Help! Suggestions on making this more exciting?

 Hi everybody! I have just had a go re-writing this so that it flows better, has more natural dialogue and is a little more exciting in the action parts. Feedback would be amazing, especially with the dialogue between Susie and Arthur. Also the closing para is still a sticking point so any feedback on that would be super too :D

Susie Puts Trust in a Friend.

If her heart beat any faster it would stop. Susie spun towards her opening coffee shop door. Eyes wide she tried to work out who would be here so early. It was not yet seven in the morning and she had only just lit her candles and turned the sign to open. As Arthur slid through the door and gave her a warm smile she felt as if she would faint. Relief had never been so strongly felt.

“My dear Susie! What ever is the matter?”

She tried to smile, but Arthur’s concern didn’t fade. He was not to be so easily fooled. She couldn’t put her fears to words quite yet and she hated the idea of treating a patron of her shop to a barrage of her troubles so she waved his concern away and asked, “How is the work?”

Arthur took off a pair of small round spectacles and slid them into the pocket of his black overcoat. He was wearing a thick fur lined traveling cloak and Susie took it off him and hung it up by the fire to warm. He took his usual seat by her fire and he scratched at his neat goatee, untied his hair, and yawned. “ Night Clerking is just as boring as always, they have me copying out deeds of service. When I was young and my mother told me that I was to work in the Leprechaun High Court I had visions of grand balls and political fascinations. One could not aspire to be higher. What I have are ink stained hands, a stiff back and sleep deprivation.” He laughed and she started to feel at ease.

“The water is nearly boiling. Its taking longer than usual with the chill. Sorry Arthur.”

He looked shocked that she was apologizing, “I’m your first customer and other coffee shops don’t cater for weary night workers on their way home. I would be a terrible man to complain. When it’s done please take a drink for yourself and come and join me?”

She moved to the kitchen and found the water was ready. She made Arthur his usual Jasmine tea and then made a coffee for herself. When she returned to him, he had built up the fire a little more. She slid down opposite him in an arm chair and closed her eyes.

“You seem unwell, is there anything I can do?”

“No, I’m fine,” she said, but Arthur was having none of it.

He sat forward, “Susie, we are friends, are we not?”

“Of course you are my friend.”

“If something is troubling you I would be honoured to help you.”

She looked into his cool blue eyes, so steady and calm. Every morning, apart from the weekends, for the last year and a half she had sat with him when she opened up her shop. She knew she could trust him, but she was so terrified that she did not wish to speak.

“Let’s do this as if it were a game,” Arthur said, his voice ever so gentle. “I shall ask you questions and you can simply nod or shake your head.”

She fiddled with a frayed piece of cloth over the arm of her chair and slowly nodded her consent.

“Has somebody threatened you?”

A pause, Arthur must have read her face.

“Do you know who threatened you?”

She shook her head, she could only remember the events through a fog of horror. With his questions her own came flooding back; she felt her eyes moisten.

“Are you in danger?”

She could not take her own silence any longer, when she spoke her words came out in a muddled mess, “Arthur, there was three of them, they came yesterday and abducted a girl, then last night they came back to look for her belongings. They destroyed the shop and threatened me, I’ve been up all night trying to get the place back to normal. I’ve been so frightened that they will come back a third time.”

“Have you reported this to the Leprechaun guard?”

Susie went to answer but then stopped and looked down, if she said no he would ask why and she did not know what she could say.

“I take from you silence that you have not?”

“Arthur…”

“Susie…” he said in exasperation, then softened his tone. “I know how frightening it is at the moment. Humanists run the streets murdering children in their beds and the High Council issue prizes for information, but they also take good citizens for questioning. I understand if you are not comfortable reporting this abduction.”

“She was here as a favour to a friend. I don’t know who she was running from, I knew nothing about her other than her name.”

“What was her name?”

“She was called Beatrix, she was so nice, she tried to teach me to spell my own name. Arthur what should I do? What if they come back for me?”

Arthur shook his head and sipped his tea, he looked ever so concerned for her. “Do not worry, you have done nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Nobody can be angry with you for letting a friend of a friend stay in your shop. Why should they come back for you?”

“But I have!” she whispered, “I have done something awful! She left a letter and I have kept it. That is why those men came back, I’m sure of it!” Susie began to cry, the admission was too much for her.

“Stop, stop those tears!” he told her, reaching out and cupping her hands in his. “You poor thing, you are safe with me. Come and stay at my house for the next few days, I have a spare room. I will check on the coffee shop during my break over night.”

He gave her comfort where before she had only harboured fear.

“What did these men look like?” he asked her.

Susie could remember parts of them, terror had clouded much of her memory. “They wore black,” she said after a while, “and they had no markings on their clothes to say which of the eight ruling houses they were working for, if that was who they were, they could have been Humanists.”

Arthur was quiet whilst he thought about what she was saying. He kept her hands in his and it did stop her feeling so frightened. “Now, this letter. You may be right in thinking that they were acting outside of the law, which makes me wonder who the letter was addressed to? Perhaps if I see it I can make sure that it gets where it needs to go?”

Susie nodded and went into the kitchen, she brought out the letter and gave it to Arthur. He scanned the name without a hint of recognition and nodded.

“I see, it is addressed to the Druids, somebody on the gatehouse by the looks of it.”

“So, they could have been humanists?”

“Why don’t I deliver it for you, and tonight I will come over before I go to work and I will show you the way to my house.”

Susie nodded and smiled, she felt much better knowing that the letter was out from under her hearth stone hiding place.  

As the day drew to a close she shut up her shop and sat for her tea. She had just finished up her food when she heard the door open and close.

“I’m in the back,” she shouted, never questioning that it could be anybody other than Arthur. Nobody came to say hello and she cleared her plates into the sink and wondered if she had a customer. She moved towards the door and stopped, sniffing. She could smell smoke. As she moved to open the door to the front of her store she could feel the heat on the door handle and hear the crackle of fire from beyond it. She raced to the back and found that door locked. Somebody had trapped her inside her kitchen. The well was outside. Thick smoke poured into the kitchen. She had no way of putting out the fire. She tried to climb through the window, but the smoke was too thick. She choked before she could open the shutters. The fire was through the door, burning up the ceiling and catching on the table and the beams. She tried to use her apron to put them out but it just caught as well. The hem of her dress had started to smolder, the more she battled it the faster it burned. The skin on her thighs began to blister, and she could smell her own skin cooking. The flames were so intense that she could no longer feel pain. The ceiling buckled and collapsed, trapping her under the burning debris. One last thought pierced her brain: Had Arthur lied to her?