Reservations for Murder (19 page)

It was now or never. Alex reached around in
one swift motion, plucked the ironwork off the table and hurled it
toward Jenny just as she fired. He felt a sting bite one arm as he
threw the ironwork, but he couldn’t afford to see how badly he’d
been hit until he was someplace safe.

Alex made it to the door just as another
bullet thunked into the wood frame beside him with a meaty
slap.

She was good, too good for his tastes!

Alex ran away from the lighthouse the second
he was out the door; it had been a benevolent presence for him all
his life, but the sentinel was nothing but a deadly trap for him at
the moment.

Suddenly, Alex knew exactly where to go: Bear
Rocks. If he could get into the maze of stones first, she’d never
find him. Sooner or later, Armstrong would get his message and be
out there.

He only hoped the sheriff would make it in
time.

“Alex, you can’t run away from me,” he heard
Jenny call as he dove into the copse of trees between the inn and
Bear Rocks. Alex ran in a zigzag pattern, trying to throw her aim
off, but it appeared Jenny was saving her bullets. He glanced back
to see how far away she was just before he dove down the first rock
slide.

She was close, and Alex saw with satisfaction
that the ironwork he’d thrown had struck home. Jenny was bleeding
steadily above one eye. Instead of slowing her down though, it
looked as if it had only served to make her even more determined to
kill him.

“You can’t escape, Alex. Why make it more
painful than it has to be?”

If he could get her lost in the rocks, he
might even be able to get away. There was a highway on the other
side of the rock formation that led back into town. With any luck,
he could cover the distance that stood between before she even
realized he wasn’t in the rocks anymore.

“There you are,” he heard her say close
behind him. A bullet suddenly zinged off a rock two inches from his
right hand! She’d climbed to Cradle Rock and was using it to look
down on him.

Alex dove down, twisting and turning his
adult body through passageways that had been spacious when he’d
been a kid but had grown claustrophobic in the interim. He knew he
was bruising and scraping his body as he hurried, but Alex forced
the minor pains out of his mind, though his arm throbbed violently
every time he brushed it against another rock.

Alex could deal with the pain. He had to. At
the moment, he had one task, and that was to escape with his
life.

His foot stumbled on loose rock, and he
almost went down with a twisted ankle. Fortunately, he caught
himself before he fell, though the jarring contact with the stone
sent another wave of nausea through him.

The loose gravel gave him an idea. Alex had
been a pretty decent pitcher in high school, though he hadn’t
thrown much since. Maybe, just maybe, he could clip her shooting
hand and make her drop the gun. At least she’d shot him in the
right arm; he thanked the stars above that he was left-handed.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” Jenny
called, laughing.

Alex stuck his head up quickly and saw her
back was to him now. He’d managed to work his way around her!
Taking a stone the size of a softball, Alex hurled it at her head.
It struck her shoulder instead, nearly spinning her around with its
impact.

When she faced him again, there was a look of
pure hatred on her face. She was almost unrecognizable.

Alex heard the shot whistle past his ear as
he ducked down again.

After she realized she’d missed, Jenny said,
“Now Alex, why did you have to do that? It’s going to leave a
bruise for weeks! I’m afraid I’ll have to punish you for being bad.
Come out like a good boy and take what you’ve got coming.” There
was a cloying edge to her tone that set his teeth on edge.

He had to get another clear shot at her.
Rushing through a precarious passageway he hadn’t been through in
twenty-five years, Alex moved quickly among the rocks.

When he looked back at her, Alex saw that
she’d been moving in the same general direction! She was much too
close! He’d have to throw the stone in his hand and get back down
before it hit. Zipping it toward her, she must have sensed
something, because Jenny whirled around, sending a wild shot
screaming into the rocks above him. Her aim was definitely getting
worse.

Alex couldn’t afford to see if the stone had
struck home.

Hurrying down another passageway, he kept
moving until he was sure he was far enough away to throw another
stone.

He was wrong.

There, standing less than a foot away from
him, Jenny had her revolver trained straight at Alex’s head.

There was no way out.

Alex’s time had just run out.

“Jenny, let’s talk about this,” Alex said,
trying to figure a way out of the jam he was in now.

“Enough talking,” she shrieked. “Now it’s
time to die. Alex, I’m truly sorry. I really did like you.”

“Hold it right there.”

