municipal dock at Hideaway.
The residents of their small village, set along the shore of Table Rock Lake, depended almost as much on boats as automobiles for transportation locally. At this time in the early-morning hours, however, Hideaway slept.
Graham looked up the hill to see the bouncing beam of a flashlight. Footsteps rushed down from the huge farmhouse that provided shelter for twelve boys. Okay, he saw two bouncing beams.
“I called Taylor Jackson and Nathan Trask.” Dane’s calm but breathless voice sounded as he reached the dock, followed by Blaze Farmer, a college student and part-time resident of the ranch.
“Is that who’s coming across the lake?” Graham asked.
“That’s right.” Dane’s silver-blond hair gleamed in the flashlight and headlight glow as he and Blaze released the Mystique from its moorings and pushed it from the slip. “Get in. They’re going to follow us in Taylor’s Sea Ray.”
Blaze rubbed his ebony hands together in obvious anticipation. “I think they just want to race. They’ve been threatening to go head-to-head ever since Taylor got his pride and joy, but I never thought they’d do it at night.”
“We’re not racing,” Dane said.
“Looks like it to me,” Blaze said.
Dane waited until they idled past the no-wake zone, then gunned the motor and flashed his lights at the approaching boat. “We’re just leading the way.”
Chapter Two
A s Willow ran to the final apartment on the top level, she glanced over her shoulder to see a knot of renters gathered in the large gazebo in the middle of the lawn, watching the inferno. She prayed with fervent passion that it wouldn’t spread beyond Preston’s place.
Something exploded within the maelstrom. Sparks rose in the night sky, mingling with plumes of smoke and flames. The roar intensified and the heat reached across the expanse of air to warm her skin.
She peered through the darkness at the empty porches. It had taken more time than she’d expected to rouse all the residents and get them outside to safety; some were elderly, hard of hearing, and had removed their hearing aids to sleep.
Was Preston having this much trouble? Where was he?
She knocked on the final door, rang the doorbell, peered through the window, then heard the excited yap of a small dog inside. She knocked again, then tested the door. It wasn’t locked.
If she remembered correctly, she’d seen an elderly woman entering this apartment three days ago, carrying a bag of groceries. Preston had called her Mrs. Engle.
Pushing the door open, Willow switched on the light. “Hello? Mrs. Engle, are you here?”
The dog, a tiny Pomeranian, yapped at her from the hallway to the right, then raced into the other room. Its fluff-ball form flitted in a ghostly shadow from the glow of the fire through the front window.
Willow followed the little animal to an open door on the right. “Mrs. Engle?”
Another explosion burst through the night. The windows rattled at the far side of the bedroom. The blast of light illuminated a frail-looking figure on the carpeted floor on the other side of the bed.
“Could you help me?” came a shaky voice. “I think I’ve broken my hip.”
Willow switched on the overhead light and rushed to the woman’s side. “Mrs. Engle, there’s a fire on the property. We need to get you out of here.” There would be no time to call 9-1-1 and expect a timely response, not in this place, so far from help.
“Honey, you’re not going to be able to lift me,” Mrs. Engle said. “Where’s Preston?”
Willow peered outside. She’d been wondering that, herself. She unlatched the window and shoved it open. “I need some help in Four A,” she called to the growing crowd that now huddled in the gazebo.
The people were too far away. No one heard her over the roar of the fire.
“Hello!” she shouted. “Can anyone—”
Another explosion shook the floor as a flash brightened the sky to day. Someone screamed, and the light illuminated a group of men running up from the direction of the boat dock. The roar of the boats blended with the roar of the fire and with another sound—the reassuring whine of a siren in the distance. Help was apparently on its way.
Willow went to the phone at the bedside stand and dialed 9-1-1. The dispatcher could immediately call the arriving firemen to help her with Mrs. Engle.
Living this far out in the sticks, emergency personnel were seldom just a phone call away. That was something Willow had seriously considered before deciding to come here, and she now questioned her sanity for her decision. She had hoped to find peace and safety here.
After giving her information to the dispatcher, she returned to the injured woman and knelt at her side. “Mrs. Engle, I don’t want to move you if I can avoid it.” As a former ICU nurse, Willow knew the damage that could be done if she tried to lift an injured patient.
She pulled a thick comforter from the bed and settled it beside Mrs. Engle. If the situation became desperate, she could wrap the comforter around the lady and pull her as gently as possible to safety. For now, however, that could wait.
The shriek of the siren drew closer.
Sharp tongues of fire stabbed the night sky, reflecting its fury across the surface of the lake as Graham rushed up the hillside from the boat dock. Emergency lights flashed red in the treetops in concert with the flames. A siren accompanied the crackle and hiss of the burning building.
The first fire truck pulled into the lot, and its crew rushed to connect to the hydrant. Unfortunately, it seemed Preston was correct about the firefighting personnel and equipment being spread thin tonight.
Graham glanced at the sky out of old habit from his E.R. days. Superstition or not, it had always been his experience that more chaos reigned on nights with a full moon. Tonight, however, the moon formed a crescent against the blackness of the western horizon. He’d have to blame something else for the tragedies taking place in the Ozarks this early April Fool’s morning.
He cut across the lawn at the far corner of the complex and caught movement from the corner of his eye. He turned to catch sight of a tall, slender woman with black hair stepping from the entryway of Four A, Esther Engle’s place.
The last time he’d seen that silhouette, the woman had been holding a camera, flashing pictures of a crime scene at a local music theater. Jolene Tucker called herself a photojournalist, and she passed up no opportunity to see her byline in a local paper. She had her finger on every pulse of gossip in the Branson community, but how had she managed to beat the fire engines here?
Though Graham had seen her only from a distance, he’d heard horror stories about the trouble she caused her hapless victims in her weekly gossip column.
Graham switched directions and marched toward her. She had no right to be here. Her presence endangered not only her, but any others who might feel called upon to remove her from harm’s way. What was she doing inside
