“Some.” Her voice grew irritable again.
“Some? Any idea how long you were out?”
“Couldn’t have been more than a few minutes. That racket in the back seat works better than a sternal rub.” She held her arm out. “Go ahead, take my blood pressure. It stays about 125 over 75. I already took my heart rate. It’s steady and normal. Respiration’s normal.”
He pulled the cuff out of the bag and did as he was told, curbing his curiosity about her apparent medical knowledge. The cuff made a firm fit around her arm. She had a large frame for a woman, but in spite of her muscular form she didn’t look like a bodybuilder. He pumped the cuff and took the reading, nodded and released the pressure.
“Elevated?” she asked.
“It’s 140 over 85.”
“Not bad after all this excitement,” she said. Her cheeks were gaining some color. “Now do you want to let me up?”
“If you’d give me a couple more minutes, Ms. Fletcher, I’d appreciate it.” Why did he always have to get pushy patients in the middle of the night? “Have you had any alcoholic beverages this evening?”
Her expression revealed her irritation, and the color in her face deepened. “A herd of deer ran me off the road, okay? I’m not a drunk driver. Do you smell alcohol on my breath?” She blew a puff of air into his face. All he caught was a whiff of onions. A strong whiff. “Just let me out of the car and I’ll walk a straight line for you.” She reached for the door handle to steady herself and scooted forward.
“Not yet, please.” He leaned over her and palpated the back of her neck. “Sometimes you can be hurt worse than you think at the time. It’s always best not to take chances, Ms. Fletcher.”
She gave a long-suffering groan. “It’s Karah Lee.”
He frowned. “Excuse me?”
“I go by Karah Lee, not Ms. Fletcher.”
He pulled out his penlight and dropped to one knee in front of her so he could get a more level look. “I’m going to shine this light into your eyes briefly, Karah Lee.”
She gave another sigh of impatience. “Go ahead, do your thing. I’m telling you, I’m fine. I’d like to see about my cat, though.”
He checked her pupils, and they were equal and reactive. He looked at the wound on her temple, which could use some attention but was no longer actively bleeding. “You obviously haven’t been out of the car yet, right?” To his discomfort, the cat’s voice did seem to be reaching a higher decibel again.
“No, but if you’ll give me a chance, I’ll go for it.”
“I’m sorry, I’d like you to remain in the vehicle until we can get an ambulance here to do a more thorough—”
“No.” Her voice was firm. “I told you I’d be okay. I am willing to sign a PRC form so you can release me without getting into trouble.”
Taylor bit back a sharp retort. A Patient Refusal of Care form would release him from any liability if she should develop complications later. She sounded as if she was accusing him of trying to cover his backside.
“Look, Ms. Fletcher, I’m not interested in covering for myself, I just want to make sure you don’t have any—”
“It doesn’t look like there’s too much damage,” she said, gesturing toward the front of her car. “And I wasn’t speeding. I realize that the damage to the car isn’t always the best indication of injury to the occupants, but you’ll have to trust my judgment. I promise to check in with the local clinic first thing in the morning.” There was a hint of sarcasm in her words and a touch of irony in her gaze, and he wondered what that was all about.
“By the way,” she said, “I tried to start the engine and it refuses to budge. Know of anybody I might call for a tow in the morning?” Her voice mingled with the cat’s in a grating duet.
Taylor didn’t bother to curb his own sarcasm. “The engine won’t start?” He raised his voice to be heard over the yowling in the back seat. “Doesn’t that tell you something?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed, then reached out and took his left arm in a firm grip. With that grip she urged him backward. “You don’t listen too well, do you?”
She released him and stood gingerly to her feet. She was tall. The top of her head came to his eyebrows, and he was six-three.
“I’m refusing care. End of…discuss—”
Her focus seemed to waver, and the color drained from her face once more. She grabbed her stomach and doubled forward. He reacted quickly to step out of the line of fire, but not quickly enough. His uniform pants would never be the same.
Chapter Three
Sirens blasted through the air and bounced from the side of the building where Fawn Morrison crouched, panting from the run, terrified. She was at least three city blocks from the hotel-theater complex she’d escaped, and panic continued to shake her body so hard she could barely get enough air into her lungs. Red-white-blue lights reflected across the parking lot. She could only gamble that no one driving into the lot would catch a glimpse of her dress from beyond the thick hedge that shielded her.
She knew that if she moved quickly, she had a better chance of escape, but still she squatted in the shadows. All she wanted to do was pull herself into a tight little ball and block everything out.
She reached into her purse for a hair clip, twisted her long blond hair into a knot at the back of her head and anchored it. She pulled her bangs out of the stiff helmet of dried hair gel she’d used to keep them off her forehead. They made her look younger. Too young for her taste—like about fourteen—but it might save her hide to look younger, just for tonight. Now if she could get out of this dress, and scrape off some of this makeup….
As the whine of the sirens died, she limped along the edge of the building to a tall privacy fence that she guessed shielded the cast entrance for this theater. A searchlight flickered across the treetops at the theater next door. In spite of her ankle, she ran to the fence, jumped up and grasped the top edge, pulling herself up, kicking hard to swing herself over. Splinters gouged her arms and legs, and she gasped with the pain as she dropped to the asphalt on the other side.
