Escape To Sunset - Sharon Hamilton Page 0,3

the hat. As the light was redirected elsewhere, in the darkness, he heard her sniffle.

She’d been crying.

He stood, working his way over to see if she needed assistance. Before he could reach her, she scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping on the blanket she’d thrown aside, and ran straight for the wooden arched bridge and beach access path leading to the parking lot and the main street beyond, leaving the blanket behind.

And then she disappeared.

Chapter 2

Kiley ran as fast as her legs would keep her upright. She clutched the oversized hat with her right hand and in her left, she carried her beach bag, which now felt like it weighed fifty pounds. She nearly stumbled several times in the soft sand, her balance thrown off by the dark night. Ripping off the hat, she stuffed it into the bag and tried to stay on her feet, keeping her forward momentum. She felt bound by heavy chains pulling on her body, yanking her down into the abyss of the ocean. Her feet felt encased in concrete.

They found me!

She didn’t dare turn around to see if the hulking man continued to follow her. That wouldn’t be their style anyway. They would’ve sent two or three goons together. A single guy like this could be the lookout and then they’d come for her later, so she ran until she hit the wooden bridge, stubbing her big toe on a nail that popped out. But she kept going, knowing that her foot was bleeding. At any minute, the floor would collapse and she’d be swallowed up by the earth underneath.

The house she rented was located on the left side, so she abruptly turned right and ran until she came to another access road dead ending at the beach. Just after she rounded the corner, she hid, looking down the narrow alleyway to see if she could discern any movement. There was not much of a moon tonight so her eyesight failed. Movement here and there turned out to be palm fronds or other bushes blowing in the gentle breeze.

Her heart thundered, almost to the point of making her choke with each inhale and exhale. She could hear her breathing inside her head as she stumbled in the dark. Her throat was red hot, starved for moisture, her lips parched and raw from her gasping run.

She was going to have to find some way to defend herself when she ventured out again. The steak knife in her bag wasn’t nearly good enough as a weapon.

What was I thinking? Of course they would find me!

Desperate for something safe, a place without fear of being discovered, she had just wanted to get her life back. She was tired of the months of dangerous investigations, the police interviews which went nowhere, and the phone hang ups—all due to the articles she’d written for several Northwest newspapers, including the Columbia Passage. She’d run away to the land of her childhood. It wasn’t safe back in Portland any longer. Probably never would be safe there again.

She’d revealed information she obtained from an anonymous source about the sex and drug trafficking trade, which had made her persona non grata in the town she loved. She had a target on her back—prey for the monsters who ran the child exploitation and sex trafficking ring in the Portland area. What started out being something she was deeply committed to, saving young innocent lives, had now turned into something that could very well cost her own life.

Alone, even disconnected from her fellow reporters, she didn’t know who she could trust. She wasn’t sure she could trust her own editor, who promised to guard all her secrets and her sources. But somehow these had been inadvertently leaked. One of the college interns helping her was killed in an auto accident, and one of the victims she used as a source had disappeared. Could it have been someone on the paper staff or a worker at the coffee houses she frequented? Everyone around her was a suspect.

Her parents had sold their Beach House in Florida five years before. After their failed attempt to relocate to Northern California to be closer to Kiley’s brother, they moved to Portland to be part of their daughter’s life. She knew her mother was hoping that she’d find a nice young man, settle down, and raise a family. It felt like they moved to Portland just to witness such a happy event.

But that was not to be. A year after their