Love Inspired Suspense April 2015 #1 (25 page)

He remembered he was in the hotel safe house, but beyond that there was something that was still off, something that didn't feel right. What was it? The bed was so cold and empty. He patted around the sheets. Where was Axle?

After the stabbing, Axle had assigned himself as Rick's personal bodyguard. Apparently Axle's guard duty included protecting Rick while he slept, as well. Training him to do otherwise had been an exercise in futility. Rick often thought,
Good thing I'm not married.
Instead of a wife, he always awoke to Axle snoring next to him with his left paw covering his chest protectively. The dog was the most loyal partner ever. But where was he now?

Rick slipped out of the covers and grabbed his pistol out of the nightstand. He searched the living room and kitchenette space of the suite. Axle was nowhere to be found. Stephanie's bedroom door was cracked open slightly. Should he check on her, or was that invading her privacy too much?

Saturday had been such a long day for her, and they hadn't gotten settled into the suite until after midnight. He hoped she was fast asleep, forgetting all the fear of the day before. The microwave in the kitchenette said it was only five in the morning. He didn't want to disturb her, but with Axle MIA, he needed to make sure she was okay. Rick pushed on the door and peeked inside.

Stephanie was sound asleep on her back under the covers, her strawberry blond curls splayed out around her like a halo. She looked so peaceful. Next to her was a sleeping Axle, his left paw draped over her protectively. Axle lifted one eyelid, then promptly closed it again as if to say,
Go away, you're interrupting my beauty sleep.

“Traitor,” Rick whispered.

Stephanie sat straight up in bed and gasped. Rick jumped back behind the door.
Wow. Light sleeper.
Maybe her sleep wasn't as peaceful as he thought.

Rick peeked around the door, feeling guilty. “Sorry. Don't wake up. I just couldn't find Axle. Looks like he thought you needed his company more than I did.”

Stephanie squinted her eyes, looking so cute in her confusion. She glanced from Rick in the doorway to Axle on the bed and then smiled. She patted Axle and then said in a hoarse voice, “Thanks for looking out for me, pal.” Axle yawned his noisy response.

“Want me to get him off?” Rick asked her.

Stephanie lay back down on her pillow. “Not unless you miss him too much.”

“Go back to sleep,” Rick whispered, and closed her door.

Back in his own bed, Rick couldn't sleep. He would never admit it to anyone, but he did miss Axle's company. And if he was continuing with the honesty, he also wished he had someone special in his life. But the scar across his belly, the nightmares and the memories of Allie walking away all reminded him why that was a life he couldn't have. The sooner he accepted that he wasn't Terrell Watkins, the better off he would be. It was good to manage his expectations.

He tossed and turned until he finally threw off the comforter and swung his legs over the edge of the bed.
I give up.
After taking a quick shower and dressing, Rick wandered into the kitchenette and found the coffeepot. He could hear Stephanie's shower running. The coffee aroma was just beginning to hit his nose when she emerged from her room.

“I'm sorry I woke you up,” he told her.

She shook her head and started scrunching her damp curls between her hands. “It wasn't you. I never can sleep well in a hotel. It's too noisy.”

On cue, the sounds of rolling suitcases passed by their front door. Above their heads, water ran through the pipes. Someone upstairs must be showering, too. Rick had to agree with her, it was noisy.

“Breakfast?” he asked. He shuffled through the groceries he had brought with him last night, but nothing looked too appetizing. Stephanie opened the blinds to a predawn view of houseboats and yachts floating on Lake Union. Sunrise peeked a bit from behind a distant hill. The scene looked peaceful and hopeful, not like a city hiding a murderer.

“I've got to give Axle a bathroom break. When we get back up, should we make this feel like a real vacation and order room service?”

She flashed him the grin he was beginning to anticipate. “I'm a sucker for breakfast,” she said. “It's my favorite meal.”

“Then it's a deal.” He liked making her happy, especially when she rewarded him with that gorgeous smile.

“Can I go outside with you guys?” she asked him, a hopeful look on her face. “I'd love to get some fresh air.”

Frowning, he said, “Better not.”

How quickly they had moved from his being able to make her smile to having to tell her no. “Until we are sure we weren't followed last night, I'm afraid you're stuck in here,” he explained.

Disappointment flashed on her face, but she replaced it quickly with a look of resolve and said, “I understand.”

Rick hated that she had to be a virtual prisoner in this hotel room, but he couldn't risk taking her out in the open. “Shelton has a security detail set up in the hotel. They've got an officer on his way to stay with you until Axle and I get back up here.”

Having a strange cop standing guard in the room would make her feel even more like a prisoner, but it couldn't be helped, and Axle was pacing by the door.