The shriek of sirens continued to split the air as Fawn limped to a concrete loading dock. She climbed the steps and tested the door. It slid open, and she slipped inside to be overwhelmed by the smell of roast beef and onions, and the clatter of cookware. A kitchen. As late as it was, they would be cleaning up after a banquet, maybe. Or this could be a dinner theater. Judging by the size of the five-story structure, this, too, was a hotel-theater complex, which was a good thing.
She passed by a broad doorway and crept as quietly as she could along the shadowy hall. If she could find her way to the connecting hotel—
“Hey, you!” came a sharp male voice from the bright kitchen.
Going cold all over, she turned to see a thin-haired man standing beside a stack of pots and pans at a huge sink. He wore a white shirt and slacks and an apron.
“You lost?” he asked.
“Uh, yeah. Where’s the ladies’ room?”
“Back out the Staff Only entrance and to your right,” he said drily, tossing a towel over his shoulder as he gave her a once-over.
She nodded and continued along the service corridor until she knew she’d be out of sight of the kitchen, then she opened a door to her right. The lights were off, of course, but the hallway fluorescents revealed a small office. No good place to hide. She checked the next room down on her left, but it was locked. Several yards farther, the next door on her right, was a linen room, complete with huge stacks of towels, aprons and uniforms.
This could work! They did it in all the movies—people sneaking into the closet of a hospital and pulling on a doctor’s lab coat so they could blend in with the hospital staff. She could blend in. She’d worked at a hotel for a couple of weeks.
After a hopeless search for a light switch in the room—this must be one of those places where a master switch was located elsewhere—she pulled a tiny key-chain flashlight from her purse, stepped into the room, clo
sed the door behind her. The thin stream of light flickered, threatening to go out as she grabbed a set of whites from the top of a stack in front of her. The pants would’ve fit an elephant. The next set in the stack looked as if they might fit. She pulled a hairnet from a package on the shelf beside the clothes. Of course there were no shoes.
She stripped off her dress and shoved it deep behind a stack of tablecloths. The clothes fit—the bottoms were a little too snug around her hips, but she could still move without ripping them. She pulled the black hairnet over her head and tucked her bangs beneath it. With the clip holding her hair up off her shoulders, she might get away with this. Except for her shoes. Still, she couldn’t go barefoot.
The tiny flashlight flickered out as she tugged on her shoes. She couldn’t coax any more from it. Should’ve changed the battery last week.
She felt around in the darkness for her purse, and was slinging the strap over her head when she heard the sound of purposeful footsteps and a man’s deep voice.
“…police department. I need to ask you some questions.”
The footsteps stopped, and Fawn caught her breath.
“I don’t think any crooks or bad guys came through here tonight, if that’s what you mean,” came the voice of the dishwasher who’d given her directions to the bathroom. “Just people from the dinner theater.”
“Is the show over?”
“Should have been over about fifteen minutes or so ago.”
“Did anyone come through this way recently? A woman in a blue dress, blond hair?”
Fawn bit the inside of her cheek. No, please don’t tell him.
“Hey, you kidding? Sure did,” came the reply. “Blue dress? Really pretty?”
“Sounds right.”
“She was in here just a few minutes ago. Looked a little spooked, if you ask me. What happened, Officer?”
“We just need to question her.” There was a sound of static, like one of those walkie-talkie things Fawn’s Uncle Ralph used to have. “We need to have a look around.”
“Okay by me, but I’m not the one you have to ask. My boss—”
“We’ll take care of that. If you don’t mind, you just ease out of the building for a few minutes. There’s been a double murder, and we’re investigating.”
“Murder! You’re not kidding me? Right here in Branson?”
Fawn froze. Oh, Bruce, no. She squeezed her eyes shut and moaned softly.
There was a thunk on the linen-room door, and then the knob turned slightly. “What’s in here?”
Fawn braced herself to make a dive for the floor.
“Towels and stuff.”
“Okay, we’ll want to check it, too. Why don’t you go ahead and get hold of your boss, and I’ll have a talk with him, get the master switch turned on down here. But meanwhile we need to get some backup in here.” The voices became somewhat fainter, but they didn’t go away completely. Fawn slid down beside a rack of towels and buried her face in her hands. She was trapped.
Oh, Bruce…he was really dead. Harv had killed him. And who else had he killed? The bellman?
And what was she going to do?
Karah Lee huddled against the passenger door of the ranger’s SUV, doing her best to control Monster’s movements within the circle of her arms as the ranger took the sharp curves at a sedate speed. “It wasn’t the bump on the head that made me sick. Really. Ouch!” She eased Monster’s front paws up and away from her shoulder, wincing as the sharp claws dug into her flesh in an effort to remain attached. “I was sick long before I saw those deer in the road.”
“Look, it’s never convenient to have to seek medical care in the middle of the night, but there are times—”
“I heard you, okay?” she snapped, then bit her lower lip. She knew the speech. She’d given it enough times, herself. And here she was behaving like one of her most obnoxious patients. Next time she would remember how irritable pain could make a person. “Trust me,” she said more gently. “I’ll be fine.”
