Safe Haven

by Hannah Alexander

  “Donaldson called me about you the year you were awarded that scholarship, but only because you were under consideration by the committee and they were reluctant to give the scholarship to the daughter of a congressman who could easily afford her tuition.”

  “But that wasn’t—”

  “Let me finish, please. I was forced to admit to Donaldson that my own daughter would rather struggle financially for the next twenty years paying back school loans than accept a penny from me.”

  Oh, man. “And you told him that?”

  “Would you expect me to lie?” he asked quietly.

  She continued to watch the sliver of sidewalk she could see from here, and once again she thought she saw someone out there, past the glow of lights from the outer foyer.

  “Karah Lee, is everything okay there?”

  She was being paranoid. “Sure. Let’s just plan for that dinner soon, okay?”

  “You got it. I’ll be in touch as soon as I make a few calls.”

  “You’ll be able to find me at Cox South a little later tonight. I’ll be in Fawn Morrison’s room.”

  Taylor scrambled through the darkness with Ethylene in his arms while Blaze held the flashlight beam to the ground. The tricky part was making sure the thick, unmowed grass in Ethylene’s front yard didn’t camouflage any new depressions.

  “You could at least let me get my car out of the garage,” she grumbled. “How come I never heard anything about any caves under my house? I think it’s all stupid.”

  “We can’t take any chances,” Taylor said.

  “Well, I don’t—”

  A loud crack like thunder shot through the air and echoed from the cliffs north of town.

  “What was that?” Blaze cried.

  Taylor turned in time to see part of the bare structure of the massive Beaufont building plunge downward, straight into the earth. A tremor shook the ground, and he braced himself to keep his footing. In the glow of streetlights, a supporting beam lurched sideways, crashing against other steel supports with a metallic explosion, like rapid cannon fire.

  Then the lights went out. Their only source of illumination was the flashlight in Blaze’s hand.

  “Let’s go,” Taylor said. “Ethylene, I’m taking you to Junior Short’s house. You can stay there until help comes.”

  “Okay, Ranger, your point’s proved,” Ethylene said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Karah Lee was hanging up the phone when she heard an explosion, then felt the jolt of movement beneath her feet. The lights went out, plunging the clinic into total darkness.

  “Karah Lee!”

  “It’s okay, Fawn, I’m—”

  Something slammed against the front of the clinic. Karah Lee turned to see a flicker of light, then the glass in the front door shattered. She hit the floor on her hands and knees and scrambled into the hallway. In the foyer, footsteps crunched through the broken glass into the clinic.

  Karah Lee felt her way along the wall toward Fawn’s room.

  There was a pop-thump at the door between the waiting room and the clinic, which she’d locked when she was talking to her dad. Another pop-thump, and wood splintered.

  Was he using a gun with a silencer?

  The intruder kicked the door.

  She lunged forward and into the fourth exam room, where she could hear Fawn’s labored, frightened breathing.

  “Who’s there?” Fawn whispered into the blackness.

  “Karah Lee.” She closed the door and locked it as the waiting-room door crashed against a wall.

  “It’s him, isn’t it?” Fawn whispered.

  “Shh.” Karah Lee felt along the bed until she reached the IV pole, silently removed the IV catheter from Fawn’s arm and bandaged the puncture site.

  A footfall landed outside their door.

  Fawn grabbed Karah Lee’s arm and squeezed, hands trembling.

  Karah Lee eased her off the bed and against the wall, then felt her way over to the utility cabinet.

  She was searching through a drawer for a wrapped scalpel, when the exam-room door handle jiggled, then came a loud thunk-clack of bullet hitting metal.

  She found the scalpel. The door flew open, turning black to gray with the intruder’s penlight. Fawn shoved the IV pole into the intruder’s path. He yelled as the impact from a muffled shot hit the wall above Karah Lee’s head.

  Karah Lee leaped in front of Fawn, wielding the scalpel blindly as he shot again, this time hitting the sink. She stabbed at his gun hand, kicked up with her knee, then slammed him in the face with her elbow.

