated on my wife four years ago when she had that burst appendix. She was scared spitless, and you took such good care of her it was like she was your own. You’re the Doctor.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“So that’s why I can’t figure out why anybody’d want to hurt your property.”
Graham closed his eyes. “Neither can I. How was the fire started?”
“Pretty simple. The perp used the old cigarette-and-matchbook trick. Attach a cigarette to an open book of matches, so the matches will ignite when the cigarette burns down, giving the arsonist time to get away. Looks like the perp took plenty of precaution—used four of these babies, after pouring a stream of lighter fluid from each matchbook to the house, which he had liberally doused with gasoline. It’s no wonder Ms. Traynor smelled the fuel.”
“Any leads?”
“Not much to go on right now. My men and women are good, and we’ve got a lot of help on this case, but we haven’t found a culprit yet, only the sighting of a black sedan in the neighborhood sometime before the fire began.”
“Who saw that?” Graham asked.
“A neighbor down the road from you, coming home from working a late party.”
“There are a lot of people with black sedans,” Graham said. “That doesn’t tell us much.” Carl Mackey had a black sedan, as did the Jasumbacks.
“You’re right, it doesn’t. We’ll check out your renters, of course. We’ve already started the interview process. We did receive a call later this morning about Jolene Tucker. She was run off the road and injured when driving back into town after a trip out to your place for a quick photo shoot just before first light this morning.”
Graham frowned. He’d known she would show up sooner or later. “Who would have run her off the road?”
“I can think of a few people who’d like to do it,” the man muttered.
“Where is she now?”
“No idea, but she earned herself a trip to the E.R. via ambulance. She had a banged-up leg, was treated and released. She insisted it was deliberate.”
“Did she get a description of the automobile that ran her off the road?”
“Sure did,” the captain said. “We even have the vehicle impounded. It was a brown Ford Expedition stolen from a convenience store two blocks from Clark Memorial Hospital earlier this morning because some trusting idiot left his keys in the ignition while he went in to get a cup of coffee. Bet he doesn’t do that again.”
“So no leads there.”
“Nope. The police found the vehicle abandoned later, also near the hospital. Might not be any connection to our fire, but we’re checking all possibilities. You can bet the incident will be in tomorrow’s paper. Jolene’s need for attention might even be a good thing right now, if it attracts a witness or two.”
Graham thought again about Preston’s concerns for Willow and her fears that someone might be after her…and last night’s case of mistaken identity. “What kind of car was Jolene driving?”
“It’s a red Kia Sportage, which is the reason she didn’t sustain any more damage than she did. Good little cars. My wife drives one.”
As the captain lapsed into rhapsody about the delights of his wife’s car, Graham closed his eyes and recalled a detail from the fire last night. He’d come out of the apartment with Mrs. Engle and seen the row of vehicles in the carport across the drive from the lodge, specifically checking to make sure none had been damaged. He’d seen an unfamiliar small dark red SUV among them.
Coincidence? Had to be. But what if it wasn’t?
“Doc, are you there?” Captain Frederick asked.
“Yes, sorry. Jolene did believe the wreck was deliberate?”
“She said it was deliberate, but we all know that woman likes to overdramatize everything.”
“Something just occurred to me, Captain. I may be overreacting here, but it’s possible that Willow Traynor might drive a red Subaru Outback. She looks enough like Jolene in low light that someone could have mistaken Jolene for her. I made that mistake myself.”
“Where is Ms. Traynor right now?”
“I hope she’s safely shopping with my sister, but I think I’ll make sure. Meanwhile, a friend of mine was having a replacement key made for Willow’s car. He had to get the particulars from Preston because I didn’t have them. I wasn’t involved in that conversation.”
“Better keep your friend away from the car. We don’t want to pass up any leads, even if they seem far-fetched. We’ll need to check out that car first.”
“Check it out?”
“What if someone did intentionally run Jolene Tucker off the road because they mistook her car for Ms. Traynor’s? If they were serious enough to do that kind of damage, and if they discovered later that they had the wrong car, they might take it another step and set a booby trap of some kind. Stranger things have been known to happen.”
“I’ll call my friend now. Then I think I’ll take a drive out to the complex.”
“Can you get us the key?” the captain asked. “The officers can jimmy the lock with no problem, but it would be better if we didn’t have to.”
“If we have Willow’s permission, I’ll gladly give the police the key. I’ll just have my friend meet us there.”
“They’ll get her permission before they make any attempts to enter the car, of course. I don’t suppose Ms. Traynor would know about anyone who might have a reason to hurt her, would she?”
Graham thought again about his conversation with Preston. Would she? “It’s possible, Captain.”
“Well, this could be a long shot, but right now we don’t have any other leads on any of the fires that were set last night.”
Graham remembered the other fires that had spread the department so thin last night. “Are you telling me they were all arson?”
“That’s right. All three of them, same M.O., same everything.”
“Was last night the first time this has happened?”
“First I’ve ever seen. How’s Mr. Black doing?”
“He’s in a lot of pain right now.”
“Think he might have made an enemy? Maybe a former renter?”
“We haven’t had any complaints.”
“Well, you just let me know as soon as you find Ms. Traynor, will you?”
Graham promised to do so, then hung up, praying that he was jumping to faulty conclusions, praying that they all were.
He pressed Ginger’s speed dial number, hoping against past experience that this time, for the first time, she would actually be carrying the cell phone he’d given her.
Nope. Not Ginger. She’d probably left it in her car somewhere, relegated to the glove compartment, or perhaps beneath the seat.
He left a message on her voice mail, knowing she probably wouldn’t check it. In fact, her phone could even be out of juice.
And he needed to talk to her right now.
Chapter Six
D ark eyes hovered in the thickness of night, staring up at Willow from the coffin, their depths drawing her down. Something…they wanted her to know something…
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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: Cop′s wife, mother-to-be, respected ICU nurse–Willow Traynor had a rich life. Then her husband was shot, and she was hit by a speeding car. Doubting it was an accident, she quit her job and fled.In the Ozarks, Willow hoped to find peace. But arson destroyed everything she had and almost killed her brother. Now she was certain: someone was targeting her. The support of new friends, especially Dr. Graham Vaughn and his sister, rekindled her hope for a fresh start. But meanwhile her stalker was getting closer, bolder and more determined….