Deadly Beginnings by Jaycee Clark Page B

sack near the door and her purse, her sweater, whimpering as she swung the pack up onto her back.
    Out.
    He hadn’t moved. But there wasn’t time.
    She needed to get out. She could go . . .
    Where would she go?
    Run away with me, Kaitie . . .
    If you need a safe place . . .
    The hotel.
    Kaitlyn’s fingers slid off the final lock twice before she opened the door. He’d come after her. She stumbled down the flight of stairs, hurrying to get out of the building.
    She needed a cab. A bus.
    But she couldn’t wait at the bus stop.
    The squeak of the door reminded her of Jock. She should have let him see her inside the apartment.
    Should have . . .
    Should have just gone with him . . .
    Kaitlyn hurried down the street, hunched over and holding her side. Her head hurt and things were blurry. She knew she probably had a concussion. She kept wiping her chin and her cheek with her sleeve. The chilled wind blew down the street and she shivered. A car horn blared and she jumped as boys whistled from inside the car.
    “Show ’em, baby!” someone yelled.
    Her shirt
    Her shirt was torn. Kaitlyn tried to get her sweater on, to pull the edges together without stopping, but she was tangled with her purse strap and the knapsack.
    She glanced over her shoulder but the sidewalk was empty.
    At the end of her block she took a right and hurried toward the hospital. She was four blocks away when she stopped.
    He’ll know I’m going to the hospital. He’ll look for me here. I can’t go to the hospital. I can’t . . . He’ll get me. He’ll hurt me.
    Jock. She wanted Jock.
    Landon would come after her though.
    Oh, God.
    Or what if he didn’t . . .
    What if she’d killed him?
    Her hands shook. Kaitlyn startled at the cry of an ambulance as it turned onto the street and all but flew toward the ER entrance. Kaitlyn eased between two brick buildings. Something scurried in the shadowed alley behind her, but she didn’t care. She slid far back so the shadows covered her.
    She had to think. Had to think, but she couldn’t . . .
    She didn’t . . .
    Her hands trembled.
    “Think, Kaitlyn. Damn it. Pull it together. Tears get you poetry, not results.” The saying Grammy had quoted at odd times rolled off her tongue.
    What she wouldn’t give to be sitting in Grammy’s kitchen right now. For now, she needed to get out of here. Get to Jock without Landon noticing. She didn’t know how long she hid in the alley, but when voices filtered through her fog, getting louder, she pressed back against the bricks and hoped no one saw her. The voices drew closer, someone laughed and then the voices passed.
    “Bus’ll be along soon,” a voice said to her left.
    Kaitlyn jerked and stumbled back toward the light.
    “Not going to hurt you, lady. Looks like someone already did.” The voice was soft. “Better hurry. Bus’ll take you where you need to go if it’s outta here.”
    She nodded. “Th-thank you.”
    She carefully looked out the mouth of the narrow passageway and saw Landon wasn’t on the sidewalk and none of the cars she saw were his.
    She glanced across the street and saw the bus slowly rolling to a stop near the hospital.
    The bus.
    Kaitlyn shuffled, trying to hurry before it left.
    Please, please, please . . .
    The doors closed and the bus pulled away before she reached it.
    “No.”
    A horn honked behind her and she jumped, thinking Landon was already . . .
    A cab. It was a cab.
    “Need a ride?” the cabby asked as he pulled up to the curb.
    She could only nod.
    He didn’t ask any questions as she carefully eased into the back. “Please go. Just go.”
    The cabby narrowed his eyes at her, his bushy white hair standing every which way.
    “Go.”
    “Go where? The ER? Lady, you’re bleeding on my cab. Looks like someone took a hand to you.”
    “H-h-Highland Ho-hotel. Please. Go.”
    Kaitlyn trembled and knew she was probably going into shock, but there wasn’t anything she could do.
    She had to get away. Had to get to