  With an enraged scream, he lunged at her and shoved her to the floor, raising the gun.

  Fawn rammed him from behind and his shot went wide. Karah Lee kicked upward. The gun flew across the room, bounced against the wall, spun crazily on the tile floor.

  He grabbed Karah Lee by the throat and yanked her aside as she fought for breath. He snatched the gun and turned it on her as light suddenly blazed through the room.

  Taylor rushed through the door, grabbed the bed and thrust it forward, catching the killer between the bed frame and the wall, forcing the gun from his bleeding hand. Taylor kicked the gun from the killer’s reach.

  “Karah Lee, get that!” he said as he jerked the man onto his stomach and secured his hands behind his back.

  Karah Lee grabbed the heavy gun and backed away, looking for Fawn. The girl stood huddled in the darkened corner.

  “You okay, honey?”

  Fawn nodded, tears streaming down her face.

  Blaze came rushing into the room, stopped, gaped at the destruction. He reached for Fawn, and she stumbled into his arms.

  “You guys okay?” he asked.

  “Blaze, get her out of here. Call some backup for Taylor.”

  As Blaze and Fawn left the room, Karah Lee gripped the gun in both hands and held her aim steadily at Harv’s head.

  “You need to get out of here, too, Karah Lee,” Taylor said.

  “I’m not leaving here until you do.”

  Five minutes later Greg and Tom came bursting into the room, guns drawn.

  “We’ll take it from here, Taylor,” Greg said. “There’s an ambulance pulling in outside, and the girl’s asking for Karah Lee.” He cuffed their prisoner and helped him from the floor, then frowned at Taylor and Karah Lee. “Either of you know the State Senator, MacDonald? He’s calling out the FBI to come down here.”

  “We’ve met,” Karah Lee said.

  Taylor chuckled and threw his arm around her as they walked out.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  On Saturday morning, September 13, Fawn came banging through the back door of Karah Lee’s two-bedroom cottage at the western edge of the Lakeside property. “Where were you?”

  Karah Lee looked up from the medical supplies she had spread across the kitchen table. Fawn’s super-short blond hair with the spiky gray tips stuck out all over her head. She had a fake tattoo of a pig on her face.

  She pointed at the clock. “Hello. It’s ten-thirty. You told me you’d try to get to the pig races.”

  “I’m sorry,” Karah Lee said. “ I did try, but my kit was low on supplies, I’m on call and I got to imagining what would happen and—”

  “And you’re hiding from Taylor.”

  “He’s avoiding me, I just didn’t feel like being avoided today.” Not that she cared, really. He’d been acting like a jerk the past couple of weeks…since their last date.

  “So how are you going to dodge him at Cheyenne and Dane’s wedding?” Fawn asked.

  Karah Lee sniffed and wrinkled her nose. “What is that smell?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “Right now the subject stinks.”

  “I helped Blaze in the racing pen.”

  “The pig pen?”

  “And I slipped a little.”

  Karah Lee recoiled and looked at Fawn’s feet. They were bare.

  “I fell in it, okay? I took my shoes off outside and I washed my l
egs off in the lake so I wouldn’t track poop into the house.”

  “Turn around.”

  Fawn rolled her eyes, but she turned, flashing her shapely legs, wiggling her rear. Her dirty rear.

  Karah Lee suppressed a smile. “Okay. How’d the race go?”

  “Blaze won!” Fawn did a victory dance across the kitchen floor toward her bedroom, arms raised high, totally unselfconscious about the faded denim coverall cutoffs stained by pig manure.

  “Change clothes before you sit down anywhere,” Karah Lee called after her, chuckling at the seventeen-year-old’s unfailing energy.

  “You’d better believe it!” Fawn called back. “The wedding’s in two and a half hours.” She poked her head back out the door. “What dress are you wearing? Do you know it’s already in the eighties out there? I can’t believe they’re going to have this thing in the city park. We’ll sweat to death.”

