If She Fled (A Kate Wise Mystery—Book 5)

PROLOGUE Most days, Karen Hopkins enjoyed working from home. She stayed busy, which was good because her little web optimization business was only supposed to be a side gig but had somehow become a full-time thing—a full-time thing that was going to help her and Gerald, her husband, retire in two or three years. But there were some days when the clients were so damned stupid that she almost yearned for the years when she’d answered to someone else. The ability to pass troublesome clients off to someone higher up the chain would have benefited her greatly far too often. She was staring at an email, wondering how she could respond to her client’s asinine question with a response that would not make her sound rude. She had one of her classical playlists currently playing on Spotify—but not the kind with multiple strings that drowned out the piano. No, she preferred just the piano. Currently, she was trying to enjoy Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1. The key word was trying. She was distracted by the email and the occasional question from the man in the den. The den was separated from her office by a single wall, meaning that whenever the man had a question, he basically had to scream it at her. He was friendly enough but good grief, she was starting to wish she had never called him. “This is a gorgeous rug you have in here,” he said, his voice bellowing through the wall, through Erik Satie, and through her collected thoughts concerning this damned email. “Is it Oriental?” “I believe so,” Karen said, calling over her shoulder. Her back faced the entryway to the hallway and the den beyond, forcing her to have to speak rather loudly. She tried to keep her voice polite…chipper, even. But it was hard. She was too distracted. This email was an important one. It was a repeat client that looked to be bringing in even more work several months from now, but the people running his business were apparently idiots. She started typing her response, choosing each word carefully. It was hard to sound professional and reasonable when you were angry and questioning the intelligence of the person you were writing to. She knew this very well, as she felt like she had to endure it several times a month. She made it four seconds in before the man in the parlor called out again. Karen cringed, wishing she had never called him. The timing was all bad. What the hell had she been thinking? This whole thing could have waited until the weekend, really. “I see the pictures of your kids on the mantel. How many are there? Three?” “Yes.” “How old are they now?” She had to bite her lip to not curse at the man. It was important to keep up appearances, though. Besides, she never knew when she might have to call on him again. “Oh, they’re all grown now—twenty, twenty-three, and twenty-seven.” “A beautiful bunch of kids for sure,” he replied. He then went quiet. She heard him moving around in the den, including the occasional bit of low-drone humming. It took Karen a moment to realize that he was humming along to the music from her office, which had transitioned into another piece by Satie. She rolled her eyes, really wishing he would stay quiet. Sure, she had called him over to perform a service but he was already irritating her. Didn’t most workmen just come over, work in silence, and then leave happily paid? What was this guy’s problem? “Thank you,” she managed to say, really not liking the idea of him looking at pictures of her kids. She lowered her head and got back to the email. Of course, it was no use. Apparently, her visitor was bent on having a conversation through the wall. “They live around here?” he asked. “No,” she said. She was rather short and blunt this time, going so far as to turn her head all the way to the right so he could perhaps hear the irritation in her voice. She did not intend to give him the locations of each of her children. God only knew what kind of questions he could make out of that. “I see,” he said. If she had not been so preoccupied with the email in front of her, she might have recognized an eerie chill in the silence that followed this question. It was a pregnant silence, the type that promises something else to follow. “You expecting any other visitors today?” She wasn’t sure why, but something about this question sparked fear in her. It was an odd question for a stranger to ask, particularly one she had hired for a service. And had she heard something different in his tone with that question? Concerned now, she turned away from her laptop. There seemed to be something going on with him. And now she was no longer just irritated by his questions, she was growing scared as well. “I have a few friends coming over for coffee later,” she lied. “Not sure when, though. Most of the time, they usually just swing by whenever they feel like it.” To this, she got no response and that was scarier than anything else. Slowly, Karen rolled her chair back and stood up. She walked to the doorway that connected her office to the den. She peeked inside to see what he was doing. He was not there. The tools of his trade were still there, but he was nowhere to be seen. Call the police… The thought raced through her mind and she knew it was good advice. But she also knew she was prone to overexaggerating. Maybe he had gone back out to his truck or something. No way, she thought. Did you hear the door open and close? Besides, he’s been chatty from the get-go. He would have told you he was heading back outside… She froze, a few steps into the den. “Hey,” she said, her voice wavering a bit. “Where’d you go?” No response. Something is wrong, that voice in her head screamed. Call the police now! With terror blooming in her gut, Karen slowly backed out of the den. She started to turn back toward her office, where her cell phone sat on her desk. As she turned, she collided with something hard. She could smell sweat for just a moment but barely had time to register it. That’s when something went around her neck, pulling tight. Karen Hopkins struggled, fighting against whatever was around her neck. But the harder she fought, the tighter the thing on her neck became. It was rough, cutting and digging in deeper as she struggled. She felt a thin stream of blood trailing down over her chest at the same time she realized she found it difficult to breathe. She fought regardless, doing what she could to pull the attacker into the office so she could grab her cell phone. She felt more blood running down her neck, nothing major, still just a trickle. The thing around her neck grew even tighter. She slowly sagged as she came within several feet of her desk. As she did, all her eyes could see was the laptop screen in front of her. That white screen, with an incomplete email that she would never send. She watched the cursor blinking insistently, waiting for her next word. But it would never come.