Grave Risk

Praise for Hannah Alexander’s Novels

“The plot is interesting and the resolution filled with action.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Fair Warning

“Reminiscent of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, this intelligent mystery will keep readers engrossed.”

—library journal on Last Resort

“Alexander’s latest installment in the Hideaway series is filled with action, intrigue and fascinating medical situations.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Last Resort

“Filled with intrigue, mystery and well-rounded characters, you won’t want to leave Hideaway. Hannah Alexander knows suspense! This page-turner will keep you up at night unable to put it down.”

—Kristin Billerbeck, bestselling author of Cool, Calm & Adjusted on Last Resort

“Hannah Alexander’s unique ability to combine suspense with romance and faith will have you searching for this author’s entire backlist. Grab these titles while you can and visit this wonderful town called Hideaway—you’ll never want to leave! Each book is top-notch suspense, with just a touch of romance. Last Resort is a must-buy…guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat until you turn the final page!”

—Romance Reviews Today on Last Resort

“Alexander’s skill at meshing spiritual truths with fascinating suspense is captivating. Well-drawn characters help the two separate plots move rapidly toward an exciting conclusion.”

—Romantic Times BOOKreviews on Safe Haven

“Hannah Alexander is one of the few authors who has the unique ability to bring tears to your eyes and God’s touch to your heart. Safe Haven is suspense, romance and first-rate entertainment all bound into one neat book.”

—Romance Reviews Today on Safe Haven

“Genuine humor…an interesting cast of characters…a few surprises.”

—Publishers Weekly on Hideaway

“Hideaway is gripping and romantic. It may also have crossover appeal to fans of medical suspense and of such authors as Tess Gerritsen.”

—Library Journal on Hideaway

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Acknowledgments

Many thanks to Lorene Cook for her constant support in every way. She keeps us going when life seems to shoot us in every direction at once.

Thanks to Vera Overall for loving and encouraging her son to persevere.

Thanks to Joan Marlow Golan, our champion, and to her excellent staff, who keep us informed, keep us straight and keep us headed in the right direction.

Thanks to our Branson brainstormers, Barbara, Brenda, Lori, Deborah, Sharon, Judy, Marty, Stephanie, Carol, Cyndy, Jill, Sandy and Jeanie, and to our support staff, Lorene and Luvena.

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

Epilogue

Discussion Questions

Chapter One

Fingers marched across Jill Cooper’s cheekbones like the legs of a stalking tarantula. She stiffened, eyes shut tight.

She wanted to retreat from the intrusion or jump up from this table and escape. What horrors lay behind the other doors? What had she allowed herself to be talked into? Moral support was one thing, but this—

“Too rough?”

Jill opened her eyes and looked into the upside-down face of twenty-two-year-old Sheena Marshall. “No.”

Sheena had an uncommonly bright, perky grin that matched her bright, perky voice. All the employees of this spa seemed to be infected with terminal optimism, except for Sheena’s mother, Mary Marshall, who had always been on the opposite end of that spectrum, even when Jill had graduated from high school with her twenty-seven years ago.

Today, Mary’s daughter was actually perkier than usual.

“It’s fine.” Jill wanted to ask when the sheets had last been washed on this massage table, but the question could eventually reach the ears of the owner of this establishment.

Jill was here to provide the owner—her baby sister—moral support for this venture, not to irritate her. Noelle Trask ran a tight ship, and these sheets would be pristine. She would not take kindly to having her employees verbally abused, or even questioned by a client with a few…interesting…hang-ups. Especially if that client just happened to be her bossy older sister.

Who would have thought Noelle, the wild child of Hideaway High, would have matured so well?

In fact, Noelle would be a mother before long.

That meant Jill would be an aunt. She felt her tension ease as she smiled at the thought. Aunt Jill. What a wonderful—

A sharp jab on her chin startled her. “Ouch!”

“It’s okay. Just relax,” Sheena said. “You have a few blemishes here. We can take care of that right—”

“I didn’t come here to have my pimples treated.” Noelle had warned Jill that the young masseuse tended to try to fix anything that wasn’t just right. The young woman obviously had delusions of grandeur and saw herself becoming the makeover queen. Jill refused to be her first experiment.

“I just want a nice, painless massage,” Jill said. Actually, she hadn’t even wanted that.

“Jill Cooper,” came a firm, commanding voice from another cubicle in the large, cedar-lined spa, “you agreed to do this. So do it.”

“I agreed to a massage, not to have my face poked and prodded like a—”

“Settle down and let the girl do her job.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jill replied, then muttered under her breath, “Noelle needs to get these walls soundproofed.”

“What’s that?” Edith Potts called again.

“Nothing. Sorry. I’ll be good. I’m having a simply magnificent time.” Could Edith hear the sarcasm?

“That’s my girl.”

