Minutes to Kill (Scarlet Falls) Read online

  ALSO BY MELINDA LEIGH

  SCARLET FALLS NOVELS

  Hour of Need

  SHE CAN SERIES

  She Can Run

  She Can Tell

  She Can Scream

  She Can Hide

  He Can Fall (A Short Story)

  MIDNIGHT NOVELS

  Midnight Exposure

  Midnight Sacrifice

  Midnight Betrayal

  ROGUE RIVER NOVELLAS

  Gone to Her Grave

  Walking on Her Grave

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2015 Melinda Leigh

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781477829752

  ISBN-10: 147782975X

  Cover design by Marc J. Cohen

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014921970

  To Gramps for everything

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Thursday, 11:35 p.m.

  He’s gonna kill me.

  Standing on the closed lid of the toilet, Jewel looked through the dirty glass on to the dark parking lot of an industrial park. She dug at the dried paint with her fingernail, then tried the lock again. It gave. Gripping the sash, she tugged at the window. It moved a millimeter, the creak of old wood reverberating in the tiny motel bathroom. No! He’d hear. Sweat broke out under her arms. She reached down, flushed the toilet, then leaned over to the sink and turned on the faucet, hoping the running water would cover the sound of her escape.

  She turned her attention back to the window. How long does it take the average person to wash her hands? A minute? That’s how much time she had left before he came looking for her. She shoved up the sash, flinching at the volume of the resulting groan. Did he hear that over the sound of the water?

  The client knocked on the door. “What are you doing in there?”

  He heard.

  “Be out in a sec,” she called. She put her arms through the opening. No time to be quiet now. Just get out. She wiggled her shoulders past the sill. Once she was past her chest, she’d slide out like a newborn baby. Banging echoed in the small room. The doorknob rattled.

  “Open the door. Now.” Mick.

  Shit. Fear jolted her heart. If he got his hands on her, she was dead.

  Or worse.

  Her pulse scurried, and her breaths accelerated until tiny points of light dotted her vision. If he caught her, there’d be no going back to undo what she’d done. Some people thought dying was the worst thing that could happen to a person, but Jewel knew better.

  Mick had taught her that being alive could hurt enough to make a girl pray for death.

  Wood splintered. The door burst open. His brown eyes shrank to a mean, angry glare.

  “You little bitch.” Mick lunged for her, his big hands closing around her ankle. Halfway out the window, she flailed, fingers grabbing at the window jamb, her free foot kicking out. Determination and desperation were no match for brute strength. Pain shot through her hand as a nail ripped to the bed. Panic scrambled for a hold in her belly.

  He dragged her back down into the bathroom and dropped her. Jewel’s head struck the toilet tank lid, rattling the porcelain. Mick raised a hand across his body. The backhand sent her reeling sideways. She fell into the tub, and the shower curtain tangled around her body. He bore down on her, the need to inflict punishment clear on his lean face.

  She kicked with both feet. The sole of her left shoe struck him under the chin. He fell back onto his butt, and Jewel scrambled out of the tub. She climbed onto the toilet lid and dove out the window, shimmying her hips. Sliding through, she landed on her hands on the pavement.

  “You’re dead,” Mick shouted through the window. But there was no way his big body would fit through the small opening. He ducked back inside. She heard him arguing with the client as she straightened her shaking legs and ordered them to get moving. He’d be after her.

  Jewel got her feet under her body and sprinted across the blacktop. She ducked into the shadow of a Dumpster, her lungs heaving in loud and ragged gasps. She put her back to the rusted metal and covered her mouth with her hand. Her body shook in uncoordinated waves. Quiet. She had to be quiet. He was going to hear her. He was going to find her.

  He was going to hurt her.

  She peered around the edge of the receptacle. The motel edged an industrial area and shared a parking lot with the surrounding businesses. Most appeared closed, their windows dark, the spots in front of their doors vacant. On the other side of a field of blacktop, rows and rows of cars lined up in front of a lighted warehouse-type building. An overhead billboard adorned with colorful Latin dancers announced “Carnival: Las Vegas’s Premier Dance Club.” There would be people there at all hours.

  Jewel felt a presence. Lola, another one of Mick’s girls, came around the corner of the building. Squinting and bending low, she came closer. Jewel pressed against the rusted metal at her back. The other girl’s dark eyes went wide. Jewel mouthed, Come with me. Boots pounded on the blacktop.

  Mick.

  “Have you seen her?” he shouted.

  Lola pointed at the Dumpster—at her.

  Jewel paused, stunned by the other girl’s betrayal for a split second. They weren’t exactly friends, but Jewel had expected Lola to sympathize or at least share Jewel’s desire to escape. Big mistake.

  Fear and survival instinct kicked in. Jewel sprinted on fear-loose legs toward the club. She couldn’t let Mick catch her.

