It Takes a Killer (3 page)

“So is there a reason you’ve asked me to coffee?” Hannah asked.  Her feet still hurt, but she resisted moving her weight from one foot to the other; she didn’t want to appear anxious in front of Dane.  His eyes dropped to her feet, as if knowing exactly what she was thinking.

“I thought I told you,” he answered, flicking his gaze back up.

“We both know you’re not the kind of man to do a good deed without expecting something in return.”  Hannah brought the black mug to her lips but didn’t drink.  Instead she inhaled deeply, enjoying the scent of the roast.  It was mixed with the chicken cooking nearby, as well as some kind of tomato sauce that sat on the burner in the centre of the room.  Hannah blinked slowly before brining her eyes to Dane’s.

His brow had lowered, not so much that it was furrowed, but like he was no longer interested in smiling so enthusiastically.  Like a guard had dropped, and Hannah got a glimpse of the man beneath.  But it was too quick; she thought it might have been her imagination.  The shiver that ran through her entire body, that raised the hairs on her arms to their ends, wasn’t something that went unnoticed by either of them.  Hannah wet her lips.

“Like I said,” Dane replied.  “Just thought you might want to have coffee with someone that isn’t afraid of you.”

Hannah furrowed her brow.  “Nobody’s
afraid
of me.”

“No?” Dane said.  “You can’t feel it?  Can’t see it?”

Hannah took a drink of coffee.  For the past week she’d been feeling like all eyes were on her, because they were.  But she hadn’t thought it was because the town feared her.  What did they have to fear from her?  It wasn’t like she purposely went out to kill someone.  It was self-defence, exactly as the news reported, and exactly as the
police
reported.

Dane set his own mug on the counter, whiter than the coat he wore.  The top two buttons were undone, giving Hannah a peek at the black tee shirt he wore.  He leaned closer to her and pressed his palm over the top of her mug, pushing it away from her lips.  His broad shoulders blocked her view of the rest of the kitchen, but even if she could see anything other than those clever grey eyes she wouldn’t want to.  There wasn’t any sign of stubble on Dane’s cheeks, his skin perfectly smooth as he leaned closer to her.

“You’re right,” he said, his voice low.  Hannah felt his breath brush across her lips and on it she could taste the coffee.  She held her own breath out of instinct.  She felt like prey now.  “I’m not the kind of man to do a good deed without expecting something in return.”

Dane leaned back and picked up his mug.  He took a drink before setting it back down with a satisfied sigh, and walked away.  The clattering dishes and clicking of stoves being turned on and off faded from Hannah’s mind as she listened to Dane’s footsteps.  They wrapped around her, making her skin flush and chest heave.

Taking in a sudden breath, Hannah twisted her neck to see where Dane had gone, but he’d vanished out the front door.  The cup in her hands felt too heavy to hold and she put it down for fear of dropping it.  There was a warmth in her lower abdomen that was as pleasurable as it was torture.  Hannah leaned on the counter and tried to catch her breath.

She wasn’t sure when she last felt like this.

Hannah wanted to take the kitchen door to the alley after work.  She wanted to march past Dane to show that his charms had no affect on her, but her knees were so weak she wasn’t sure she could even get up off the chair in the break room let alone
march
.  All that strength she’d thought she had was swallowed up by hormones and desire.  And
damn
, did she have a desire at that moment.  It felt like she’d just lost a staring contest.  Her mother’s mantra of “you win some you lose some” wasn’t helping her now.  She wanted to win against Dane as much as she wanted to lose.

“He’s a pervert,” she muttered to herself, coming to a stand.  Her chair screeched against the tiles.  “He’s only interested because of what you did.”

And it was true, but that didn’t make the heat between her legs go away any faster.  Hannah knew this must be how all those married women felt, the feeling of wrong and right mixed into one.  Once Dane decided to turn his attention on her there was no escape.  Hannah didn’t think she wanted to escape anyway.  But Dane had never shown interest in someone that worked at the Lux, no matter how much the other employees tried.  He was careful to only pounce on those that would be around for a week at most, and gone by breakfast.

