Safe Haven

“Not lately. I’ve seen some bad reactions after an impact like last night’s. I didn’t want to take any chances.”

Her nausea was almost gone, but her head hurt where she’d bumped it, and her shoulder ached where the seat belt had grabbed her. Even worse, she cringed with humiliation every time she thought about her nauseating display in front of—and on—the poor guy.

“Well. Okay.” She glanced toward Monster through the semidarkness, and saw his huge outline, belly up, legs in the air, paws clinging through the holes in the top of the pet taxi. It was the way he usually slept—except he usually avoided the pet taxi.

“How are you feeling this morning?” Taylor prompted.

“I’m doing fine, no blurred vision, and I feel a lot better.”

“Usually after an impact like the one you sustained, the victim feels worse the next day.”

She gave a quiet sigh. Nothing better than a skeptic paramedic—unless it was a cat that snored. “Okay, but when you factor in the bulldozer running me over, I’m doing pretty good.”

No reply.

“You know, considering.” He obviously had been born without a sense of humor, or the gift of gab. “Look, Taylor, I’ll be fine.”

“The tow truck picked up your car.” He had a very attractive voice. “The mechanics will be checking it out today. I gave them the number of the Lakeside in case they need to get in touch with you.”

“You’re kidding. You did all that?”

“The guy’s shop is just three blocks from the square.” Yes, that was definitely a nice voice, maybe a little impatient because she wasn’t admitting to her misery. Maybe he was wondering why he’d even gone to the trouble to help her in the first place.

She was touched in spite of his curtness. After all, she was definitely a noncompliant patient. She wouldn’t have been nearly so forbearing in his place.

“Well. Thanks again, Taylor. And really, don’t worry about me. I’ll be checking in at the clinic about eight-thirty this morning.”

“Oh.” He sounded surprised. “You will?”

“Of course.” To work. She had specifically not mentioned that fact to him last night, because she knew how quickly word traveled in the medical community, in spite of the new Federal regulations about patient confidentiality. She did not want her stupid behavior last night to precede her. “Thanks a lot for calling, Taylor.” Her head continued to throb. She needed aspirin, and fast. “Goodbye.”

There was a pause, and then, “Goodbye.” It almost sounded like a question, as if he still wasn’t convinced she was okay.

She moaned and allowed the receiver to fall back into its cradle, hoping she wouldn’t have to face him again until the stain faded from his uniform. Unfortunately, one did not easily forget a six-foot-tall woman with red hair.

Her stomach rumbled, harmonizing with Monster’s early-morning growl of welcome, and she dragged herself from the comfortable bed to open the pet-taxi door. She had assured the elderly proprietress of the Lakeside Bed-and-Breakfast that her furry ball-and-chain had the intelligence to use the ever-present litter box, and that he didn’t scratch furniture because he’d been neutered in a former cat-life.

Monster rushed to the kitty-litter box in the bathroom while Karah Lee followed him and dug aspirin from her overnight case. Checking her appearance in the mirror, she groaned aloud. Her forehead was mottled red and blue and the skin was broken. She might possibly pull enough bangs down over it to conceal the bruise from the clinic staff, but it would take a better actress than she was to conceal the fact that her head was throbbing so hard it nearly crossed her eyes.

But she would be there, no matter what.

Fawn Morrison opened her eyes to dim, green-shaded light and the sound of tires on blacktop only a few yards from where she lay. She unwound herself from the tight-little-ball position in which she always slept, and brushed aside a pine branch that scratched at her cheek with the puff of every breeze. Her stomach cramped. Her feet hurt from the cuts and bruises she’d gotten from her barefoot run through the hazard-pocked darkness last night. Her ankle ached.

From the jumbled-together restaurants up the hill on Highway 76, she caught a whiff of frying bacon, and it reminded her how hungry she was in spite of her stomachache. It also reminded her where she was, and why.

Last night, she’d raced away from the crowd as fast as she could run, tripping over curbs in the dark, stumbling into bushes she couldn’t see and, finally, scrambling down a steep, muddy embankment to this place. Unable to go farther, and hurting too much to care if she got caught, she’d curled up and cried.

Again this morning, the tears blurred her vision. Bruce was murdered! The police thought she was the murderer, and Harv knew what she looked like. He couldn’t afford to let a murder witness live. And if she was right about that flash drive storage device in her purse, Harv would be after it. She couldn’t afford to let him—or the police—get to her.

She couldn’t let anybody find her—which meant she couldn’t let anyone recognize her.

Another car swept past, and Fawn eased herself farther down the muddy, tree-lined bank to a tiny creek that trickled over some rocks in the shadows. It didn’t smell like a sewer, so she stooped down and splashed some of the chilly water on her face. She couldn’t believe this hidden place was so close to congested Highway 76.