Nope. Edith had never understood the subtleties of irony. The lady simply said what she thought.

Sheena returned to her massaging, distracted from her makeover project. “Will wonders never cease. Edith Potts must be the only person in town you can’t boss around.”

Jill scowled up at her, and Sheena smiled back, wagging her blond eyebrows, which had been plucked to the point that she looked permanently surprised.

The twit was right, of course. Jill would do anything for Edith. Eighty-three-year-old Edith Potts, retired principal of Hideaway High, could claim friendship with the majority of Hideaway’s residents as well as a few of the flocks of tourists who escaped to this tiny lakeside village every year.

To Jill, her elderly friend epitomized courage. Since Jill often felt as if she, herself, epitomized the exact opposite, she had always been drawn to Edith’s independent, nurturing spirit. It was Edith who had found a school nurse position for Jill here in Hideaway when tragedy necessitated that Jill would have to return home and stay nearby for the family business.

Once again closing her eyes, Jill tried to give herself over to the relaxation Sheena had promised. “This honey and almond cream smells heavenly.”

“It’s our most popular. We mix it here ourselves.”

“I’d like a jar of that, if it’s for sale.” Still, if she came away with scars on her face from an over-eager masseuse, Jill would hold Edith and Noelle personally responsible.

In spite of her intentions to remain vigilant, her muscles seemed to liquefy of their own volition. She could feel her body merging with the soft sheets on the massage table until she wasn’t sure where the padding ended and her flesh began. Moreover, she didn’t care.

Jill seldom relaxed. She had been accused of being one of the most uptight, untouchable single women in Hideaway and the surrounding area. Most of the townsfolk made such comments out of her earshot—or so they thought—but Edith never hesitated to speak her mind, and neither did Noelle.

As Jill thought about it, she had recently found herself blessed—if that could be the term for it—by associates at work who never minced words with her.

They understood the term for her condition. Thanks to recent popular television shows, who didn’t know what the letters OCD stood for? Yet they wouldn’t let her get away with the typical behavior of someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Blessed…yes. That was it. She was truly blessed by people who loved her in spite—

“Your brows could use a good plucking.” Sheena’s soft voice interrupted Jill’s reverie.

“What?” Jill opened her eyes to see the young woman hovering over her, wielding a pair of tweezers far too close. Now what tortures was she expected to endure for the sake of moral support?

“I want to shape your eyebrows. I can take ten years off your face with a few good jerks.”

Jill’s loose muscles suddenly tightened again. “Look, Sheena Marshall,” she said, keeping her voice low in deference to Edith, “I didn’t come here to be plucked or jerked or tweezed, I just came for a simple massage with this green stuff you smeared all over my face. Are you finished?”

“Not yet. There are just so many things you need to have done. With your great bone structure—”

“Shouldn’t someone be tending to Edith?”

“She knows how to relax, unlike you.”

“Where’d your mother go? I’d be perfectly willing to let her finish this massage so you can see to Edith.” At least Mary would complete the job without trying to do a total makeover in the process.

“She was only scheduled to work this morning,” Sheena said, “and she wasn’t too happy about having to do that.”

Sheena’s mom, Mary Marshall, had reluctantly agreed to come to work at the spa on an as-needed basis until Noelle could determine for sure how many full-time staff members she would require.

Not only was Mary an accomplished massage therapist who had worked for years in surrounding resorts, she was also a cosmetologist, with a good head for business.

Sheena still lived at home, at the age of twenty-two, and seemed content to stay in Hideaway the rest of her life, living with her parents and working here at the spa. Jill felt for the girl, since she, too, had stayed home out of necessity for several years after graduating from high school.

Sheena needed to get out of this place for a while and learn a little more about the world. Mary and Jed were keeping too tight a leash on her.

Jill shifted on the massage table. “I think I heard Noelle come back from her errands a few minutes ago—can’t she see to Edith while you’re finishing here? I hate to think of Edith waiting over there all by herself.”

“I’ll be…fine,” Edith called to her.

With a frown, Jill glanced at Sheena. Edith sounded less peaceful and relaxed than she had moments ago.

“We won’t be much longer,” Sheena assured Jill. “Noelle warned me not to take too long the first time.”

First time? Like this was going to happen again? What did Noelle need with moral support, anyway? Though the business was new, it was doing well.

Was that laughter she heard in the next room?

Jill gave a sigh, forcing herself to relax again. Edith had a sense of humor that had brought healing light to some of the darkest moments in Jill’s life. Let her laugh.

Yet even as Jill listened to that laughter, it didn’t sound quite right….

Sheena’s movements slowed, as if she, too, noticed a change.

That wasn’t laughter. “Edith, you okay in there?” Jill asked. It sounded as if Edith was coughing.

For several long seconds there was no answer, then came a muffled thump.