He gave her what he hoped was an apologetic smile. “We'll be quick, and then we'll get that breakfast I promised you.”

Outside, Rick kept catching himself glancing up at the fifth floor of the hotel. He was feeling so antsy. Someone else was doing his job. Having a security detail to monitor the hotel and spell him as he needed made sense, of course, but being apart from Stephanie unsettled him. Axle wanted to play, but Rick cut it short. He couldn't get back to the room fast enough, and when he dismissed the other officer, he saw a look of relief cross Stephanie's face, too. It felt good to know she was getting comfortable with him, or that at least he made her feel safe.

He called down their breakfast order right away, but it felt like an eternity passed before they finally heard a knock at the door.

“Room service.”

Stephanie's stomach growled so loud, Rick heard it. “Ah, I can smell it,” she said, giggling.

Rick opened the door and found the covered tray waiting on the floor. She was right, it did smell incredible. Axle squeezed past Rick into the hallway, barking loudly at the tray in Rick's hands.

“Axle,
pfui
!”
Stop that!
Rick nudged Axle back into the room with his knee, but the dog wouldn't shut up. “
Pfui!
Are you trying to get us kicked out of the hotel, dog? Be quiet.”

The dog didn't like it, but he obeyed, replacing the barking with a much quieter whine as he paced.

Stephanie wriggled forward on the red microfiber couch as Rick placed the tray on the coffee table in front of her. “Madam, as you requested,” he said.

Stephanie shut her eyes and inhaled. “Yum. Val's dinner was so long ago, I'm starving.” She turned a sympathetic face toward the dog. “Sorry to eat in front of you, Axle. I'll share,” she promised him.

Rick's stomach growled, too. “He's fine. He knows better than to beg like that.”

Axle barked sharply. He was picking up bad manners.

Stephanie reached over and lifted the cover off two steaming plates of golden pancakes. The pats of butter had melted to perfection. Rick stared at the tray, precious seconds ticking away as
something is wrong
needled his brain. It took about three seconds to register what his eyes were seeing.

An antique-style alarm clock sat between the two plates. Rick saw the blast cap, the wires and the large bundle of dynamite.

He grabbed Stephanie's wrist and yanked her off the couch, shoving her forward.

“Run!” He pushed her out the door, praying every footstep would take them far enough away.

EIGHT

I
t took Stephanie several seconds for her mind to catch up to her running feet. There had been a bomb on the breakfast tray. She had seen it with her own eyes.
A bomb.

The hotel was laid out in a crescent shape with several floors of open balconies overlooking a central patio-style courtyard. Unsuspecting guests filled the courtyard below where they ate breakfast, read their newspapers and drank coffee, oblivious to the bomb about to explode in the fifth-floor suite above their heads. The same bomb that could detonate behind Stephanie's back at any moment. Her leg muscles twitched. She needed to run away.

Rick hung over the balcony. “There's a bomb,” he bellowed. A few people stared up at him in shock, a few pointed up at him, probably wondering what that crazy person was yelling about up there.

“Evacuate the building!” Rick screamed once more and then gave up. Stephanie and Axle followed him. They couldn't waste time waiting to see if anyone acted on Rick's warning or not.
Please let people hear him; let them get out before it goes off.

Dialing his cell as he ran, Rick breathlessly relayed the news to Shelton and then screamed yet another warning to two businessmen in suits waiting by the elevator ahead of them. When they heard Rick's words, they dropped their bags and ran.

Sweat trickled down Stephanie's neck under her hair. Would Rick's warning reach anyone else in time? Who would get hurt when the bomb detonated?

A door opened into the hallway, and a woman holding a baby carrier stepped in front of them. The woman's other hand clasped the hand of a toddler. The little boy's eyes widened at the sight of the crazy people and the dog running toward his little family.

Stephanie slowed her running and shuddered.
Lord, no! Not babies.
Her lungs burned. Gasping to regain her breath, she managed to yell at the woman, “There's a bomb! Get them out of here! Run!”

The woman froze with a deer-in-the-headlights gaze. Stephanie estimated at least three minutes had passed. When would the explosion hit them? They were wasting precious seconds.

“Run!” Stephanie screamed at her again. “Get your kids away from here.”

The woman snapped awake and ran a few slow
steps with the cumbersome baby carrier, dragging the toddler behind her before she stopped and sobbed, “But my husband's in the shower. We were just getting breakfast.”

Stephanie scooped up the little boy, while Rick said, “Keep running, I'll get your husband.”

“Rick, no,” Stephanie protested.
Save yourself. I need you with me.

“Go. Get those kids as far away as you can.” Rick pounded his flat palm against the door where the family had emerged. “Police! Open the door!” He was still pounding and yelling as Stephanie and the woman continued down the hall.