Her head ached, and her eyes felt swollen from crying. For the past couple of years she’d been sure she’d never cry again. She thought she’d seen everything—and done everything. But just as Great-Grandma used to say, life had a way of changing. Why couldn’t things just settle for once? Why couldn’t people learn to be nice?

Fawn missed Bruce. He’d been good to her—as good as he’d known how to be. He wasn’t one of those fine, law-abiding citizens or anything. He had a business, and it wasn’t banking. But she’d also seen him give money to the soup kitchen down the street from the mall in Las Vegas, and he was a big tipper. He was good to a lot of people. So much better than her stepfather had ever been to her…considering Bruce didn’t know how old she really was…considering he’d never forced her to do anything she didn’t pretend to want to do.

Teardrops joined the creek water on her face, and again she let herself cry. “Oh, Bruce,” she whispered. “Why’d you have to blow the whistle on those people? Why’d you have to make it such a big deal?” People broke the rules every day. He broke the rules every day. Why’d he have to pick yesterday to change his ways?

And then she couldn’t help wondering about the big, ugly crime he said they were committing in Hideaway. What kind of danger were those people in? And what would happen to them now that Bruce wasn’t there to stop whatever was happening?

Now she knew why he’d planned to take her there this weekend. He’d told her they could play—riding jet bikes and floating down a local river and hiking on some fancy new trail—but she’d known from the beginning he’d had something else on his mind.

A loud truck muffler startled her with its racket on the road. She sniffed and wiped her face, then slumped back against the bank of the creek. “What am I going to do now?”

She picked up the purse she’d used as a pillow last night, and pulled out the tiny lipstick with mirror Bruce had given her last week. From what she could see in the reflection, she had mud all over her face, and her hair was one big mat of tangles and dirt and leaves. One of her contact lenses had come out, and now she had one blue eye and one brown.

She’d have to clean up before anybody saw her.

She sniffed and blinked away the tears, then dropped to her knees and rinsed her hair and clothes as well as she could in the cold creek water to get some of the mud out. The gravel dug into her knees, adding to the pain of her cut and bruised feet.

Last night, she’d scrambled through the deserted parking lot of a mall about a half mile or so up the hill from here. Maybe she could go back there and get some clothes before it got busy this morning. And maybe she could get some other supplies, as well.

She pulled the cash from her purse and stuffed it into the pocket of her pants. She transferred the rest into her shirt pocket—including the teensy computer data storage device Bruce had told her to keep—and buried her pretty, blue-beaded purse that matched the dress she’d looked so good in. And so grown-up.

Now it was time to be a kid again. Maybe she could get away with that here in Branson, at least for a little while. Branson was nothing like Las Vegas.

Except there were murderers here, too.

The rumble of Monster’s outraged cries still echoed in Karah Lee’s ears as she stepped through the entrance of the two-story Victorian lodge that held the main office where she had checked in last night. The cat did okay alone most of the time, but he hated new places, and he let everybody know about it. Karah Lee only hoped he didn’t blast the windows out with his caterwauling today.

Maybe someone at the clinic could tell her how to contact that kid who treated animals. Monster didn’t appear to be injured, but she didn’t want to take any chances with the life of her grumpy roomie.

Drawn by the irresistible aroma of a country breakfast, Karah Lee strolled through the comfortable-looking lobby, with its Victorian sofa and chairs and fireplace, to a wide hallway that led to a large dining area with fifteen tables decorated with cut-glass vases holding fresh carnations.

This morning, the only diners in evidence sat outside on a deck overlooking the lake. Karah Lee glanced toward a steam table near the wall to her right. A white-haired octogenarian stooped over the table, stirring a pot of gravy. There were steel trays containing sausage patties, omelettes, waffles and all kinds of toppings, fresh fruit, biscuits, hash browns with onions…the aromas made Karah Lee dizzy with hunger.

“There you are.” The lady set down her platter of biscuits and gestured toward a table beside a window that overlooked the deck—and the sparkling blue lake just a few yards away. “You’re Dr. Fletcher, ain’t you?” she called across the room.

“That’s me.”

She studied Karah Lee’s scrubs and lab coat. “Cheyenne sure is looking forward to seeing you.”

“Good. I’ll walk over there as soon as I finish my breakfast.”

“She’ll be glad of that.” The woman dusted her floury hands on her apron as she crossed to Karah Lee’s table. “Nobody can believe how fast her business grew this year, and what with her signed on to work down at Dogwood Springs for the rest of the summer, to boot, she’s been working night and day sometimes, it seems like to me.” She held her hand out.

Karah Lee took it in a gentle grip, looking for a name badge that wasn’t anywhere in evidence. “You must be Edith Potts’s business partner.”