Hannah wanted to show him up.  She wanted to prove that she could stare at him and not blink, show him that she wasn’t going to turn into one of his
special
conquests.  The fact that he was flirting with her after she killed someone was sick enough as it was…but that only made her question if he was flirting with her.  Maybe it wasn’t sex he wanted, but something else.  What that something else could be, however, she had no idea.

With a shake of her head Hannah grabbed her bag off the counter and headed for the kitchen door.  She prayed to the crucifix that hung around her neck that her legs wouldn’t give out as she crossed the threshold to the kitchen, or as she walked through the alleyway. 

The edges of her vision were blurry as she walked, completely focused on the door.  It was beige with a small square window at the top that was kept perfectly clean even though guests never saw it.  Everything around Dane seemed perfectly clean.  Hannah wrinkled her nose and pushed the door open, letting it bang against the counter on the other side.

A few of the chefs looked up, and one busboy practically leapt onto a stove in fear.  But after that they looked away.  Nobody sees anything when it comes to Dane’s girls.  Hannah furrowed her brow, knowing it would only make her look more threatening.

Her steps weren’t quite a march, but they weren’t exactly slow either.  They were quiet and undemanding yet powerful and sure.  It was a good combination, Hannah thought, and if Dane were there she knew for a fact that he would only get hot and bothered by it.

If
he were there.  Hannah’s eyes swept over the kitchen staff but one familiar head of perfectly cut hair wasn’t there.  His shift wasn’t done yet, and she knew he wasn’t one to leave the kitchen so easily, yet he wasn’t there.  Hannah’s footsteps hit a little harder against the tiles and within a moment she was in the alleyway, cool air rushing over her skin.

There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky to block out the half-moon or the stars.  A light breeze drifted through the trees across the street, and in the distance Hannah could hear a dog barking.  These things were familiar pleasantries to her, something she’d been seeing and hearing all her life.  They reminded her of home, of safety.  The fact that she was standing in the exact spot she killed a man didn’t change that feeling.  If anything it amplified it.

Hannah didn’t remember moving the few feet from the door to the formally bloodied spot.  She’d been possessed as she lifted one foot after the other to face the brick wall, completely cleaned.  There was no evidence of anything happening there, and if there was it was now buried under five bags of trash.  Hannah looked over her shoulder at the empty dumpster, wondering who chose to throw the trash on the ground instead.

They’re scared of you
, she thought.  Just as Dane had said.  Hannah tried to convince herself that it was merely the thought that they could have been victims of a terrible mugging themselves, but Dane’s words had had an affect on her.  Another shiver ran up her spine, a titillating feeling.  Hannah took a sudden breath and started walking. 

As she turned the corner of the alley Hannah found the street empty.  The Lux Hotel was on the edge of town, closer to the lake, but it was usually filled with people on a night like this.  It was only a fifteen minute walk to the lake, and a twenty minute walk to Stormi’s, yet nobody was there.  She looked back at the alley and knew exactly why.  She felt stupid for thinking things would return to normal in a single week.  Mariana wasn’t even thinking of returning to work yet, and Hannah’s mother wouldn’t return her calls.

Hannah started walking again, if only to get off of her feet and away from the Lux.  Crickets chipped in the night, happily making noise around her without gawking.  Hannah rolled her eyes at herself…since when had crickets made her happy?

Something jabbed into her back, a small cylindrical piece of metal.  “Gimme the purse.”

Hannah froze for a moment.  The man jabbed what she assumed was a gun harder into her back.  She inched forward from the pressure when his hand slammed down on her shoulder, grabbing at her purse strap.  As he yanked it off she turned, completely in shock that she was getting mugged
again
.  What was happening to this town?