Every fiber in her being fought against abandoning Rick, but Stephanie couldn't listen to her instincts. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks as she left him. They had to get these babies to safety. It was probably already too late.

As they reached the stairwell, the wailing screams and flashing strobe lights of the hotel's alarm system kicked in. Shelton must have warned the front desk. Stephanie was grateful for the blaring warning. The more time that passed before the bomb went off meant more people would hear it and get out safely, and the fewer injuries or deaths she would have on her conscience.

Doors slammed as people abandoned their rooms, shoving past the two slower-moving women and children on the stairs. Stephanie winced at every noise or touch, but if the bomb hadn't detonated already, would it at all? So much time had gone by already, maybe the bomb was a dud, just Julian's idea of a joke.

Axle whizzed by her legs, running down the stairs several floors, and then circling back. He barked at her and repeated the same cycle over and over, urging the two women to hurry. The toddler screamed in Stephanie's ear, squirming and reaching for his mother. Stephanie's arms were sweaty and slippery. She was afraid she might drop the boy if he kept moving like that.

“Sit still, sweetie. I'll give you to your mom when we're outside, okay?” His poor mother stumbled behind Stephanie several times. Running down steep stairs while juggling a heavy baby carrier at the same time didn't look like an easy task.

“You're okay, Max,” the woman yelled to her son. “Be a good boy.”

Other people rushed past them on the stairs, slowing their progress even further. It felt like the entire hotel full of people was attempting an escape down this one tight stairwell.

They were almost to the ground floor when the woman stopped, red-faced and heaving for air. She knelt and started unlatching the straps securing her baby. “I'm going to take her out of the carrier. Keep going.”

Not wanting to leave her, Stephanie stopped and said, “Hurry.”

Then she heard more running footsteps above them, and a male voice called out, “Marla, I'm coming.”

A man in boxers and a damp T-shirt ran barefoot around the corner, grabbing the baby from his wife. Marla turned to Stephanie and reached for her son.

Stephanie handed the boy to his mother. Stretching up on tiptoes, she peered around the couple and up the stairs behind them. “Where's Rick?” she asked Marla's husband. “Why isn't he with you?”

But Stephanie never got her answer. An explosive shock wave hit her first, knocking her to her knees, erasing all doubt of the bomb's authenticity. The lights flickered for a second and then a heavy
boom
sound echoed down the stairwell, sending vibrations right through Stephanie's bones. Marla and her husband flung themselves over their children. Stephanie covered her ears and huddled against the wall. Warm fur blanketed her as Axle positioned himself close around her body, ever her vigilant protector.

“Rick,” she screamed. “Rick!” She squeezed her eyes shut and pulled into a fetal position.

Then a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her in, and she heard Rick's voice speaking in her ear. “I'm right here.”

* * *

A sense of déjà vu settled on Stephanie as she and Rick watched the commotion from the edge of the crowd gathered in the hotel parking lot. It was her third experience in two days of watching a bunch of emergency responders cleaning up a mess that Julian Hale had made.

Axle was thirsty and hungry, so when another K-9 officer offered to get him some food and water and to kennel the dog in his patrol car, Rick thanked him and handed him the leash. Then he began pointing out the different agencies and command staff to Stephanie, helping her to understand what she was seeing. Police officers, SWAT, FBI, ATF, paramedics and firefighters swarmed around them. He pointed to a tall man in a tailored suit with silver hair and a trimmed gray goatee. “There's the mayor.”

“Looks like a good time to rob a bank,” she said, her eyes wide in awe of the response. “Is
everyone
here?”

“We don't take a bomb going off in our city lightly.”

They had been told that a hotel employee—the same one who had left the kitchen with their room service order—had been found unconscious in a utility closet. That meant Julian had delivered the bomb himself. Was he still close by? Stephanie imagined him hiding somewhere in the bushes watching the scene, thrilled by the chaos and mess he had created. She wondered if the huge scale of descending law enforcement and media attention delighted him. Did this enormous response, along with the heightened human emotion, feed his sickness? Would it fuel him on to bigger and better things than chasing after an unimportant schoolteacher?

The entire block had been cordoned off, and all area buildings had been evacuated. Police were escorting curious pedestrians outside of the crime-scene tape, and refusing to comment to all of the members of the media who were leaning across the barricades crying out for information.

Clumps of people stood by the barricades and answered the reporters' questions, eager for their fifteen minutes of fame. How soon until the reporters figured out Stephanie and Rick's connection with the explosion? She spotted an attractive blonde woman wearing a blue parka with a Channel 4 News patch on its sleeve. It was Kristine Scott, the news anchor Stephanie watched every night before bed, and she was interviewing one of the men Stephanie and Rick had warned outside the elevator. Stephanie averted her eyes and stepped behind a large pillar to hide from his view before he recognized her and pointed her out to the newswoman.

