LITMIR.BIZ

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slammed the front door shut, a crazy man full of hatred. “Are you packed?”

      Gemma debated trying to go for the phone. The knife was too far away, and too close to Jed’s advancing feet.

      “I asked you a question!”

      She scrambled around the chair and backward toward the table. “Stay away from me!”

      He kept coming toward her, long slow strides full of murderous intent.

      Reaching for the phone, she grabbed it and pressed 911. Jed kicked her wrist before she could press Send, and the phone sailed across the room.

      Crying out in pain, she rolled out of the way of a second blow and stumbled to her feet. The knife.

      It was near the door, on the other side of Jed. She’d have to get past him. Shoving the heavy chair in front of her, she leapt around it, grabbing the painting of an old barn surrounded by a field of wildflowers off the wall on her way. As Jed moved to intercept her, she swung the painting. The thick frame hit him. He blocked any damage it might have done with his arm, but it was enough to knock him off balance. She was able to get past him and ran to the door, stooping to pick up the knife and yanking the door open.

      Jed grabbed her around the waist. She stabbed his arm with the knife. He growled in agony and released her. She ran through the door and jumped over the steps of her porch to land on the walkway. She ran across her lawn toward her neighbor’s house.

      “Help!” she screamed. “Help me!”

      She kept screaming and screaming, hoping someone would hear her, hoping Jed would leave.

      Across the street, an old woman opened the door. Martha. That was her name. She lived there with her granddaughter. Gemma talked to her every once in a while. She and her granddaughter didn’t share much of their lives with anyone. They kept to themselves.

      Martha moved out of the way as Gemma ran up the stairs of her porch and bolted through the entrance, scurrying to slam the door shut.

      “Great goats! Are you all right?” Martha asked breathlessly, shaking with alarm.

      “Call the police!”

      Chapter 2

      This was the second time Dillon Monroe had followed his dad to this old Victorian inn. The Stillwater used to be the home of a Cold Plains settler who had been driven out of town after Samuel Grayson arrived and started making changes. Why was his dad meeting with that freak and a bunch of knuckle-draggers?

      Easing out from behind the thick trunk of a tree, Dillon made his way through a bed of immaculate landscaping that during the day was a palate of weed-free color. There was a lot of that in this town. He stepped up to the front doors and entered the foyer where an ornately trimmed registration desk gleamed beneath a crystal chandelier. A man was speaking to a woman standing there beside him and neither looked at Dillon. To his right, double French doors opened to a dimly lit bar. A woman sat there, a glass of water in front of her. She looked familiar. The owner of Cold Plains Coffee. What was she doing here all by herself? Drinking water in a bar. Weird.

      “Good evening, sir.”

      Turning to his left, he saw another pair of French doors that opened to a room full of candlelit tables covered in white linen underneath two more chandeliers. The brown-eyed hostess behind a wooden stand had just acknowledged him. Dressed in an elegant black dress and sparkling earrings with her dark hair smoothed back into an elegant bun, she fitted Samuel’s demands for perfection. She was probably about three years older than Dillon, which put her around twenty-one. He was pretty tall and she was almost to his nose in height. Good-looking, and he didn’t miss how she checked him out from his black hair and hazel eyes all the way down his lanky form before she asked, “Your name?”

      You had to have reservations to come to a joint like this. He searched for Whack Job Hollywood among the late-evening diners. There weren’t many. It was going on ten. “I’m here to see Samuel Grayson.”

      “Is he expecting you?”

      “No. Is he here yet?”

      After a few uncertain blinks, her gaze flitted into the foyer. Dillon turned and saw a narrow, open doorway leading down into the basement.

      He faced the girl again. “Look, I don’t want to cause you any trouble. I just need to speak with him for a minute.” He didn’t, actually. He was here to find out why his dad was here.

      The hostess didn’t respond, but glanced around as though checking to see if anyone had heard.

      “Pretend I was never here.” Smiling at her, he walked out of the dining area. A wider stairway opposite the basement passage led to the upper-level rooms. The man and woman behind the fancy registration counter were still busy talking. The woman in the bar didn’t seem to see him.

      Dillon reached the threshold of the stairs. Descending them, he entered what appeared to have once been the servants’ kitchen and now functioned as the hotel staff’s food-prep area for what had to be a small conference center. Heavy wooden double doors probably led to a meeting room. The doors were closed.

      Moving closer, he heard muffled voices filtered through from the other side. He put his hand on the door handle and began to push.

      “You there!”

      Dillon jumped around to see a big burly man approaching him from the stairway. Tall and slick in a suit and tie, he looked as rich as all the other knuckle-draggers Dillon had seen with Grayson. Was his dad trying to become one of them?

      “Are you lost?” he asked.

      “I was looking for someone.” Dillon brushed past the man and climbed the stairs. Back in the foyer, he saw the woman who’d been in the bar standing there, and beyond her, the elaborately coiffed hostess watching nervously from behind her stand. He glanced back and saw the burly man enter the foyer. Time to go.

      Outside, artificial light illuminated his way. Past the circular drive, he stepped onto the lawn and looked back to check how safe he was. The big man had stopped on the front porch, holding a radio to his mouth. Safe enough. He wasn’t going to follow.

      Dillon jumped over a cluster of pansies, his feet crunching on mulch as he maneuvered through the wide and curving border. When darkness cloaked him, he stopped. The knuckle-dragger still stood on the front porch. Dillon moved behind the trunk of a pine tree and waited.

      Rustling in some nearby shrubbery made him turn. There was someone there. He walked toward the sound and stopped when he saw a girl. She inhaled her alarm, taking a step back. He recognized her. She was new to town. She and her grandmother had just moved here. She had long, thick, dark brown hair and green eyes, but it was her hot body that had always caught his eye.

      “What are you doing here?” he asked.

      “What are you doing here?” she countered.

      Had she recognized him? “Why are you hiding in the trees?”

      Pursing her lips, she folded her arms and stuck out a trim hip. “Why are you?”

      He chuckled and held out his hand. “I’m Dillon Monroe.”

      After a brief hesitation, she shook his hand. “Hallie Taylor.”

      “I know who you are. We go to the same school. Did you come here for dinner?” He knew she hadn’t but he played ignorant.

      She frowned while she studied him. “You go to Cold Plains High?”

      He nodded. She didn’t recognize him. “I’m a senior.” Or he would be in the fall.

      “I’m going to be a junior.”

      “I know.”

      “You do?”

      “Yeah. I noticed you at school last year. You’re new to town, right?”

      “Yeah.”

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