Hope House (14 page)

The door opened and shut, and she sighed in relief when she saw a pair of worn out Dockers. No socks. Kurt. She heaved herself forward.

“I’m under here,” she announced.

He
found her. His hands were covered in blood and his shirt was splattered. “It’s safe now. Get out from under there. You never saw me.” He rushed into the bathroom and shut the door.

Gloria got out from under the bed just in time for the door to open again. Two hotel security guards rushed in. “Miss Hanes, are you all right?”

“Yes. What happened?”

Before either of the guards could answer, one of the cops called the front desk and told them to call 9-1-1. “We’ve got a situation here.” Gloria imagined the man had waited his entire career to say that.

While Gloria waited for the guard to get off the phone she peeked through the doorway to the hall.

“
Oh my God!”

“You should go back inside, Miss Hanes,” the other guard said.

She was transfixed. Two men lay on the floor. One was passed out. His face looked like it had been smashed with a baseball bat, rendering him unrecognizable. Blood, swelling, and bruises were all she saw now.  Where his mouth parted, broken teeth sat behind split lips. His slack hand held a bloodied steak knife.

The imposter room service man next to him was still too. A knife wound in his abdomen. Black ho
le in the center of a red bullseye of blood on his blue hotel uniform. Gloria watched him carefully but his chest didn’t rise or fall.

She felt an arm pull
her back into the room. Hotel security. “It’s better if you wait inside for the police.”

She didn’t argue
.

A few minutes later, a team of paramedics and police stormed in and started taking pictures of the crime scene and the bodies.

A cop introduced himself to Gloria. “I’m Detective O’Grady.” He was tall, skinny, and about fifty. Thick gray hair and a wrinkled suit. The man looked worn out even though the day was still young.
A burn out
, she imagined.
Just my luck.

He flipped open a pad. “Why don’t you tell me everything that happened, Miss Hanes?”

Careful to keep her eyes on O’Grady and not allow the others to wander to the bathroom where Kurt remained in hiding, she provided a filtered version of the truth, leaving out Kurt’s involvement. “I never opened the door, so I don’t know what happened out there.”

He nodded, hummed, and wrote something in his notebook. Good. He believed her.

“The woman at the front desk said someone has been trying to kill you.”

She was going to blurt out, “yes!” but stopped. Kurt had said he knew who wanted to kill her. What would it hurt to wait until after the police left, when Kurt could explain? Then they could give them facts. Kurt had saved her life but had killed that man outside. And who knew if the other one would survive? The police wouldn’t take that lightly. There was no proof those men were there to hurt her. Just her word. And Kurt’s belief in her. She closed her eyes.

Kurt Malone had protected her and she needed to return the favor. Hiding him in the bathroom was a start.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t tell the front desk that someone was trying to kill you?”

“
I was sitting here reading.” She pointed to the manuscript on the desk. “If someone was trying to kill me do you think I could relax and read?”

“No Ma’am.”

“So, are you going to catch whoever did this?”

“Well, I think they’re pretty much caught. Neither of them are hotel employees.
Seems one beat the other pretty badly and he fought back with the knife. The pounding you heard on your door was the scuffle, not room service. You must’ve filled in the blanks.” 

“Open and shut, huh?”

“The knife in the one guy’s hand will likely match the stab wound in the dead guy. Not rocket science. We’ll run our investigation but you don’t have to be a part of it. Obviously, you didn’t see anything and the door was busted in during the struggle, but by then you were—”

“U
nder the bed.”

“So you’ve told us all you know.”

“Aren’t there cameras in the hallways?” She held her breath as she waited for an answer.

“Should be but there aren’t. Damn place charges enough you’d think they’d have better security.”

“Yeah, you’d think.”

They
exchanged glances for another couple of seconds. She wasn’t sure if he was looking for a clue, for some slipup in her recitation, or just ogling her.

“Well, you have a good day. If I need you I have your number.”

“Yes, but I dropped my phone yesterday and broke it. I’ll get a replacement later today then the number will be good.” She walked him to the door and closed it as much as she could allow, given that Kurt had busted the lock. She pulled a chair against the door to secure it as best she could.
Have a good day? What the hell kind of thing was that to say?

She waited a few more minutes before going toward the bathroom and lightly knocking. Kurt opened the door and she sucked in her breath.

His bloodied clothes were in a pile on the floor and he was naked except for a white hotel towel wrapped around his waist. He had wiped the blood off his hands with another towel, but both hands were stained red. “Didn’t dare turn on the water. Give myself away. Is it safe to shower?”

She nodded.

His muscles rippled under his skin as he reached for the shower handle. Her heart beat hard as she thought of pulling the towel off and jumping into the shower with him.

He had just killed someone. She should be afraid. But fear was the furthest thing from her mind right now. His brute strength and brutality e
nticed her. Drew her in. All she could think about was being close to him. “They’re gone, right? What did they say?” he aksed.

“They’re gone. I locked the door. They’re in the hall I guess, removing the men. I think one of them is dead.”

He smiled at her and it took every ounce of willpower she had to keep her hands off him. He turned the shower on and rinsed his hand underneath the stream while he waited for it to warm. The water turned pink from the blood and she noticed Kurt’s swollen knuckles. She pictured him beating the life out of the men who meant her harm, all to save her.

“Just one huh? That’s too bad.”

“Kurt, why can’t we just tell the police what happened? I don’t want you to get in trouble, but they can help—”

He sighed and took her hand. “We’re not in  Kansas anymore,
Gloria. I need you to comprehend how big this is, to understand the kind of people we’re dealing with.”