Jill lunged up from the massage bed and scrambled out, stumbling against the tray table beside her. Bottles and jars crashed to the wooden floor. She swept past Sheena and raced into the hallway, then into the next cubicle, her loose gown billowing around her.

She thrust the door open to find Edith lying on the floor, gnarled hands grasping her throat, eyes bulging with terror. Her face was still half covered with the mask of herbs, and her white hair tufted over the mask in sticky strands. The half of her face that was bare was nearly purple.

“Call for help!” Jill dropped to her knees beside her friend and wiped the green mask of goo from her face with a towel. “Edith, it’s okay. We’re going to take care of you.”

The lady’s fear-stricken gaze caught and held Jill’s, begging for help. Her mouth worked silently.

“Who do I call?” Sheena cried.

“Get Noelle,” Jill said, grasping Edith’s hand. “I think she came back in. If not, call her on her cell. The clinic’s closed today.” In a more populated place, they would call 911. Here in Hideaway, that wasn’t a good option.

As Sheena rushed from the room, Edith’s grasp tightened in Jill’s. “S…c-cool,” she rasped.

“You’re cool? I’ll get a blanket for—”

The hand tightened further. “N-no.” She closed her eyes, and her grip weakened.

“No. Edith! Stay with me. Help is on the way.”

Those eyes opened again. “S…cool…” Her voice barely reached Jill, and her mouth worked as if with great effort. “Re…cords…jet…”

“Edith, just hold on. We’ll take good care of you.”

Edith shook her head, obviously agitated. “Jet…bomber.”

Jet bomber? “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re trying to say. Just hold on and concentrate—”

Edith’s hand relaxed from Jill’s grip. Her eyes closed. She stopped breathing.

“No. Edith! Don’t give up now. Edith!”

Chapter Two

Dr. Rex Fairfield seldom felt ill at ease with colleagues, whether they were strangers, friends or even antagonists. He felt perfectly comfortable presiding over large meetings, which was good, considering the requirements of his present career choice.

Today was different, however, as he sat in the tastefully decorated conference room of the Hideaway Clinic, deep in conversation with two other doctors.

His tension didn’t stem from the suspicious glint in Dr. Karah Lee Fletcher’s gaze or from the quiet expectancy in Dr. Cheyenne Gideon’s dark eyes.

“If we can bring the clinic up to code in, say, three weeks, the timing would be perfect for an announcement at Hideaway’s September festival,” he said. “You’ve already done a lot more than I’d have expected.”

“So why all the secrecy?” Dr. Fletcher asked him.

He frowned at her. “Secrecy?”

The statuesque redhead, second in command of this clinic, leaned forward, spreading her hands. “Yeah, the secrecy. The whole town supports what we’re doing here. They want the clinic to become a hospital. The community’s growing, we need these improvements. There’s no reason to keep it a secret.”

“Maybe not everyone wants it,” corrected Dr. Gideon, the clinic director, “but the detractors are few in number, and they aren’t adamant, they just want to have something to complain about.”

“I didn’t ask for complete secrecy,” Rex told them, “I only asked for discretion.”

“You asked us to keep your name out of our discussions with everyone, including our own staff,” Dr. Fletcher reminded him.

He nodded. Aha. That was the reason for the small flicker of wariness he had detected in the demeanor of this tall woman with the commanding presence. “Please understand I’m not calling your staff’s integrity into question, but there is one particular person with whom I’ve had…um…previous experience.” He hesitated, unwilling to share all to these virtual strangers. This was intensely personal.

“I assure you, Rex, that you can trust all of our staff members,” the director said. “I have found them to have the utmost integrity.”

“I wouldn’t dream of calling any of your staff’s integrity into question, Dr. Gideon.”

The dark-haired, dark-eyed woman rolled her eyes. “Please, I asked you to call me Cheyenne. We keep everything very casual around here.” The woman reached up and tucked a strand of her short, shaggy black hair behind her ear. She did, indeed, appear to have some Native American blood in her lineage.

“I’m sorry—Cheyenne.”

“And I’m Karah Lee,” insisted the tall redhead. “Now, are you going to tell us why all the mystery?”

Rex had become acquainted with Cheyenne, the clinic’s founder and director, and he felt confident in the abilities and good conscience of both the clinic’s doctors. But he had never been inclined to share personal confessions with those he did not know extremely well. In fact, he had learned that even with those he thought he knew well, he must be cautious. His faith in his own judgment wasn’t what it used to be. Perhaps that was a good thing, perhaps not.

“May I ask who it is you’re concerned about?” The expression in Cheyenne’s dark brown eyes was direct.

He hesitated, feeling foolish. His request had been impulsive, which was uncharacteristic of him. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get out of this situation without looking unprofessional, even silly, to these two serious, obviously dedicated physicians. Karah Lee Fletcher’s frown deepened.

