Stalked. Beverly Long

her. She came out of a room, one arm around a woman who had to be nine months pregnant, the other holding a sleeping toddler. Her face was pale against her chin-length auburn wig, but she was calm.

      She looked down the hallway as if she were counting heads and she saw him. Her face registered surprise and something else. Maybe relief?

      “Check the rooms,” she yelled, not missing a beat.

      The hallway was filling with smoke. He used the flashlight on his key chain. It was small but powerful and he could see enough. The rooms were empty. By the time he got to the back door, he realized that Hope had changed places with the other woman. She was bracing the door open and she no longer held the child. He could hear the sounds of approaching emergency vehicles.

      Her eyes met his. “I did a quick head count,” she said. “I think everyone is out.”

      “Rooms are empty,” he confirmed.

      “Thank God.” She glanced nervously over her shoulder. The other woman had moved the group to the end of the small parking lot, where they would be out of the firefighters’ way.

      “I have to get out of here,” she said, insistent. “I can’t be here when fire and police arrive. Will you help me?”

      He had a thousand questions. “What...?”

      The look in her pretty eyes stopped him. Fear. Real fear. He didn’t know what the hell was up but he wanted her out of there. He wanted her safe.

      He grabbed her hand, pulled her around the corner of the building and they raced for his car down the street.

      They got inside and she immediately huddled down, as if trying to stay out of sight. He pulled out just as the fire truck rounded the curve.

      He drove for three minutes before he couldn’t stand it any longer. “What the hell is going on, Hope?”

      She straightened up. “Did they see us?” she asked.

      He shook his head. “I don’t think so. But people inside the building saw you.”

      “Sasha knows that I got out. I told her I was leaving. She understands. She won’t say anything about me being there.”

      “What about everyone else?”

      “I guess I have to hope that the police talk to Sasha. She’ll do her best to keep me out of it.”

      They had reached the main highway. He looked in his rearview mirror. Nobody was following them. “What the hell is that place and what were you doing there? And why are you wearing a wig and dressed like that?”

      She didn’t answer.

      He slowed the car down and flipped on his turn signal, as if he might be turning around.

      “Oh, fine,” she said, her tone exasperated. “It’s a women’s shelter. For victims of domestic abuse. I volunteer there. They know me as Paula.”

      Because he’d had the benefit of seeing the past few minutes, he wasn’t as surprised as he might have been. He’d been able to process the scene. But still, her words were pretty damn shocking.

      It would have been helpful if Archibald Minnow had mentioned this when he’d given Bing and him the tour of the Minnow estate. “Nobody said anything to me about this,” he said.

      “Nobody knows,” she said. “Well, that’s not exactly true. Mavis knows. But she’d never say anything.” She paused for a minute. “I assume you somehow managed to follow me.”

      “Yes.” He figured she’d blast him for that. But she simply shook her head in disgust.

      “I can’t even manage to sneak out of a house.”

      “Don’t beat yourself up. I’m a little more observant than your average houseguest. Who’s the woman that picked you up?”

      “Sasha. She has a paid position with Gloria’s Path. That’s the name of the shelter,” she added.

      “She must know the truth about who you are,” he stated.

      “She does.”

      He waited for some additional explanation, but it didn’t appear that any was forthcoming. Okay. He’d circle back to that later. “The two of you were doing a good job getting people out of there.”

      “We got lucky. Sasha was in the reception area when the firebomb or whatever it was came through the window. She tried to use the fire extinguisher but it didn’t work. She yelled and I got the person I was with out the door and went back in for more.”

      That made him feel sick. “You shouldn’t have gone back in,” he said. “Once you’re out of a burning building, you stay out.”

      She shook her head. “There’s no way I would do that,” she said simply.

      It wasn’t said in a boastful way. Just a statement of fact. And he realized that there was much more to Hope Minnow than he had anticipated.

      “It was a Molotov cocktail and some guy riding shotgun in an old yellow El Camino threw it through the window. I told the police that when I made the 911 call. That vehicle ring a bell?”

      She shook her head. “No. But I imagine the police will want to know if it rings a bell with any of the clients. It’s likely someone trying to make trouble for one of them. We work really hard to keep the location of the shelter a secret. It’s by referral only and there’s no signage on the street. But it is possible that some estranged spouse or significant other got lucky and figured it out.”

      He turned to look at her. “Maybe somebody was trying to make trouble for you? You’re the one receiving the threats.”

      She shook her head. “I know you don’t believe me, but those threats are bogus. Besides, nobody knows that I volunteer there. It’s a secret that I’ve been very careful to keep.”

      “Something isn’t a secret if more than one person knows. You just said that Mavis and Sasha both know.”

      She shrugged. “I trust Mavis and, well, the same for Sasha. She had a chance to sell me out before when it would have been really bad for me. She didn’t take the opportunity then. She won’t take it now.”

      He was starting to get a very bad feeling. “How did you meet Sasha?”

      She was quiet for a long time. Finally, she spoke very softly. “She’s worked at Gloria’s Path for several years. Lucky for me, she was the counselor on duty the night I showed up beaten and broken.”