Alex looked over his shoulder to see Sheriff
Armstrong twenty feet away. He had his gun drawn, and there was a
look of steel in his gaze that Alex had never seen before.

Jenny snapped, “Put that away, you idiot. If
you shoot me, I’ll kill him before I die. There’s no way you can
stop me.”

Alex said, “Jenny, what good will that do?
You’re going to be caught; there’s no escape now.”

She said snappishly, “I’ve already killed one
man,

Alex. What are they going to do, execute me
again for killing you? What have I got to lose?”

Alex said softly, “Flip the coin, Jenny. What
have you got to gain?”

“Are you kidding me? You toyed with me one
too many times. You have to pay for that, Alex.”

He touched his arm and pulled away a bloody
palm. As he held it out to her, he said, “Don’t you think I’ve paid
enough?”

“Oh, that’s just the start of it, Alex.”
There was a look of pure, intense hatred on her face as she said
it.

Then she pulled the trigger.

Alex kept waiting for the explosion of pain
that never came. Jenny cursed the gun, trying to figure out why it
hadn’t fired, but Alex didn’t hesitate. He threw the last of his
rocks at her, then climbed toward her just as she hurled the gun at
his head.

It missed, clattering off the rocks behind
him.

“Enough,” Armstrong roared. “If you don’t
freeze this instant, you’re going to die!”

“So shoot me,” Jenny screamed. “I don’t
care!”

“Stop,” Alex shouted as he fought to scale
the rocks between them. She was still cursing as he wrapped his
arms around Jenny in a bearlike grip so she couldn’t move. “Don’t
shoot, Sheriff. I’ve got her.”

It was an awkward embrace, but Jenny couldn’t
escape, that was what was important. Instead, when she realized
that she wasn’t going anywhere but jail, she buried her face in
Alex’s chest, sobbing. “He had to die, Alex, he had to. Don’t you
see? He had to die.”

Alex wanted to feel pity for her, but he
couldn’t. All he could see was Jefferson Lee’s lifeless body pinned
against the beam with a steel shaft through his heart.

Jenny gave up completely. She was
surprisingly docile as Armstrong put the cuffs on her. After the
sheriff put her in the back of the squad car, Armstrong said,
“Sorry I couldn’t get here sooner, Alex. I was taking care of some
personal business, and I didn’t get your message until it was
almost too late.”

“Don’t beat yourself up over it. Everything
worked out fine, Sheriff.”

Armstrong looked at Alex’s arm. “You’d better
get that checked out pretty quick. Why don’t you ride into town
with me?”

The last thing in the world Alex wanted to do
was to spend another second in Jenny Harris’s company.

He was spared that, at least.

A voice behind him said, “That won’t be
necessary, Sheriff. I’ll see that he gets there.”

Alex couldn’t believe it. Elise was standing
a few feet away, a worried look on her face.

She’d come back to Hatteras West after
all.

Chapter 23

“Oomph,” Alex grunted as Elise accidentally
brushed against him. The pain in his right arm was really
intensifying now that his adrenaline rush was nearly over. Waves of
angry bolts shot through him every time he so much as moved.

“Oh, Alex, I hurt you! I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not that bad,” he said. “I’m so glad
you’re back, Elise.”

She frowned gently. “I wouldn’t leave for
good, Alex, you should know that. This place is too important to
me. Listen, we can talk about that later. Right now, we need to get
you to the hospital.”

“Okay,” he agreed as he fished his keys out
of his pocket. “You’d better drive, though.”

“Alex, I’ve missed you,” she said calmly as
she helped him into the passenger seat of his truck.

“I’ve missed you, too. How’s your dad?”

As Elise drove, she said, “He’s good enough
to go back to the inn and recuperate there. I stayed as long as I
was needed, but it just wasn’t the same anymore.”

“Sometimes I imagine it’s tough going home
again,” Alex said.

“That’s the whole problem, Alex. It wasn’t
home. Elkton Falls is my home now.”

It was the best thing in the world she could
have said to him.

Doc Drake was at the emergency room, having
just taken care of young Jimmy Hickman’s broken arm.

As he worked on cleaning Alex’s wound, he
said, “You are the luckiest man I know. The bullet just grazed you,
Alex. I’ll be able to stitch you up and have you out of here in no
time. I never would have believed Jenny Harris would snap like
that.”