  “It’s shaded.” And besides, the collapse in June had come a little too close to City Hall, undermining part of its foundation, and the church wasn’t big enough to fit all the guests. Cheyenne and Dane had refused to be married anywhere but Hideaway, and most of the town was attending. That left the city park, directly east of town, far enough from the collapse that there would be no danger.

  After changing into a long T-shirt, Fawn sauntered back into the kitchen, acting a little too casual for Karah Lee’s comfort. She was up to something.

  “So,” she said, picking up a wrapped bag-valve mask, examining it, then setting it back on the table, “you think you might be interested in trying out some of that makeup we bought last week?”

  “I thought that makeup was for you. It was your birthday.”

  “Sure, but it wouldn’t hurt you to try some just this once.”

  “My face has worked for me for thirty-four years now, why change?”

  “Because you could use some improvement.”

  Karah Lee glowered at her.

  “I mean, you’ve got this great bone structure, but you never do anything with it. At least we’ve got you a decent wardrobe now, so you don’t look like a hog anymore.”

  A hog! “You’ve got a real way with words, you know that?”

  “Hey, all I’m saying is you’ve got a big chest, so you need to emphasize your waistline. I mean, at least show people you have one. I know girls who pay lots of money to get what you already have. I just think you need to learn to dress smarter.”

  “Right. When was I going to find time to do that during med school and residency training? I barely found time to eat.”

  “Looks to me like you ate okay.”

  Monster sauntered over to Fawn and rubbed against her legs. She picked the cat up and hugged him close, burying her face in his thick fur. And he took it like a gentleman. If Karah Lee had done that, he would have fought to escape her clutches.

  “So, okay, you grew up geeky,” Fawn said. “It doesn’t mean you have to stay that way.” She took a step closer, eyes narrowing as she made an obvious show of studying Karah Lee’s facial features. “I could show you how to do it.”

  “Yes, I know, I’ve heard it all before.” Fawn had told her weeks ago that she’d hung out with the theater guild since she was twelve to avoid being at home.

  “I could remake you…if you’re brave enough.”

  Karah Lee packed the last of her gauze into her kit and closed the top. “Bravery has nothing to do with it. Common sense has everything to do with it.” She had been sharing this two-bedroom cottage with Fawn for two months, and these walls had heard some form of this argument at least once a week.

  “Give me thirty minutes and I’ll prove it to you,” Fawn said. “Give me your credit card and let me on your laptop, and I can change your world.”

  “I like my world the way it is.”

  “Okay, fine, just let me at your face and hair.” Fawn put Monster down and headed for the bathroom. “Do you even have a curling iron and scissors? I’ve never seen them. No, never mind, I’ve got scissors and tweezers and all the rest.”

  “Tweezers?” Karah Lee followed her, still suspicious. “What do you want with tweezers? I’m not into torture. And I didn’t say you could take scissors to my hair.” A new wardrobe was one thing—actually two things, since during their shopping spree last week, Fawn had shown as much enthusiasm about selecting a new wardrobe for Karah Lee as she had over her own closetful of new clothes for school.

  Karah Lee almost refused, but she loved the look of lively excitement in Fawn’s blue eyes, loved the quick smile, the hint of mischief that often revealed her thoughts across those gamine features. The girl was now in danger of being spoiled rotten here in Hideaway, where she was a local celebrity.

  After the media had gone wild about her story of escape from the murderer in Branson, she had reported her stepfather for rape. Her mother had disowned her, and she wasn’t allowed to see her brothers and sister. As far as Karah Lee was concerned, this place would be Fawn’s home as long as she needed it. Bertie and Edith adored her. Monster had obviously adopted her.

  “Okay, get out your scissors and your tweezers and all that goop for my face,” Karah Lee said. “But if you disfigure me, I’ll hold you personally responsible for making me miss the wedding.”

  Fawn walked proudly beside Karah Lee Fletcher from the car to the broad sweep of lawn that was the city park, and the festival grounds, and for the next hour, a wedding chapel. Thank goodness the place was shaded by a troupe of mature maples, oaks, hawthorns and cedars. A breeze blew in from the lake, making the temperature bearable.

