Stalking Steven by Jenna Bennett

Author:Jenna Bennett [Bennett, Jenna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Magpie Ink
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

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Southern Hills Hospital sits, as you may have guessed, in the hills on the south side of town. Off Nolensville Road and Harding Place, to be exact. Not too far from Crieve Hall. I took the same exit I’d taken earlier, blew past the turnoff that would have taken me to Blackburn Drive, and barreled down Harding Place at a few miles above the speed limit. I screeched into the parking lot outside the hospital less than fifteen minutes after Mendoza called.

I had spent the whole trip—when I wasn’t navigating turns and trying to avoid hitting, or being hit by, the other cars—mulling over what might be wrong.

Maybe Araminta Tucker had had a heart attack? Maybe Mendoza’s gorgeousness had been too much for her, and she’d collapsed?

Or maybe he had accused her of having had something to do with her sister-in-law’s murder, and a guilty conscience had brought on a medical issue?

She was already in an assisted living facility, though. Surely they had a doctor on staff? And anyway, there were hospitals closer to Franklin, weren’t there? It was hard to imagine that they’d drive her all the way to Southern Hills if something was wrong.

Unless she had Southern Hills written down as her hospital of choice. It was the hospital closest to where she’d been living before she went into assisted living.

Or maybe it had nothing to do with Araminta Tucker. Maybe Mendoza had found Steven. Maybe Steven really had been kidnapped, and had escaped from his kidnappers, and been hurt in the process, and now he was in the hospital. Maybe the blonde had shot him.

Or maybe it was Diana. Maybe she’d had an accident on her way to work. Or on her way to lunch. Or the bank. Or maybe the nutcase who had threatened to hurt her because he had to pay his ex-wife alimony had made good on his threat.

Or Rachel. Maybe Rachel had gotten in a car accident on her way to the post office.

Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I should have taken the damn letters to the mailbox myself…

I slammed the car door behind me and locked it on the run. And hurried through the lobby to the elevator, where I hopped from foot to foot while I waited the hour and a half it took for it to make it down from the fourth floor. When I’d gotten inside, the elevator took its sweet time creaking up to three, and then hung there an eternity before it deigned to open the doors. I turned sideways and slithered through the opening while the doors were still moving.

316 was to the right. I hustled down the hallway—not quite running, since I figured someone would try to stop me if I did, and then I’d have to waste valuable time arguing about why I was running in the hospital—and arrived outside 316 out of breath.

The door was cracked an inch or two. From inside I could hear Mendoza’s voice, calm and even, and someone else’s croak, too faint for me to make out who it belonged to.

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