With every step, she could feel the door behind her opening. With every second, she imagined him peering at her over his gun sights.
She slammed into the stairwell door, grabbed its handle, and pushed it open. She cast an expectant look over her shoulder, no sign of him, and ducked inside. Inside the stairwell, she stopped and tried to catch her breath. She felt winded, and although the distance she’d run wasn’t great, her pulse pounded in her ears as though she had run a marathon.
What now? Had he given up or did he still stalk her?
Just when she had regained her breath, she realized she still held the key in her hand. Why hadn’t it worked when she needed it? She looked at it and immediately saw she held the slim key upside down. In her panic, she had been pressing on the bottom, not on the top, of the emergency signal.
Flipping the key over, she pressed and held it down. An LED began to flash. She sat with her back propped against the door. Safe. In a minute, two at the most, help would arrive.
CHAPTER 4
“Hell no, I don’t want to lie down.”
Caitlin wasn’t sure what frustrated her more, this cold bitch’s inability to believe her story or her own inability to keep from imagining her hands around the throat of Captain Patricia Ferguson.
More than an hour had passed since two of the hotel’s security personnel had found her crouching in the stairwell. No, that wasn’t right. She hadn’t been crouching; she’d been cowering. The guards were courteous and exemplary in their behavior and apparent concern, even after escorting her back to her suite where two more guards waited.
She had entered the room slowly; despite assurances they had already searched her rooms and pronounced them clear. Her bedroom was shockingly immaculate. Her suitcase was back in its corner, her clothes were in the dresser, and the bed was neatly made. Things went downhill from there.
The muscular woman sitting across the desk from her was chief of security for the Pacific Rim Suites. Captain Ferguson had tried for more than an hour to convince Caitlin that she shouldn’t file a police report. Finally, Ferguson relented and called the police.
A buzzer sounded, and Ferguson glanced down at her desk.
“Yes, I’ll be right there.” Ferguson stood and walked toward the door. “There are some other matters I have to see to. I’ll be back before the police arrive. Will you be all right here or should I send someone in?”
“I’ll be fine. Could someone get me some ibuprofen and water?”
“Certainly.”
Ferguson opened the door and stepped into the outer office. Before the heavy door closed, Caitlin heard her relaying her requests to the receptionist.
Caitlin sat still for a few minutes feeling the pulse of her blood, listening to the echo of her heart, and then she stood and paced the room. Outlandishly colorful fish swam in a salt-water aquarium mounted in the wall behind Ferguson’s desk. A monitor wall on her right displayed different areas of the hotel. The fish would normally have interested her more, but she found herself drawn to the monitors.
Hotel guests moved across several of the monitors, through the lobby, in one of the two restaurants, and in the each of the three lounges. A crowd still occupied the rooftop lounge. The sun had set, and now artificial torches along the railing provided the only light.
The door opened, and the male receptionist came in with a bottle of Evian and a small container. “Your water and ibuprofen.”
“Thank you.” Caitlin took them and noticed each was still sealed.
The receptionist nodded, smiled, and left, closing the door behind him.
Caitlin broke open the bottle, took a small drink, and then set it down while she opened the pill container. Caitlin shook three of the pills into her hand, popped them into the back of her mouth, and then drank heavily from the water bottle.
The door opened again, and Ferguson came in followed by a man Caitlin hadn’t seen before. He was about her height, but maybe a bit younger. His hair was trimmed short above his ears, and he wore a neat but unimpressive suit.
“Ms. Maxwell, this is Detective Mark Romax,” Ferguson said.
Romax offered his hand. “Good evening, Ma’am. I understand you’ve had a problem.”
The man’s accent didn’t sound like a native Californian; it was from somewhere back east.
“A problem?” Caitlin couldn’t keep her voice from breaking. She held out her left hand, palm toward the detective. He stopped.
She closed the water bottle, took a breath, and let it out slowly. “Yes, I have a problem Detective Romax. Would you like to hear about my problem?”
“Yes, Ma’am.” He fished a notepad from an inside pocket of his jacket.
Ferguson pulled one of the chairs from the front of her desk and slid it to him. “Thank you,” he said.
He sat down and motioned for Caitlin to sit on the sofa. After a moment, she did.
“Now I understand you’re reporting a prowler who attempted to assault you in your room. Is that basically correct?”
She nodded. “As far as it goes.”
Romax took out a pen and started jotting notes. “Okay, let’s take it from when you entered your room. What did you notice?”
“Well, nothing really. The lights were off. I turned them on and went into the bedroom.”
“Did you notice anything out of place?”
“No, but I’m afraid I wasn’t very observant. I’d been crying. I guess I was preoccupied.”
His hand rose in a disaffecting manner, and his head shook briefly. “That’s okay. It’s not important. Do you mind telling me why you were crying?”
“I believed my husband was just killed in a car accident.”
Romax stopped writing and