“Oh, really?” His sarcasm was still in evidence. “You have a sixth sense about these things, do you?”
She frowned at him. What was his problem? So she was refusing care—it shouldn’t be a big deal to him. “I’m not trying to be a jerk,” she said, then grimaced when her loving pet attempted to tenderize her right leg. “You know what, Monster? Some people think cat tastes just as good as chicken. I’m tempted to see if they’re right.”
Ranger Taylor Jackson skidded a glance her way.
“Joke,” she said. “It’s a joke. See? I’m making jokes, I’m thinking clearly, I’m—”
Monster yowled, and the impact of the sound reverberated through the interior of the SUV. Karah Lee covered the cat’s face with her left hand. He nipped at her thumb, and she jerked away.
“Do you think he’s hurt?” Taylor asked.
“If you’re asking if he’s behaving abnormally, no.” She’d checked him over, as much as he would allow, and had found no damage. “I’d still like to find a veterinarian. You say there’s none in Hideaway?”
“There’s a kid at a boys’ ranch across the lake who could probably look at him. Everybody around here takes their pets to him. Besides him, the closest vet is Kimberling City.”
“A kid?”
“About seventeen, good kid.”
Monster yowled again, and again Karah Lee attempted to comfort him.
“You say he’s always like that?”
She nodded, then realized he probably couldn’t see the gesture in the dim glow from the console. “He misses his previous owner. We aren’t exactly soul mates.”
There was a soft snort of laughter, and Karah Lee glared at the ranger’s silhouette.
The amusement left his expression. “Sorry. You’re staying at the Lakeside?”
“That’s right. I’m renting a house in town, and it won’t be ready for a week and a half.”
“You’re staying alone?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “Except for Monster. Why?”
“I simply wondered if you’d be alone tonight, without anyone to check on you.”
“You offering?” The words slipped out before she could stop them, and she wished she could tie a knot in her tongue. She hadn’t meant that the way it sounded. Not at all.
Even in the faint light from the dash she thought she could see him blush. He had the coloring for it, with faint freckling across the bridge of his nose, and hair the color of aged bronze. He had straight, fierce eyebrows—no, not exactly fierce, they just made him look earnest, like a younger version of Billy Graham.
She sighed. She had spent too much time in the company of a sarcastic hospital staff, and she’d grown accustomed to the cynical, occasionally coarse joking. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I’ll be fine, and if anything happens, I promise not to hold you personally responsible, okay?”
“That isn’t what I—”
“I know about head-sheet protocol, I know what to look for and I know what to do in case of emergency.”
There was a short silence. “That’s fine.” The reply was tight and clipped, and she realized she’d probably offended him. In fact, thinking about it, what she’d said had sounded offensive. Again. Disgusted with herself, she sighed and leaned back.
They rounded a curve, and there was a break in the heavy overgrowth of trees. Moonlight reflected from the glassy surface of a lovely lake below, and Karah Lee caught her breath. “I’d forgotten how beautiful it is down here.”
From the corner of her vision, she saw him glance at her. “You’ve been here before?”
“My family came here a lot when I was growing up. It was one of my favorite places in the world.”
There was a brief silence. Even the cat had settled into Karah Lee’s lap without destroying any more flesh or further taxing her eardrums.
“I think you’re going to find a few changes,” he said softly.
“The roads have changed, for sure. When I was a kid, this was a gravel
road. I like the improvement.”
“It might have backfired on us.”
“What do you mean?”
He steered the vehicle along the downhill curve of the road toward town. “We’ve been overrun by tourists this year. Some company came in last fall and bought several of the houses along the shore of the lake, then opened a shop on the square this spring that rents out mountain bikes, canoes and kayaks. They take excursion trips into Branson for evening shows, by boat. They’ve been advertising big-time online, and all over Branson. The crowds are swarming here. I can’t believe you even found a place to stay.”
“I made reservations early.”
“You’re lucky.”
“No, I’m smart enough to think ahead.”
“These people have also purchased some prime property at the eastern end of town, and they’re building a ten-story condominium. Can you believe that? Right here in Hideaway.”
She glanced at him as he pulled into the circle drive in front of the bed-and-breakfast. “You sound like you think that’s a crime.”
“I transferred here from the Grand Canyon. I’ve seen the kind of damage overcrowding can cause. It could devastate the whole area. Our mayor called a council together to try to enact some zoning laws, but by then it was too late.”
“I’m sorry.” But was she? After all, she owed her new job to the sudden increase in tourism. “Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing, though.”
Taylor parked and got out of the Jeep, then walked around the front to open her door. “The crime rate has already begun to rise,” he told her. “I think it could be a disaster. I’ll help you with your things.”
She shoved Monster back into his pet taxi and braced herself. The yowling commenced. She noticed the ranger grimace. “I’ll be fine,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the sudden din. “I can take care of my own luggage.” The sooner she could haul this animal to her own private cottage and block out the sound, the happier everyone would be.
Safe Haven Page 3