Page 9 of After The Storm

Kate sat back on her heels in amazement. Possible love triangle? That was the line they were spinning? A love triangle between a forty-five year old lawyer who was married to his work and hadn’t dated in ages, a man in his fifties, and who?

A horrible thought rushed into her mind. Did they think she was the third in that love triangle and she’d killed both men? Was she a suspect in the two murders?

The very thought made her blood run cold.

Suddenly, she felt utterly vulnerable out there in the open, so she rushed back to the room and slammed the door shut. She pressed her back against the door and tried to catch her breath as her heart raced.

Maybe she was overreacting. She had to be, right? No one in their right mind would think she, Jonas, and Samuel Darnell were involved in a love triangle. They’d never been in a room together for more than a minute. Anyone in the offices or in the building where Jonas had his law office could attest to that. Why the hell were the police floating the idea of a love triangle no one could possibly say they had any evidence of?

This couldn’t be happening. All she was guilty of was going to work every weekday and doing her job. She couldn’t believe anyone would ever think she could kill anyone, least of all her boss she liked or a man she didn’t even know.

Her mind raced with what to do next. She couldn’t go to her family. That would only put them in danger. They didn’t deserve that, even if they could help her.

She ran through the names of her friends, deciding after each one popped into her mind that she couldn’t go to them either. That she had dragged Eve into this whole mess even as much as she had filled her with regret.

Then the memory of that man following them through the French Quarter came rushing back to her, bringing tears to her eyes. In her haste to get away, she’d left her best friend alone with him just a block behind.

Kate covered her face with her hands and began to cry. “How could I have done that to her? What if he got to her before the police showed up?”

She had to find a way to see if she was okay. God, what had she done?

Her eyes flew open at the sound of someone outside the door, pushing thoughts of Eve out of her head. Was she going mad? Had she heard anything or was her mind playing tricks on her?

She strained to listen for the sound again but heard nothing. Good God! At this rate, she’d be out of her mind by day’s end.

Then she heard that sound again. Closing her eyes, she listened and thought she heard breathing. Someone stood on the other side of the door. What could they be doing there? What did they want?

She silently prayed to God the person outside was that pimply-faced check-in clerk she’d met last night. Maybe he’d stepped away from his desk for breakfast and now wanted to offer her fresh towels or something like that.

Or maybe the person on the other side of the door stood ready to blow her away the moment she opened it to see who it was. She spun around to check the peephole to see who stood out there and found no peephole in the door.

Christ! How could such a seedy place not have peepholes? What kind of people just opened the door to strangers who could be ax murderers?

Clearly, the people who stayed at the Bayou Motel.

Terrified the person outside would try to get in, she tried to lock the door, but her fingers fumbled with the doorknob, causing it to make a sound whoever was outside had to hear. Then, her heart skipped a beat as the knob began to turn against her hand.

They were coming in!

She backed up into the center of the room and looked around for anything she could use to defend herself. The TV was from sometime in the mid-eighties and stuck out from the wall like two feet, so it would be too heavy to pick up. Her head swiveled over toward the nightstand and the hideous oversized frosted glass lamp. That could work.

Running over to it, she gripped the base and yanked hard, but the thing wouldn’t budge! This place didn’t worry about letting guests see who was outside their doors, but they worried about people stealing ugly lamps so much they screwed them to the nightstands?

She was about to die in the worst motel in the world run by people with no sense of priorities.

Frozen in place, she watched as the door slowly opened. Her heart pounded so hard she wondered if it would explode out of her chest. Whoever this person was who planned on coming into her room, they better be ready for a fight. She didn’t have anything to defend herself with, but she could kick and bite as if her life depended on it.

As she planned her attack, a man walked in, and she felt like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. He closed the door behind him and stopped, leveling his gaze on her. It felt like he was looking into her soul.

This man stood perfectly still, and for a moment, she wondered if he’d changed his mind about killing her. She didn’t see a gun, but that didn’t matter. Someone his size could easily snap her in half with his bare hands.

His short hair made him look like a soldier. Was he some kind of mercenary hired to kill her now that he’d killed Jonas and Samuel? What had her boss gotten himself into that made someone like this come after him?

“I’m not going to let you kill me,” she said as a second surge of bravado came over her that morning.

The very large, very muscular man took a step toward her and shook his head. She waited for him to say it wouldn’t matter what she did because he had orders or whatever hit men said right before they killed their targets, but he said nothing.

She paused for a moment and then her flight or fight instinct kicked in. Her desire for self-preservation chose fight, so she lunged at him, ready to defend herself to the death.