  Someone had cleared the grass of trash from the festival, and a band from Branson played in the bandstand. The rose trellis needed no additional decoration. It was where the ceremony would be held, and the crowd already filled the place. The ceremony wouldn’t be formal—no hot, uncomfortable tuxedos for the men. No long dresses. Just lots of laughter and smiles, maybe a few practical jokes by the ranch boys, but it wouldn’t be mean.

  Unable to resist a glance at Karah Lee, Fawn once more admired her latest artistic miracle. Karah Lee wore a sleeveless dress of amber lace and silk that subtly hinted at the dynamite figure, emphasizing what needed to be emphasized. Her wild curls had been tamed to curve around her face in delicate tendrils. Her eyes—those golden-amber jewels—were luminescent. Karah Lee Fletcher was a babe.

  Someday Fawn would be a makeup artist for the stars. Maybe royalty.

  “You look great,” she said. “Stop adjusting your dress.”

  “It’s too low-cut.”

  “It doesn’t even show your cleavage. Your pink scrubs are more revealing than that dress. I mean, when you bend over just right, a person could see all the way to your belly button.” Fawn caught sight of Blaze standing with the ranch boys. He wore white slacks with a blue dress shirt and a vest. He looked hot, even though he was standing in the shade.

  Fawn excused herself and joined Blaze beneath a cedar tree while Karah Lee went to speak to the bride.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  Blaze gestured toward the other side of the park.

  “Did you ever find out what was going on with him?” she asked.

  “Good question. Nobody knows. It isn’t as if Taylor ever talks to anyone.”

  “Except Karah Lee.”

  He nodded.

  “And you.”

  Blaze grimaced. “He’s not going to go baring his soul to a seventeen-year-old kid.”

  She placed a hand on Blaze’s arm and shoved him in Taylor’s direction. “You can give it a try. Quick. Before Tom sets up camp beside Karah Lee for the wedding.”

  Taylor couldn’t help staring. The tall, voluptuous woman with the red hair who arrived with Fawn really was Karah Lee Fletcher. Her hair was shorter, not quite as curly, and she was…hard to look away from.

  “You know what?” someone said beside him.

  He turned to see Blaze standing there, hands in pockets, gazing casually across the growing crowd.

  �
�What?”

  “For a hero, you don’t have a lot of guts.”

  Taylor frowned at him, then followed his line of vision back to Karah Lee. “I have brains. Who needs guts when he has brains?”

  “Your brain tells you to dump her without any explanation?”

  As they watched, Karah Lee glanced toward Taylor, met his gaze, looked quickly away.

  “I have the brains not to go rushing into something unprepared,” Taylor said.

  “Nobody’d ever accuse you of doing that.”

  Taylor gave Blaze a suspicious glance. Definitely sarcasm.

  “Look, you don’t have to go rushing into anything,” Blaze said, “but how stupid is it to completely break off a relationship after two whole months of intense dating? No explanation, no fight, nothing. Just quit calling. How do you think that makes her feel?”

  Taylor couldn’t quite stifle his annoyance. “Since you seem to know so much about it, why don’t you tell me?”

  “Bad answer. You should know this one. Just put yourself in her place.”

  “I’ve done that, Blaze. Believe me.”

  Blaze nudged his arm and pointed toward Karah Lee. They watched a familiar, blond-haired deputy stroll casually to Karah Lee’s side and gesture toward some chairs as the tone of the music segued into the Lord’s Prayer.

  “Yeah, sure, Taylor,” Blaze said. “Take all the time you want.”

  Karah Lee had never seen Cheyenne look so happy, and she’d never seen a more beautiful wedding. The speaker system didn’t reverberate and bust eardrums, and no one forgot their lines. Most important, Dane and Cheyenne sounded so sure of their vows, and of their love for each other.

  Karah Lee sat between Fawn and Tom and tried really hard not to cry—first of all, because she didn’t want to ruin Fawn’s makeup job. Second of all, because she was afraid if she headed that direction, she’d be a weepy mess. It didn’t look as if she’d ever have a ceremony like this of her own, so she didn’t want to ruin this one with tears.