by B. J Daniels
“I’m calling the marshal,” she said as she reached into her shoulder bag with her free hand and came out with her cell phone. “I hope you enjoy the Sleepy Pine—after you’re released from jail for trespassing.” She thumbed in three numbers. He’d thought about stopping her but instead crossed his arms over his chest and simply watched her. It would have been so easy to disarm her and take both the phone and the gun from her.
“Yes,” she said into the phone moments later. “This is Casey Crenshaw. I own the Crenshaw Hotel here in Buckhorn. I found a trespasser living on my property.” Her gaze locked with his. “Yes, I’m in possible imminent danger. He looks very dangerous. You’re on your way? Wonderful. Yes, I’ll do that. I’m on the second floor. Come in the back. It’s where he broke in.” She tapped the phone.
“Are you finished?” Finn asked. “I could see that you didn’t make the call. We both know it would take Leroy longer than twenty minutes to get here since the marshal has to come clear across the county to get to Buckhorn. Also, the last thing you want is people in town to see a cop car come racing into the parking lot of the hotel. Everyone would know that you’re back in town, something I’m betting you want to avoid as long as you can, given what they’ve been saying about you.” He took a breath and let it out. “Shall I go on?”
* * *
CASEY GLARED AT HIM, hating that he’d seen through her ruse. Worse, he’d seen through her. She hadn’t called 9-1-1 because, like he’d said, it could be an hour before the marshal showed up and she didn’t want the attention. She’d hoped he would fall for her bluff. He hadn’t. How did this man know so much not just about her plans but also think he knew all about her as well?
And he was obviously deranged if he thought she’d invited him for the weekend. There had to be something seriously wrong with him. Why else would a multibillionaire be hiding out here looking for a ghost?
“If you don’t leave now—”
He held up both hands. “Look, it seems there’s been a misunderstanding. I’ll call Shirley at the motel and have her save me a room for tonight, and then I will pack up and leave.” She listened to him make the call, talking to Shirley Langer as if they were old friends. Earlier he’d sounded as if he knew the marshal as well. It seemed so strange to her. The townspeople, it appeared, had come to know Finn better than they knew her since it had been ten years since she’d been back here.
He looked resigned as he disconnected and started to load clothing into his duffel bag.
She watched him pack, worried about him. Worried for him. He obviously needed help. “Shouldn’t you call someone to let them know that you’re alive and well and in Buckhorn, Montana?”
“I’d prefer not.”
“Isn’t there someone who is worried about you—family, friends, financial adviser?”
He cracked a smile before he sobered. “I lost both of my parents last year. There isn’t anyone who needs to know where I am.” As if on cue, his phone buzzed in his jeans pocket. He pulled it out, checked the screen and quickly declined the call.
“Someone knows you’re here,” she said suspiciously.
“It was Earl Ray. I’ll call him later.”
Earl Ray, the local war hero, was calling Finn? Talk about making himself at home here in Buckhorn. Surely Earl Ray had figured out who Finn really was. Maybe he was calling because he was trying to help the man.
“Maybe you should call him back,” she said. He’d been missing for months. “Clearly, someone is worried about you.”
“Earl Ray?” Finn laughed. “He’s just looking for someone to play chess with him over at the bakery while he waits for Bessie to finish making...” He seemed to give it some thought. “It’s Friday, so she’ll be making fried pies, one of Earl Ray’s many favorites. He’ll be fine without me. But thanks for your concern. As for the rest of the world, I would just as soon keep my whereabouts quiet for a while longer. Unless you plan to tell the media that you’ve found me.”
And bring reporters to Buckhorn in force? Not likely.
“Surely the locals know who you are.”
He chuckled. “They think I’ve been squatting in your hotel for months because I’m homeless. They’ve been very kind. I’m fine with them not knowing, either. When people know...well, they start treating me differently.” He gave her a look as if she was one of them.
“Well, as long as you leave, your secret is safe with me.” But she didn’t buy for a minute that he was staying in this abandoned old hotel to see Megan’s ghost. How had he even heard about Megan? The murder hadn’t hit national news. Not even when sightings of her ghost caught the regional media’s interest.
But if not looking for Megan’s ghost, then what had he been doing here all those months?
CHAPTER FOUR
THIS WAS DEFINITELY not the way Finn had hoped to meet Casey Crenshaw. As he packed, he frowned to himself. There was some obvious confusion, but he decided to let it go for now. Later, he would clear up the misunderstanding.
“Can you at least put that gun away? You’re really making me nervous.”
She seemed to consider it before very slowly slipping the weapon into her shoulder bag—still within reach if he made any sudden moves.
“I didn’t realize what a mess I’ve made here alone. Or that I’d have company this soon.”
He noticed that she was frowning as if deep in thought. She was so damned cute. Not as cute as she was in the photographs he’d seen of her in her grandmother’s albums when she was a girl, but still adorable under her strong, sexy-woman exterior. “How did you know I was selling the hotel to a developer who plans to raze the place? Unless...” He saw her eyes darken as her frown deepened. “Unless you’re the secret developer who’s made the offer on the place.”