  A vivid memory clawed its way into her mind. Things he’d done to her when he first snatched her off the street in Toledo. She pushed it away before t
error paralyzed her.

  But a dozen strides later, she heard boots on the pavement behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Barely thirty feet away, Mick bore down on her. Her leg muscles burned. Her throat and lungs cried. She felt her steps slowing, no matter how much she wanted them to move faster. The pills Mick supplied his girls helped her get through the days, but they hadn’t made her more fit. She raced across the asphalt. The footsteps behind her quickened. She tried to scream, but her throat squeezed tightly on to her voice, silencing her.

  The first row of cars was just ahead, but there were no people in sight. She veered right, toward the entrance to the club, hidden in the shadow of an awning.

  Behind her, Mick’s shoes scraped on loose sand. Closer. Closer. Her breath locked in her chest as he closed in.

  Chapter Two

  Fifteen more minutes and she’d be free.

  The glass enclosure of the private skybox muffled the din from the club below, but the floor vibrated with bass. Hannah’s gaze swept over the Viva Las Vegas glitter of Carnival, an enormous club off the Strip themed after the Brazilian celebration. The box was outfitted in chrome, disco balls, and leather. Though it was only early November, topiaries in each corner glowed with white Christmas lights. At one end of the room, long tables held an array of appetizers and desserts. A bar flowing with top-end liquor spanned the opposite wall. Waitresses in glittery showgirl costumes served more drinks from shiny silver trays. The firm’s client, club owner Herb Fletcher, knew how to throw a party Vegas-style.

  “Ms. Barrett, what do you think of Herb’s club?” British investor Timothy Stark swirled an olive in his martini glass. While the rest of the men had dressed casually for the event in open-collared shirts and sport jackets, Timothy was never less than perfectly presented. At fifty, his fit and trim frame was attired in a custom-tailored charcoal suit, and no amount of desert heat could wilt his French cuffs. “I still can’t believe he owns this establishment.”

  He said establishment as if he’d just gotten a whiff of raw sewage.

  She bit back a laugh. Timothy was afflicted with a chronic case of tight-ass-itis. Carnival was clearly not his scene.

  It wasn’t Hannah’s either. She gazed through the glass over the main floor, fifty thousand square feet of crowded floor space designed to look like a Brazilian street. Lights and music pulsed across glistening skin. Girls danced on stages and in Plexiglas boxes on risers. Jugglers performed on stilts. At midnight, a parade would wind its way through the crowd. Afterward, a nightly samba competition tempted inebriated guests onto the stage. The club touted itself as wilder than the festival in Rio.

  A waitress in a rhinestone-and-sequin costume in peacock colors approached and offered them a selection of hors d’oeuvres. Her headdress, a fan of blue speckled tail feathers, waved as she moved.

  Hannah took a napkin and selected a piece of grilled meat on a stick. “Herb turned Carnival from a warehouse into a very successful club.”

  Though the noise and flash wasn’t Hannah’s style, she appreciated the detail in the design. Every inch of the space pulsed with lights and color. Even the ceiling had been transformed into a starry night sky.

  That afternoon, Herb Fletcher and a half dozen foreign investors had signed on a thousand dotted lines, committing to the purchase and refurbishment of the High Roller Casino. The tired casino hotel would be gutted and given a complete renovation to turn it into an exclusive luxury accommodation with another of Herb’s famous themed nightclubs. All parties involved hoped the endeavor would be as successful as Carnival and the other two hotels Herb had refurbished. Everything Herb touched seemed to turn into giant piles of money.

  Hannah watched a side stage closest to the box. A drunken woman in a Snookie-tight skirt and sequined halter top climbed onto the platform, bent at the waist, and writhed. Oooh kaaay.

  “What is she doing?” Timothy asked.

  “I believe that’s twerking.” Hannah’s lips twitched as she suppressed a laugh.

  “Tacky. Like everything else about this place.” Timothy plucked the toothpick out of his empty glass and ate the jumbo olive.

  “It’s harmless fun. People seem to be enjoying themselves.” A lot. Part of her envied the crowd’s ability to let loose. Tomorrow’s hangovers aside, they were having a grand time. While other people relaxed as they imbibed, Hannah hated the artificial lack of control that came with alcohol consumption. It made her feel blunt instead of sharp, as if she were trying to cut a ripe tomato with a plastic knife. Hannah’s control was her security blanket.

  Timothy huffed. “Speaking of tacky, here comes Herb. I know the man can afford a decent suit. Why does he dress like a thug?” His backhanded snootiness irritated her. His willingness to use the other man’s talent with money and simultaneously insult him felt traitorous.

  With a manicured hand, Timothy set his glass on a nearby tray.

