Hannah Alexander - Safe Haven

“He doesn’t like associating with traitors” came the visitor’s voice, which was rougher than Bruce’s deep bass.

Fawn grabbed the door to keep it from shutting and disturbing the men. Bruce wasn’t finished with his business. She’d come back too soon. She was about to turn around and leave without saying anything, when Bruce spoke again.

“I’d only be a traitor if I allowed my clients to pour their money down the drain with bad deals.”

“It doesn’t have to be a bad deal,” Gray Suit grumbled. “You tell your clients to leave their money where it is for six more months, and you can guarantee seventy percent return on their investment. They won’t want to pass that up.”

“Vincent can’t guarantee that, Harv, and you know it. How many dupes are you going to find to buy a worthless space of air over Hideaway? The condominium isn’t even built yet.”

“Construction’s already begun.”

Fawn saw the anger spill over Bruce’s face. “How can that be?”

Harv gave a low grunt of laughter. “You’re not the only man who can be bought. I’ve got good information that says you’re carrying a vital report around in your pocket. You don’t have any business with that inspection report, and Vincent wants it back.”

“It’s not on me,” Bruce said.

Out in the hallway behind Fawn came the sound of the penthouse elevator doors opening and dishes rattling, probably a meal on a room-service cart. Harv half turned at the sound, until Fawn could see the outline of his long, heavy-boned face, with thick jawline and overgrown, black eyebrows. He looked really edgy, and the fingers of his right hand tensed, muscles flexing beneath his suit.

Bruce caught Fawn’s gaze, frowning hard at her and jerking his head toward the door in an unmistakable command for her to leave. “Harv, this whole mess is going to come down on Vincent’s head, and I don’t want to be here when it happens. I’m not getting blamed for his stupid decision.”

Harv returned his attention to Bruce. “Then what are you doing here? You didn’t fly all the way here just to give Vincent the brush-off. You could’ve done that on the phone.”

“I didn’t—”

“You’ve got contacts here.” Suspicion laced the man’s voice.

“I wanted to see some of the shows, check out the—”

“I know what kinds of shows you like, and they aren’t these country-music comedy shows.”

“Vincent sent you here to do his dirty work, didn’t he?” Bruce asked. “He doesn’t care about a bunch of strangers in Hideaway as long as he can make his money and get out before tragedy strikes. Don’t you care that lives could be at stake?”

“Since when did you care about other people?”

As if against his will, Bruce’s gaze gave an imperceptible flick toward Fawn, then he looked back at Harv.

Harv’s shoulders stiffened. He started to turn, reaching beneath his suit jacket.

“No!” Bruce shouted. “Princess!”

A deadly-looking pistol with silencer seemed embedded in Harv’s hand as he drew it from his pocket. He aimed at Fawn and squeezed the trigger as she ducked at Bruce’s command.

The doorpost beside her splintered. “Bruce!”

“Run, Princess!” Bruce shouted, charging the man. “Get out now! Hurry!” He was still six feet from his target when the man swung back, aimed, squeezed the trigger.

Fawn shoved the door wide behind her, barreling past a bellman with a room-service cart. The cart and dishes went flying with a clatter across the hallway.

“Get out of the way!” she screamed. “He’s a killer! Run!” She raced to the elevator, jabbed the button, then realized she could be trapped. She ran to the stairwell and plunged downward, expecting to feel a bullet in her back any second. She heard another clatter of dishes, heard a man cry out above her just as the stairwell door closed—the bellman?

Her feet barely touched the steps as she raced down them. When she reached the third-floor landing, she stumbled and twisted her ankle. Gasping with pain, she didn’t slow her stride. At the second-floor landing, she paused long enough to look up and listen.

She didn’t hear the sound of pursuit. She kicked off the strappy, high-heeled sandals and looped them over her purse. Where was he? What was happening up there? Bruce! What happened to you?

She wanted to turn and race back up those stairs. She needed to get help, fast. Bruce could be up there bleeding to death.

Did Harv shoot the bellman, too? Where was the man? Harv could have taken the elevator down—he could be waiting for her when she stepped through the door on the ground floor.

But that would be crazy. Too many witnesses.

Instead of continuing down the stairs to the first floor, she rushed to the second-floor entrance. But as soon as she placed her hand on the knob to open the door, she let it go and drew back. What if Harv was on the other side of that door?

“Stop it!” she whispered to herself. She had to get to safety—reach the lobby and cry out for help, find the security guards and have them call for an ambulance. She cracked the door open and peered into the hallway. All she saw was a serving tray of empty dishes on the floor at the far end of the hallway. She glanced back over her shoulder toward the stairwell, then stepped into the hallway. She took the main elevator to the lobby. No way Harv could get her there.

The moment her bare feet sank into the plush wine-and-gold carpet of the lobby, she saw him. The man named Harv in the expensive-looking gray suit stood talking with two uniformed guards. He gestured toward the stairwell door, looking the part of a frightened man. One of the security guards drew his gun.

Fawn gasped.

Harv glanced her way and sighted her. “There!” he shouted. “That’s the killer. Don’t let her get away!”

She plunged into the midst of a group of elderly ladies.

“Stop that woman! She’s a killer!” someone called across the lobby.

A couple of women screamed as Fawn stumbled to the exit and shoved open the door.

She ducked past another crowd of oblivious people, keeping the colorfully dressed theatergoers between herself and the guards as she slipped into the shadows at the edge of the property. Wishing desperately for a pair of sneakers, she slung the strap of her purse over her head and plunged into the darkness, barefoot and sure she would be shot in the back any second.

Taylor Jackson sped along the tree-shrouded road as fast as he dared, and watched for moving shapes in the beams of his headlights. He dreaded what he might find, and he hoped backup was on its way.

How many times had he warned tourists to avoid driving this stretch of road at night? And how many runs like this had he made in the year he’d been working this area? The local communities needed to buy space on radios and hometown papers daily, alerting the world that humans did not own the roads in the Ozarks, especially at night. The deer, opossums, raccoons and coyotes did.

Sometimes he thought the four-footed variety of animals obeyed the rules of the Mark Twain National Forest better than the two-footed ones.

The only times he ever prayed were on runs like this, when he didn’t know what he would find, how many victims would be involved, how much damage there would be. He especially hated finding children hurt. Highway 76 twisted through the hills with such diabolical suddenness it caught travelers unaware, making them think it was veering right, then veering left instead, in hairpin curves that seemed to make no sense.

Meanwhile, oncoming cars accidentally bright-lighted one another with vicious intensity. On summer days, when traffic was heavy and they got a slow driver bottle-necking thirty sightseers in a hurry to see Hideaway in a couple of hours, people got injured, even killed. Hideaway Road had earned a bad reputation in the past few months, since tourists had discovered its beauty.