Rick draped his arm around her shoulder and put his lips to her ear so no one else could hear. “Play it cool and try to blend in, but stay alert. Hale could be nearby. Shelton is on his way with a car to get us out of here, but in the meantime, I don't want a camera or microphone shoved in our faces. The less attention we draw, the better.”

Stephanie agreed. She did not want her students' parents turning on the eleven o'clock news and seeing their child's teacher on the screen. Rick guided her behind an ambulance and then farther down a sidewalk. On any other morning this street would be busy with traffic. Today it was empty of cars and eerily silent.

Stephanie had to remind herself to breathe. They had distanced themselves from the crowd and the watchful eyes of the media, but if Julian was out there somewhere paying attention, the new spot also made them more vulnerable to another attack. Maybe they should go back to the parking lot to wait. Without thinking about it, she stepped closer to Rick's side for comfort.

“Shelton will be here any minute,” he reassured her. “We need to be ready to jump in when he pulls up. Then we can go get Axle.”

The Space Needle stood tall in the skyline on Stephanie's left, the iconic landmark reminding her of how far downtown they were. Over four million people lived in the Seattle area, yet somehow Julian Hale kept zeroing in on their location. He was doing the impossible.

“How is he doing it?” she asked Rick, sensing the same frustration eating at him. “It shouldn't be this hard to hide in a city the size of Seattle.” Maybe she and Rick should forget about waiting for Shelton and find their own hiding place. But remembering how well taking off on her own had worked out for her yesterday convinced her that was not a feasible option.

“I don't know,” Rick answered her. “We've got to figure it out or it's useless to even try to hide. He's got to be doing more than just following us, but I can't figure out how he's tracking us.”

Stephanie stared at the shops across the street that bumped up to Lake Union. There was a chowder restaurant, and a marina selling yachts. On another day, she would have had fun crossing the street and exploring the shops and luxury boats for sale. But in reality, on a normal Sunday morning like this one, she wouldn't be downtown at all. She would be at church, sitting next to Val. She would probably have Haddie cuddled up on her lap and Joash snuggled next to her side. She wanted to be in that place of safety and contentment instead of standing outside a crime scene investigation knowing that she was the reason for all of this uproar.

Her mind wandered to her school. She imagined the kids climbing off their school buses tomorrow morning, dragging backpacks behind them, and then finding a substitute teacher when they walked in the door. A pang of something like homesickness hit her. She missed her normal routine. She surveyed the chaos surrounding her and pressed her fingers to her lips.
Thank You that all of this happened on a weekend and not while I was at school. Please don't let Julian hurt my kids.

As soon as she and Rick got to somewhere safe, she needed to call her principal. She had already talked to him, and Detective Shelton had promised to contact him, too, but she needed to reinforce with Jim again just how much danger they could be in at the school. She wouldn't be able to live with one of her kids getting hurt because of her.

Stephanie scanned the crowd behind her trying to assess the damage. Their hotel suite had been completely destroyed in the blast, taking out much of the surrounding rooms, including those above and below theirs. She could see a paramedic working on a woman's hand, and a few people had bleeding cuts on their faces. They must have been hit by flying debris, but so far it didn't look to her that people had been hurt too seriously. Julian had given them all enough time to get out. Why was that?

She turned to Rick and said, “Another thing I don't understand is why it took so long for the bomb to go off.” She didn't mean to sound ungrateful for the extra time that had saved so many lives.

“Not that I'm complaining,” she corrected herself, “But when we were running, I kept expecting the explosion to happen at any moment. It seemed like it took forever.”

“No. I thought the same thing.” Rick shuffled his feet and crossed his arms, his biceps stretching the sleeves of his T-shirt. He looked so strong, yet Julian had him perplexed, too. It made the ground beneath Stephanie feel unsteady, as if she were standing on one of the swaying boats moored at the docks across the street.

“I think he was giving us time to get out,” Rick said.

“What?” Nothing Julian was doing made any sense to her. There had been so many opportunities for him to kill her already if that was his intent; why did he keep letting her live? “Why bother sending the bomb at all if he wasn't trying to kill us?”

“Remember what Gary Shelton told you? You are the fish that got away. Hale needs to feel in control, to believe he holds all the power. The bomb was just a message. He's telling us that when he is ready to do it, he's going to do it his way.”

“By
it
, you mean kill me,” Stephanie said.

“That's not going to happen, Stephanie.” Rick reached out for her hand and she took it, comforted by the gesture. It was just palm to palm, not as meaningful as if their fingers interlaced, but it wasn't something that two strangers would do. Rick was beginning to feel less like an acquaintance and more like a friend.