He cleared his throat. “I simply wished to speak with this particular person in private before any—”

There was a clatter beyond the closed conference room door. Someone had come running into the waiting room of the clinic.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” came an urgent, feminine voice—a voice familiar to Rex, even after all these years, and even with the sharp edge of urgency that carried it down the hallway.

Cheyenne frowned at Karah Lee, who rose quickly, opened the door and stuck her head out into the hallway. “Noelle? What are you doing here? It’s Saturday.”

“Oh, thank goodness! I didn’t expect anyone to be here, or I’d have called. Jill and Sheena are doing CPR on Edith Potts at the spa. Not sure what happened. I came to get—”

“She’s unresponsive?” Cheyenne shoved away from the table and came out of her chair, yanking the door open wide.

Through the doorway, Rex caught sight of a beautiful woman with thick brown hair and small, exquisitely feminine features. She would be in her midthirties now. The only thing that marred her beauty were those blue eyes filled with dark concern. She was very obviously pregnant. Jill’s younger sister.

“She stopped breathing,” Noelle said. “Jill is—”

“Karah Lee,” Cheyenne said over her shoulder, “grab the crash cart. Make sure there’s a cric kit on it. We may have to do a cricothyroidotomy.”

“There is a cric kit,” Noelle said. “I checked it myself yesterday.”

“Let’s get it to the spa,” Cheyenne said. Without a backward glance, both doctors followed Noelle from the clinic, pushing a fully loaded crash cart in front of them.

Rex rushed out behind them. It had been three years since his last official stint in an emergency department, but he would be there if he was needed.

And besides, he, too, needed to know what was wrong with dear old Edith Potts.

In frustration and despair, Jill forced her own breath into Edith’s lungs through the protective pocket mask Noelle kept in each massage room, while the young massage therapist pumped rhythmically on Edith’s chest. The soothing background music was a stark contrast to the sound of hard breathing. This spacious room suddenly felt far too confining.

Sheena’s face was red from exertion and anxiety. Though she obviously knew the procedure, it was just as obvious she had never handled an emergency like this before.

“She isn’t responding, Jill. It isn’t working!” The young woman’s blond hair had darkened around her neck with perspiration. “What are we going to do?”

“Stop a second.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m not tired, I’m just—”

“Stop, Sheena! I need to check her.”

The masseuse withdrew her trembling hands from their locked position over Edith’s chest.

Jill knelt close to Edith’s mouth and listened for air movement. None. She pressed her fingers against the carotid artery and checked for a pulse. Nothing. Lord, please don’t take Edith!

“Come and do rescue breathing, and I’ll take over the chest compressions,” she told Sheena.

“No, I can do the compressions. I’m not tired.”

“I’m not asking, I’m telling you, trade places with me.”

“Where’s Noelle with that kit? Shouldn’t she—”

“Just do it!” Jill shouted.

The sound of multiple footsteps reached them from the marble-tiled front entryway.

“Noelle?” Jill called to them. “Is that you? Did you get the intubation—”

Cheyenne burst into the room with a crash cart, followed by Noelle and Karah Lee and a bearded man she didn’t recognize—

For a millisecond, Jill glanced at him again. Not a stranger. She knew that face, in spite of the short, salt-and-pepper beard she’d never seen before, and the cropped dark hair, receding hairline and slight creases of maturity around the calm, gray eyes….

Jill knew that man. Very, very well. Or she had known him once.

But there was no time to react, no time to think. “Chey, she’s gone unresponsive—”

“We’ve got it.” Cheyenne ripped the intubation kit open and started giving orders.

Jill gave a quiet sigh as she scrambled out of the way of the doctors and waited for her first orders. If anyone could bring Edith back, these people could do it.

Rex endured the expected sense of déjà vu, unable, for a few seconds, to drag his gaze from Jill Cooper’s face, which was, at this moment, smeared with some kind of green stuff. Several strands of her hair, dark and thick as he remembered it, had fallen from the confines of a floral turban, grazing the tops of her shoulders. Her body was wrapped in a matching green-and-lavender floral gown.

After a very brief double take at the sight of him, she returned her attention to the still figure of her beloved mentor lying on the floor.

He set to work moving a lounger and a magazine rack out of the way to give the rescue team freedom of movement as they worked.

He remembered Edith Potts, even after all this time, and as he worked he said a silent prayer for her. It had been Edith to whom Jill turned for wisdom and for motherly love.

It had been the strong, wise Edith on whom Jill had depended for advice when her younger sister skipped school or decided not to return home after an evening of partying.

The older woman had also been the one to prepare special meals for Rex when he visited Hideaway on those rare weekends of freedom from the hospital. When there wasn’t room at the bed and breakfast, he had stayed at her house. That was before she and Bertie Meyer purchased the bed and breakfast.