  Hannah glanced over her shoulder to see Herb walking toward them. She couldn’t picture him getting a manicure or standing for a custom suit fitting. She turned back to Timothy.

  He checked the time on his watch. “Oh, look at the time. I’d better go. You’ve put in your obligatory time. You should feel free to leave, too. Honestly, I can’t believe you showed up. You are far too classy for a place like this.”

  “I’m glad I had the chance to see the famous Carnival.” Plus, invitations from important clients were obligatory. She smiled, but the muscles of her face felt tight. Timothy made her sound as snobbish and uptight as him. Was she? She hadn’t come from his upper-crust background. She was a military brat. She wore expensive clothes, but only because that was what was expected in her profession. A corporate attorney had to look successful to attract clients. The first thing she did when she went home was change into her oldest jeans. She couldn’t do anything about the tension in her posture. That was both inborn and ingrained. Being raised by a decorated army ranger and colonel left its mark.

  “Hello, beautiful,” a voice said over her shoulder.

  Hannah turned. Herb Fletcher, CEO of Fletcher Properties, grinned over a glass of whiskey. Despite his unassuming attire, or maybe because of it, the sixty-year-old pulled off gray hair and blue eyes with Paul Newman appeal. “Staying for the samba competition, Tim?”

  “No, I’m sorry. I was just leaving,” Timothy said. “Perhaps we’ll see each other on another deal.”

  “I’m sure we will.” Herb sipped his drink. His eyes went cold. He knew exactly where he stood with the British investor: good enough for his money but not his social circle.

  Timothy turned to Hannah. “Royce said you’re going to London next?”

  “After a short vacation, yes,” she said. Though her firm was based in New York City, Hannah spent very little time there. She traveled from one deal to another in a seemingly endless tour of international cities. After she was made a full-equity partner, her salary would justify the expense of a Manhattan apartment. “I expect to be there for three to four weeks.”

  Timothy nodded. “I have another deal under consideration. E-mail me when you get in so we can discuss it.”

  “I’ll do that,” Hannah said. She scanned the room. The crowd was starting to thin.

  “It was a pleasure working with you.” Timothy held out a hand.

  She shook it. “Thank you. Likewise.”

  With a bow, he headed for the door, stopping to say good-bye to a few other guests on the way out.

  “Tim made a quick exit.” Wickedness glinted in Herb’s clear blue eyes. “Why were you wasting your time with him when you could have any man in this room?”

  Hannah wasn’t going anywhere near that loaded question. They were both her clients. “The party is fabulous, Herb, and your club is spectacular.”

  “You should enjoy some of it.” He leaned in and dropped his voice. “I’ve been watching you. Any of these men would run to you at the sn
ap of your fingers, but here you are, all alone.”

  Herb didn’t spend much time alone. He usually had one of his very young dancers hanging off his arm. But then alpha males didn’t play by the same rules as the rest of humanity. They’d followed their own code since they’d emerged from their caves. Sometimes it seemed like that happened yesterday. Raised with three brothers by the Colonel, Hannah knew all about dominant men. Though when compared to the men in her family, Herb’s moral bar hung much lower.

  “I don’t like to mix business with pleasure,” Hannah said.

  “That’s no fun, because I suspect you work most of the time. You’re young. You need to enjoy life.” His hand swept through the air. “Look at all those people down there, blowing off steam.”

  “They do appear to be having a good time.” The wistfulness in her tone embarrassed her.

  “Other people like to have fun. You should try it sometime.” He lifted a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waitress and handed the glass to her. As the girl passed, Herb gave her butt a quick squeeze. She shot him a flirty smile over her shoulder. “You should drink a bottle of champagne and samba all night.”

  Herb had never acted inappropriately with Hannah, and she couldn’t help but appreciate his brass and style. At the same time, the way he treated his female employees made her uncomfortable. Hannah twirled her glass by the stem without drinking, exhaustion sliding over her body in a sudden wave. The whole obligatory corporate party thing felt old. Hannah could never let down her guard for fear that someone like Herb would get the wrong idea. Being a successful woman required above-reproach behavior 24/7.

  He raised a laughing brow over his tumbler. “You seem distracted tonight.”

  Hannah checked her watch. “I have a red-eye to catch.”

  “More work?” Herb frowned. “Already? Surely, even you will take a few days off after a project of this duration.”

  “No work. Vacation. I’m going home to see my family.” She didn’t mention that her vacation would include checking in with the prosecutor who was preparing for the murder trial of her brother and sister-in-law’s killer. Lee and Kate had been dead for eight months. Some days she forgot they were gone. She wondered if her brothers had those moments, when work was humming along and they suddenly remembered. Guilt weighted her shoulders. How could she forget, even for a second, that Lee was dead? Grief clutched her heart, its sharp nails digging in with determination.