Safe Harbor. Hope White

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      “What can I do to repay you?” Ruby asked.

      “It’s my job, remember?”

      “And you’re seriously good at it or Edward wouldn’t have requested you. Did you get the passcodes I texted you earlier?”

      “Yes, ma’am. Committed them to memory and ate my phone.”

      “Very funny.”

      The front door slammed.

      “He’s back from his run. Gotta go.” Nic pocketed her phone and checked Mr. Lange’s Outlook calendar to make sure he wasn’t missing anything crucial by escaping the city on a whim. Nic was a natural at her job as a personal assistant, but then she’d spent her childhood keeping her younger sister and brother organized.

      Voices echoed down the front hallway. Odd, considering she was told they weren’t expecting guests this weekend. She blocked out the voices and focused on checking messages on Mr. Lange’s smartphone.

      “It’s borderline criminal!” Mr. Lange shouted.

      Shouted? He was usually such a soft-spoken man. Nic felt guilty eavesdropping, so she refocused on his voice mails. “Mr. Lange, this is Audrey Ross from Tech Worldwide. I’m on a deadline and I need a statement about the Tech-Link software failure—”

      “I said no!”

      Her shoulders jerked.

      “It’s okay, it’s not him,” she coached herself, as posttraumatic panic skittered across her nerve endings.

      Something slammed against the wall, rattling the books in the mahogany case next to the door. She slowly backed up toward the closet.

      “Get out of my house!” Mr. Lange bellowed.

      Her pulse raced as buried memories of her abusive father rushed to the surface.

      “I said out!”

      She darted into the closet and shut the door with a soft click. Scrambling to the far corner, she hid behind a stack of boxes.

      Some part of her brain realized how ridiculous it would look when Mr. Lange found his personal assistant huddled in the closet, but her reaction was automatic. She couldn’t make another choice if her life depended on it.

      “You need to reconsider,” a second man said, his voice higher pitched and more clear.

      They’d entered the office.

      “Nothing is going to change my mind,” Mr. Lange said.

      Something slammed against the closet door. She bit back a squeak and hugged her knees to her chest.

      “Why are you still here?” Mr. Lange accused.

      “Because you haven’t called the cops.”

      “The only reason I haven’t called the cops is because of my—”

      A soft pop made her gasp. Then another.

      A gunshot? No, it couldn’t be.

      Silence rang in her ears. She focused on breathing so she wouldn’t pass out.

      The sound of breaking glass echoed through the door, then swearing, and more crashing. She hugged her knees tighter, fisted her hands.

      She squeezed her eyes shut.

      Waited.

      It was just a matter of time before he opened the closet door.

      Flashes of her childhood paralyzed her, rendering her unable to think clearly.

      Hide in the corner. Be quiet and still, she’d coach Beau and Addy.

      She had to do something, call the police, a friend, someone. Instead, she huddled in tighter, losing all sense of time and place as the memories closed in.

      Then the door opened...

      * * *

      Detective Alex Donovan knew something was off the minute he entered Edward Lange’s study. Instinct twisted his gut as he scanned the room.

      “Chief Roth and the coroner are on the way,” officer Mark Adams said, standing in the doorway.

      Alex crouched to look at the room from another angle, wrestling with the frustration building in his chest.

      Edward Lange. Dead.

      The entrepreneur-philanthropist often came to Waverly Harbor to get away from the intensity of the city, demands of his work and the relentless media. When he bought the lake house three years ago, he’d asked for a meeting with Chief Roth and his staff to discuss his residing in their small town. Although community members knew about the purchase of the lake house, they’d agreed to give Lange his privacy and help him avoid the spotlight. In return he’d generously donated money to build a new community center and library. He didn’t have to make those donations. Folks of Waverly Harbor were nothing if not protective, and they had embraced Lange as one of their own without expecting anything in return.

      “His driver is outside,” Mark Adams said.

      “He called it in?”

      “No. He claims he was outside in the car and didn’t hear anything. The call came from Lange’s cell.”

      Alex went to the body, careful not to disturb the crime scene. Not easy with the clutter of papers littering the floor. Someone was looking for something.

      Alex crouched again, eyed the area around Edward’s face, and down to his hands. “There’s no phone near the body.”

      “Maybe the intruder took it?”

      Alex studied Edward Lange’s face. “Where’s your security?” he whispered.

      No bodyguards and the alarm wasn’t set? Which meant what? That Edward knew his attacker. Was the killer a personal friend or staff member?

      Alex scanned the immediate area and spotted a gold chain-link bracelet, a man’s wallet and pair of sunglasses on the floor near the body.

      “You want to talk to—”

      Alex put up two fingers to silence the cop. He thought he heard something, a faint whimper, but he couldn’t be sure.

      He closed his eyes, blocked out his surroundings, and listened.

      A muffled cough-gasp echoed from across the room. The closet.

      Alex withdrew his firearm, slowly crossed the room and motioned for Mark to open the door on the count of three.

      One, two, three.

      Mark whipped СКАЧАТЬ