In the few seconds between turning to her assailant Hannah caught a glimpse of a dark baseball cap and hoodie, and a black bandana tied around his nose and mouth.  She didn’t think she should recognize anyone from such a small amount of their face showing, but she knew the scar that crossed over his left temple.  And as the Pastor’s son, her childhood friend, recognized her his eyes widened.  “Shit!” he shouted.

Bart lifted his right hand, the one that held a small silver gun, and smacked Hannah in the face.  The butt of the gun struck her cheekbone and nose, and she went down easily, already seeing stars.  She fell onto her back and managed to keep her head from cracking open on the sidewalk, the sounds of fast footsteps rushing away from her.  Blood gushed from an open cut on her face as well as from her nose, filtering into her mouth.  The metallic taste was sickeningly familiar.

Hannah sat on the ground and tried not to throw up.  It wasn’t that someone she knew had just attacked her, or even that she had been attacked twice in the same week, in the same place, that made her sick.  It was the strange sense of anger coursing through her that made her sick. 

Of course she would feel angry at this.  She was covered in her own blood, attacked by someone she should have been able to trust, and now she was in immeasurable pain.  Her head throbbed with each beat of her heart, and she didn’t even have a phone to call for help.

Bart hadn’t hit her as hard as he could have, but he could have just run away, too.  He’d taken karate since he was a kid, and he was on the track team in high school; he could have easily escaped.  So why did he resort to hitting her?  Hannah knew the answer, but refused to admit it.

Hannah grabbed hold of the nearby bench and hauled herself to her feet.  They still hurt even though her mind had something else to focus on, and she hobbled her way, blurry eyed and desperate, back to the hotel.  She debated going through the front door, but the thought of all eyes being on her again made her think otherwise.  Instead she stepped down the alley and knocked her fist against the door to the kitchen, oddly hopeful that Dane would answer.  She wasn’t sure anyone would even hear her frail knocks, let alone open the door.  But after another knock the door opened, and someone jumped back.

Stephan, the busboy.  Hannah thought she saw him blinking at her, but it was too hard to tell.  Her vision was still dotted with stars.  When Stephan just watched her she ordered, “Call an ambulance already!”  Her voice was nasally and uneven.  Stephan jumped into action, the only thing her ever seemed to do.

One of the chefs came to Hannah’s aide, and she felt guilty for not knowing the woman’s name.  She didn’t associate much with kitchen staff because they were always too busy.  But this woman approached her and helped her into the break room where she grabbed some cloths to clean up the blood and some ice to help with the immediate swelling.  She’d barely said a word, and left as soon as the EMT’s and police came into the hotel for the second time that week.

When Hannah awoke the next day she found an email from her boss suggesting she take a leave of absence.  He didn’t state for how long, but Hannah knew it wasn’t going to be temporary.

Hannah did all the things she normally did in the morning in an attempt to have everything stay the same, but as she put her watch on she noticed it didn’t match the clock on her computer; it was two minutes behind, and that had never happened before.  She quickly set it to the right time, and found it a little easier to breathe.

Hannah’s original plan was to go to the hotel and demand she be allowed to work.  She wasn’t going to take no for an answer, but it had somehow ended up with her being fired.  “Let go,” was the word Mr. Cavan had used.  There was a problem of overstaffing at the moment and without more guests to fill the rooms he had to make the tough decision.  Mariana returned to work at the same time, and mentioned that nobody else had been let go.  In fact, three new people were hired, and Hannah got the message.  She’d known overstaffing was a lie because they didn’t have enough rooms to fill recent demand, but she didn’t want to actually say that out loud.  That would mean she lost her job because of what happened.

Because she was labeled a killer.

Mariana tried to make it better and offered to rally anyone that would listen and go on strike, but Hannah knew that was useless.  Instead she suggested they go out to dinner, anything to get her mind off of work and off of her parents who had yet to call her back.  It had been ten days since they talked, and Hannah was starting to feel like there was more to the story.  Even when she’d stopped going to church they still talked to her.