“If you’d seen what I had, you’d believe it
easily enough.”

As he finished bandaging the wound, Doc said,
“Well, you’ve been through a lot today. You need anything to help
you sleep tonight?”

“No, I’ll be fine,” Alex said.

Doc Drake grinned. “I hear someone’s waiting
for you outside. You’d better not keep her standing there in the
hallway much longer.”

Alex offered his left hand to the doctor to
shake.

When the door suddenly opened, Alex expected
to see Elise, but he found Sheriff Armstrong instead.

“Got a second, Alex?”

“Just about that. I need to get home,
Sheriff.”

Doc Drake said, “If you two will excuse me,
I’ve got another patient to see.”

After the doctor was gone, Armstrong said, “I
just wanted to let you know what I found out.” He gestured to
Alex’s arm. “I figure I owe you that.”

“It wasn’t your fault I got shot.”

Armstrong hung his head. “Nice of you to say
so, but I can’t say I’d agree with it. I shouldn’t have been so
bent on pinning the murder on Yadkin. I made a mistake there, one I
won’t likely repeat.”

“It’s okay,” Alex said.

Armstrong nodded, then said, “I just found
out where Marilynn Baxter was hiding out. Her neighbor Ruby Garnet
came into the station an hour ago and told me she’d been helping
Marilynn lie low. Ruby feels something awful about letting her go
back alone when she was still so distraught, but she couldn’t have
known.”

“The only thing she’s guilty of is having a
big heart,” Alex agreed.

Armstrong said, “On the way to the station, I
asked Jenny about breaking into Jefferson Lee’s shop. Seems
Jefferson had himself a Polaroid Camera, and he liked to use it
when they were, uh, you know, together. Jenny said she found the
pictures and burned them before she came after you. She kept saying
you were her last loose thread. You’re lucky to be alive,
Alex.”

“Don’t I know it,” Alex said as he got up,
holding his arm gently. “Thanks for the update, Sheriff, I truly do
appreciate it, but I really need to go home.”

Armstrong made a motion to pat Alex’s
shoulder but stopped abruptly. “I’ll be out at the inn later to
check on Irene. She’s working the crime scene.”

Alex almost tripped over Elise as he opened
the door to leave.

“Alex, I was so worried about you. Are you
all right?”

He lifted the sutured arm gently in the air.
“I’m just glad I’m left-handed, or I would have never been able to
throw those rocks at Jenny. I think that’s what saved my life.”

“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you, Alex.
You needed me, and I let you down.”

As they walked toward the clerk’s desk to
settle his bill, Alex said, “You had to go back for your father,
Elise. You don’t owe me any apologies.”

“Well, I’m here now.” She paused, then asked,
“What’s going on with Mor and Emma? They were out in the waiting
room with me, then all of a sudden they started arguing about
something in whispers. The next thing I knew, they both just got up
and left.”

“They’ve been trying to iron out the
differences in their relationship over the past couple of days. I
think they’re either going to break up after all this is over or
get engaged.”

Elise said, “Which one are you pulling
for?”

Alex sighed. “That one’s easy. Whichever
solution makes my friends the happiest.”

Elise nodded. “Well said. Alex, why don’t we
get you back to the inn, and I’ll fix you a nice dinner. How does
that sound?”

“That’s the best offer I’ve had all day.” He
knew Hatteras West’s lobby would still be in the middle of Irene’s
crime scene investigation, but he didn’t care.

All Alex really wanted to do was to go home.
He drew energy from the lighthouse, from Bear Rocks, from all of
The Hatteras West Inn.

Having Elise there with him again was more
than he could ever ask for.

It was time to go home.

And now a peek at Murder Checks Inn, book 3
in the Lighthouse Inn mysteries by Tim Myers.

Murder Checks Inn

By Tim Myers

Chapter 1

“I still don’t know why we had to come all
the way out to the middle of nowhere to read Father’s will,” Ashley
Trask-Cooper said impatiently, smoothing the invisible wrinkles
from her pantsuit with abbreviated flicks of her hand as she spoke.
It was readily apparent that Ashley wasn’t used to waiting for
anyone. She had asked her mother and brother the same question a
dozen times since they’d recently arrived. It was obvious the
Hatteras West Inn was the last place in the world Ashley wanted to
be.