He stared at her, too startled to speak for a moment. “Secret developer?”
“Devlin Wright is the agent handling the sale, but he’s been really closemouthed about who the developers are who are interested in buying my grandmother’s hotel and land.”
That surprised Finn. “You never asked who the developers are? You don’t care who it is?”
“Not particularly.”
He saw something in her expression just under the surface that he recognized. Pain. The locals were wrong. Casey did care about the hotel, about the town, about her grandmother’s legacy.
“Sorry, it’s not me.” Shaking his head, he said, “So Devlin Wright wouldn’t tell you who they were?”
“You know him?”
“I’ve never met him.” But he knew the name. “Is he in town?”
“Not yet. At least I don’t think so.” She was eyeing him even more suspiciously. Clearly this conversation was making her uncomfortable. She pulled her bag closer. Neither of them had forgotten about the gun.
This was definitely not going well. “If you were the potential buyer,” she said, “then that would explain what you’re doing here.” She cocked a brow at him.
“Sorry, I’m not.” But now he was curious who was. He could see how anxious she was to make the sale and leave. He met her gaze again. He could tell that she was still more than a little wary of him.
His cell phone rang again. This time when he looked at the screen, he hit Accept. “Shirley?” He listened as she told him the news. “Thanks for letting me know.” He hung up. “A busload of tourists just came in. She had to give my room away.” He quickly held up his hands at her disbelieving, newly alarmed expression. “It’s no problem. I can sleep in the woods. I’ll be fine.”
She rolled her eyes and groaned. “You think I won’t let you sleep in the woods?” One eyebrow shot up into her bangs, giving him again a glimpse of the girl she’d been in this very attractive young woman standing before him. When she’d caught him in the shower, he’d been surprised on numerous levels.
“I was going to let this go, but I can’t have yo
u thinking whatever it is I can see you thinking. When you caught me showering, I was getting ready for tonight, when everyone else arrives.”
When she spoke, she bit off each word as if talking patiently to a child. “No one is arriving. The hotel is closed.”
Finn realized he was scaring her again, and with the gun within reach, that was dangerous business. “You don’t remember inviting the others for the weekend, either?” He saw her confusion turn serious. “Wait—you really don’t know, do you? Hold on. There’s something I think you’d better see.” He held up his hands again. “I need to get it out of my duffel, okay, and I will clear this all up.”
He moved to the pocket in the side and took out the now-crumpled and discolored envelope. He held it up and then slowly removed the card from inside. As he handed it to her, he watched her face as she read the invitation out loud, her blue eyes widening with each shocking revelation.
“‘Crenshaw Hotel ten-year summer-staff murder reunion. A weekend in memory of Megan Broadhurst and her ghost.’”
Casey looked up. “Starting tonight?” He nodded and she returned to the invitation.
“‘Last chance to put them both to rest before the hotel is demolished. Save the date. Or everyone will know you’re the one who killed her.’
“Is this a joke?” she demanded as she tossed the card onto his bed and rubbed her arms as if chilled.
“I didn’t think so.”
She shook her head, looking dazed. “Who sent this?”
“Obviously, I thought you sent it. It’s on hotel letterhead. Or at least I assumed it was hotel letterhead. I suppose it could have been Photoshopped. But the postmark is San Francisco, where you live, right?”
“I didn’t send this.”
That much he’d gathered from her obvious shock.
Casey stared at him for a long moment as if trying to catch her breath. “This is why you were so determined to stay here. Why you seemed so...”
“Confused?” he suggested.
“It still doesn’t explain what you’ve been doing here for months, though,” she said, narrowing her eyes at him again. “Nor were you part of the staff ten years ago. So why would you get an invitation?” She shook her head and waved an arm through the air. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. This isn’t happening as long as I own this hotel.”
“Hello!” At the sound of a male voice calling from the floor below, they both started.
“I’m not sure you can stop it,” Finn said. “I believe the guests are arriving, and there are no rooms in town, as Shirley just told me.”
The male voice rose up from the first floor. “Hello? Anyone here?”
Casey was within inches of the open doorway. She hurriedly stepped out to walk to the top of the stairs. She felt a shock as she recognized the blond man her sixteen-year-old self had once found handsome. “Jason?” Jason Underwood was the last person she wanted to see. At least she didn’t have to ask what he was doing here. It was finally starting to sink in. Everyone from that summer must have gotten an invitation.
“The others are right behind me,” Jason called, smiling up at her. The others. She groaned inwardly. “Shall I tell them to take their old rooms on the staff floor?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Thanks for the invitation.”
“I didn’t send it,” she called down. “I had nothing to do with this...reunion.”
Jason looked surprised before his gaze shifted to the right of her. She caught the scent of hotel soap on Finn’s skin as he joined her. “But you brought a friend? I thought it was only going to be the staff and you.”
“I got an invitation, too,” Finn said and shrugged.
“That’s strange. But whoever planned this must have wanted you here for some reason,” Jason said.
“I thought the same thing,” Finn agreed.
“That means you must have known Megan.” Jason turned at the sound of other people entering the hotel. He called back to them, “Casey said we could take our old rooms along the staff wing,” as if she’d really said that.