“Some kind of co
nspiracy? The cops are in on it?”

“No, I don’t think so. But you need to stay hidden and if we involve the police, you’ll be in the public eye.”

“But they can protect me. A safe house or something.”

He shook his head doubtfully and rubbed her cheek softly with his damaged hand. “You are so beautifully innocent. You’re just going to have to trust me on this. Can you do that for me? I’ll keep you safe.”

She reached behind her and locked the bathroom door. Why fight it? He was gorgeous and in a towel less than two feet from her. Steam filled the bathroom and his bare skin glistened. She needed to feel close to him, needed to make love.

Kurt stared at her, unmoving.

He had just saved her life. Nothing was a bigger turn on than that, she thought. He stepped forward, closing the gap between them and reached for the top button of her blouse with his swollen fingers. She smiled and tugged his towel off, more than ready to repay him for saving her life.

5
.

Miami Law Office of Alierdi, Moss
, and Carpenter, afternoon

Tommy Carpenter cringed when he saw Gloria. She looked drawn and sick. Gorgeous of course, even trauma couldn’t mess with her natural beauty, but wiped out.

Her hands shook and she kept smoothing her hair as she
relayed the goriest details of her morning.

Tommy felt his stomach clench when she told him she had hidden under the bed. He nearly upchucked the almond croissant he’
d eaten for breakfast when she said that one guy died from a knife wound and the other was rendered unconscious with a face so badly bludgeoned that it looked like a bloodied piece of liver. 

“They tried to kill me before, Tommy. That’s why they came to my hotel room, to finish the job. To kill me.”

“Maybe they were just hoping to find any pretty girl in a room and rape her.” That was a stupid thing to say, he thought. As if that scenario would have alleviated her fear.

“They called my name. They banged on the door and said, ‘Miss Hanes!’ Used a room service dodge. Not too bright but Tommy, it wasn’t random.”

He didn’t know what to say. Mick had obviously put out a hit on her. Tommy would have to call Mick out on this as soon as he could, but for right now what could he say to calm her down? “So one of them was the same guy you saw at the airport, the one who you say pushed you in front of a bus?”

“
His face was unrecognizable. A mash of pulpy—”

He put his hand up. “I get it, Gloria. That’s enough.”

“But it must have been him. Kurt brought me to a whole new hotel and they found me anyway. They did it to Donna, and they mean to kill me now, and it all has to do with our child, Tommy!”

Tommy picked up his coffee mocha l
atte and sipped it. A shot of Stoli would have been better but this would have to do as long as she was sitting here.

“
I believe you up to a —”

“You believe me . . . ” She took a long moment to allow this to sink in. “You finally accept the fact that someone has been sent out to kill me because I’m getting a little too close to finding our daughter?”

“No.” He shrugged. “I don’t think the two are related.”

Gloria’s eyes bore through his and he nearly fell off his chair. That same angered scorned look she had given him years before in divorce court.  That same determined stare that made him want to tell her everything, beg her forgiveness. But doing so would
be at his own peril. He viewed the picture of his new family on the desk. Their peril too.

T
ime to pull out the heavy artillery. The lie that was supposed to be his ace in the hole if he ever needed it. Cruel, but she left him no choice.

“You keep carrying on that the fetus was five months old but it wasn’t.”

“Twenty-two weeks,” she said. “But what does that have to do with—”

“Stop it. Don’t you remember? You were only sixteen weeks.”

“I was not. I was twenty-two weeks. I got pregnant on May eleventh.”

He put his head down, making a show of his frustration. He threw his hands up for good measure. He did feel bad for Gloria, but it was time for her to let the damn thing go. Yeah, someone had tried to kill her, but for God’s sake if she had just kept her nose out of this it wouldn’t have happened. He didn’t want her dead, but she was digging her own grave. Tommy couldn’t seem to get her off track. Any more upsets and Mick might very well decide to take it out of
his
hide.

That PI Tommy
hired had kept Gloria from dying but Malone seemed to be fueling her fire. Of course, calling him off the case now would only make Malone suspicious. Tommy tugged at his suddenly too tight and stiff collar. Hearing the graphic description of the damage Malone had inflicted was even more reason for Tommy to stay out of his way. He wouldn’t be surprised if Kurt was banging Gloria. She was still a beauty.

“Tommy?”

“Huh? Oh yeah. Gloria, listen to me.” He reached over and held her hands. He was a litigator after all and bullshitting was his specialty. “I still care about you. You must know that.” Not a complete lie there but she was being a royal pain in the ass right now. “But I was with you when you got pregnant, and when you had all your tests, and when you lost the baby. After twenty weeks it’s a stillbirth. You did not have a stillbirth. It was only sixteen weeks.”

She stared at him. Shocked.

“Do you know what hospitals do with—well, I hate to term it this way but, the spare parts?”

She shook her head.

“They cremate them.”

“Cremate?”

“Yes, Gloria. Cremate. When they removed the fetus from you, they burned what was left. It’s called medical waste at that point, you see.”

She dropped her gaze.

He remained silent, but even from this angle he could see tears pooling in her eyes.

She finally looked up, through clouded vision. “If she’s really gone—cremated gone! Then damn it, Tommy, who’s trying to kill me? And why?”

“An irate reader?”

“Are you kidding?”

“Why not? Someone who didn’t like something your firm published. Or maybe a scorned author whose work you rejected because it sucked? Everyone has enemies. You just have to try to figure out who they—”