Hope White - Safe Harbor

“NO ONE’S GOING TO HURT YOU.”

When he finds Nicole Harris cowering in a closet—a terrified witness to murder—Detective Alex Donovan’s only priority is keeping the beautiful redhead alive. But Nicole is harboring a deep, dark secret—a childhood trauma that stops her from counting on anyone. Haunted by the violence in his own past, Alex knows he shouldn’t get personally involved, but his own feelings blindside him. With a killer targeting Nicole as his next victim, Alex’s toughest road is still ahead. Somehow, he’s got to convince her to trust him with her life...and her heart.

Alex heard something,

a muffled cough-gasp that echoed

from across the room. The closet.

He slowly crossed the room, then whipped the door open. He reached up, pulled the light chain and spotted a woman cowering behind a stack of boxes. Her face was buried in arms folded across her knees.

“Miss?” He crouched in front of her. “It’s okay, I’m Detective Alex Donovan.”

She didn’t look up.

Alex spotted a cell phone clenched in her hand. She must have made the 9-1-1 call.

“Are you a friend of Edward Lange?”

A negative head shake.

“Do you work for him?”

She nodded affirmative.

“Were you here when he was attacked?”

She nodded yes. He wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, but he wasn’t one to make promises he couldn’t keep. If she was hiding in here, that meant she might have seen or heard something that could help them find the killer—and consequently put her life in danger.

HOPE WHITE

An eternal optimist, Hope White was born and raised in the Midwest. She began spinning tales of intrigue and adventure when she was in grade school, and wrote her first book when she was eleven—a thriller that ended with a mysterious phone call the reader never heard!

She and her college sweetheart have been married for thirty years and are blessed with two wonderful sons, two feisty cats and a bossy border collie.

When not dreaming up inspirational tales, Hope enjoys hiking, sipping tea with friends and going to the movies. She loves to hear from readers, who can contact her at hopewhiteauthor@gmail.com.

Safe Harbor

Hope White

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and

dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

—Colossians 3:12

To Anio, for a lifetime of friendship

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

DEAR READER

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

ONE

Personal assistant Nicole Harris dropped her messenger bag on the floor next to Mr. Lange’s desk and answered her cell phone. “This is Nicole.”

“Thank you so much for covering for me this weekend,” her boss, Ruby said. “I owe you.”

“Big time.” Nicole smiled, logged into Outlook and sorted piles of papers on the computer magnate’s desk. Edward Lange may be a tech genius but he had the organizational skills of a five-year-old on a sugar high.

“I just can’t do weekends, not with the boys’ soccer and baseball and—”

“Hey, no problem.” Nicole didn’t have a husband or family so she didn’t mind working on the weekend, especially if it meant helping out her boss, who’d also become a good friend.

“What can I do to repay you?” Ruby asked.

“It’s my job, remember?”

“And you’re seriously good at it or Edward wouldn’t have requested you. Did you get the passcodes I texted you earlier?”

“Yes, ma’am. Committed them to memory and ate my phone.”

“Very funny.”

The front door slammed.

“He’s back from his run. Gotta go.” Nic pocketed her phone and checked Mr. Lange’s Outlook calendar to make sure he wasn’t missing anything crucial by escaping the city on a whim. Nic was a natural at her job as a personal assistant, but then she’d spent her childhood keeping her younger sister and brother organized.

Voices echoed down the front hallway. Odd, considering she was told they weren’t expecting guests this weekend. She blocked out the voices and focused on checking messages on Mr. Lange’s smartphone.

“It’s borderline criminal!” Mr. Lange shouted.

Shouted? He was usually such a soft-spoken man. Nic felt guilty eavesdropping, so she refocused on his voice mails. “Mr. Lange, this is Audrey Ross from Tech Worldwide. I’m on a deadline and I need a statement about the Tech-Link software failure—”

“I said no!”

Her shoulders jerked.

“It’s okay, it’s not him,” she coached herself, as posttraumatic panic skittered across her nerve endings.

Something slammed against the wall, rattling the books in the mahogany case next to the door. She slowly backed up toward the closet.

“Get out of my house!” Mr. Lange bellowed.

Her pulse raced as buried memories of her abusive father rushed to the surface.

“I said out!”

She darted into the closet and shut the door with a soft click. Scrambling to the far corner, she hid behind a stack of boxes.

Some part of her brain realized how ridiculous it would look when Mr. Lange found his personal assistant huddled in the closet, but her reaction was automatic. She couldn’t make another choice if her life depended on it.

“You need to reconsider,” a second man said, his voice higher pitched and more clear.

They’d entered the office.

“Nothing is going to change my mind,” Mr. Lange said.

Something slammed against the closet door. She bit back a squeak and hugged her knees to her chest.

“Why are you still here?” Mr. Lange accused.

“Because you haven’t called the cops.”

“The only reason I haven’t called the cops is because of my—”

A soft pop made her gasp. Then another.

A gunshot? No, it couldn’t be.

Silence rang in her ears. She focused on breathing so she wouldn’t pass out.

The sound of breaking glass echoed through the door, then swearing, and more crashing. She hugged her knees tighter, fisted her hands.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Waited.

It was just a matter of time before he opened the closet door.

Flashes of her childhood paralyzed her, rendering her unable to think clearly.

Hide in the corner. Be quiet and still, she’d coach Beau and Addy.

She had to do something, call the police, a friend, someone. Instead, she huddled in tighter, losing all sense of time and place as the memories closed in.

Then the door opened...

* * *

Detective Alex Donovan knew something was off the minute he entered Edward Lange’s study. Instinct twisted his gut as he scanned the room.

“Chief Roth and the coroner are on the way,” officer Mark Adams said, standing in the doorway.

Alex crouched to look at the room from another angle, wrestling with the frustration building in his chest.