Casey shot Finn a look. “You knew Megan?”
CHAPTER FIVE
DR. CLAUDE DRAKE had been thinking of little else but Megan since getting his invitation to the reunion. The day after it arrived, he’d had an early-morning surgery. While he’d made a perfectly clean incision in the anesthetized patient on the table, he’d admitted that as successful as he’d become, Megan had still ruined his life.
Just like the incision he’d made in this patient’s flesh, he’d carried the scars Megan had inflicted. That was what the shrink had told him and his parents, anyway. He’d come home a different teenager than the boy genius who’d begged his parents to let him go to Montana for the summer before he had to start medical school. A boy wonder, he’d breezed through college by the time most teens his age were graduating from high school. He’d just wanted one summer before medical school to be like other teens his age.
Then he’d met Megan and ended up working in an old haunted hotel—until her murder.
His parents and the shrink were right. He was scarred. But they never really knew how much. He’d shared only a little of his experience with the psychiatrist. Even as he did, he could tell the doctor didn’t believe that one teenage girl one summer in Montana could destroy his self-worth so easily. Then again, the shrink and his parents had never met Megan.
He’d finished the surgery and left the closing to a subordinate. The invitation was in his pocket. He hadn’t let it out of his sight since he’d received it. He’d wondered if the others would come. Why would they? Megan had been a poison she’d injected into each of them, preying on their weaknesses and then using those weaknesses against them. She’d gone for the jugular and hadn’t spared any of them. It was no wonder one of them had finally snapped and killed her.
As he’d stripped off his mask and gloves, he’d considered how many lies he would have to tell to secretly return to Buckhorn and the hotel for this reunion. He’d put off deciding until almost too late. Fortunately, he had his own jet, and Buckhorn wasn’t that far from the Billings airport. If he rented a car, he could get there in plenty of time.
But he’d have to lie about where he was going and why. Even though he’d excelled in medical school and was the youngest head of surgery at the hospital, he felt as if his parents were constantly watching him in fear that he was far from okay. They would see the reunion as him regressing. Or worse.
As he’d changed into street clothes, he called his office. “I have a four-day conference coming up. Please reschedule any appointments.”
He’d thought about calling his soon-to-be ex-wife but decided to text her instead. The reunion would fall on the same weekend he was supposed to meet with his lawyer and sign the papers ending their marriage. He didn’t feel up to arguing about it. That was why he couldn’t tell her about the invitation. Or that he was going. Megan had been his kryptonite. Crystal was the only person who knew firsthand the damage Megan had done.
If Crystal still loved him at all, she would beg him not to go back to Buckhorn, back to the Crenshaw, for any reason, especially this one. As he saw the hotel rise out of the horizon ahead of his rental car, he wished he’d loved his ex enough to have let her talk him out of coming here.
* * *
CASEY COULDN’T BELIEVE this was happening. The nightmare just kept getting worse. A murder reunion? Someone had sent out these ridiculous invitations, and now everyone was showing up here, intending to stay in the hotel?
“You can’t—” Belatedly, she remembered that there was no place to stay in town. The closest other accommodations were a hundred miles away. As desperately as she wanted to, she couldn’t turn them all away this late in the day when there probably wouldn’t be rooms in the next town, either. She told herself it was just for one night. She’d put an end to this first thing in the morning.
Ja
son was calling greetings to the others on the floor below her. “You do realize that the hotel isn’t open to guests?” she called down to him before this could go any further.
“That’s what makes it so creepy cool,” he replied, as if he was still a teen. “Don’t worry. Everyone knows we have to make do for ourselves. It’s all going to be great.” He glanced back toward the rear entrance to the hotel again. “Hey, Claude. Or should I call you Doc?” Then Jason disappeared from view.
She turned to Finn again. “You knew Megan?”
“Let’s get out of here,” he said quickly. “I promise I’ll tell you everything. We’ll go to the café and get something to eat.”
“You have to be kidding if you think I’m going anywhere with you.”
“I’m hungry, and we both have to eat, and I could use the company. I’ve been eating alone for months. Also, I can tell you aren’t anxious to see the old gang.” He motioned to the floor below, where they could both hear voices.
She groaned. The man did know her. How was that possible? “Thank you but—”
“Not to mention, I’m interested.” He must have seen her moment of bewilderment and quickly added, “In the hotel. I might want to buy it. You haven’t signed any papers yet, right?” He nodded as if the idea had just come to him. “At the very least, another offer could get you an even better price from Devlin Wright. Now, about dinner—”
She stared at him. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always serious when it comes to food when I’m hungry,” he said.
“About making me an offer on the hotel?”
“We can talk about it at dinner.”
She felt on spin cycle. Her sunburn was tightening her skin, and exhaustion was pulling at her after the miles she’d put on earlier today. She just wanted to go to her room, take a hot bath and lie down for a while. But she hadn’t eaten since buying some junk food on the trip, and Finn was right: she wasn’t anxious to see the staff from that horrible summer and whom she’d tried to forget for the past ten years.
