From the Shadows

by B. J Daniels

  He felt his heart begin to beat harder. What if the killer feared that she’d sent out the invitations because she could no longer keep his secret?

  Finn knew that whatever he sensed she was hiding was going to come out. Was that why she was so determined to sell and get out of here? His head hurt. He found himself running scared that Casey was somehow involved. His gut told him that the killer had come back to finish things, and Casey might be at the top of that list.

  Two days and three nights. Finn could feel the clock ticking. He looked around the campfire. If he was right, one of them had killed Megan and would kill again. But which one?

  * * *

  TRUTH OR DARE? Seriously, Jason? Devlin refused to play, even though Jen had taunted him. Jen. She hadn’t changed. He knew that even before she made a move on Claude. Then she’d let Jason take her into the woods. He could guess what the two of them had done.

  He mentally shook his head. It was only a matter of time before Jen hit on him—just like ten years ago. Except he wasn’t that desperate anymore, and if she pushed it, he’d let her know right quick.

  “Did you hate Megan enough to kill her?” Jason asked Shirley.

  Devlin listened to them spewing out the truth about Megan without a second thought to the fact that they were still murder suspects. It was none of their business how he’d felt about Megan. He wasn’t like the others. He’d wanted her beauty, her money, her position in life. He would have done just about anything to be her in male form—even though he couldn’t stand her.

  He had dreamed of success—money—since he was a boy lying in bed listening to his parents fight over it. He’d learned early on that money was all that mattered. People who didn’t have it suffered. He’d been determined not to be one of them.

  Megan must have seen the burning desire in his eyes. She knew what he wanted, and it wasn’t to grope her in the woods. “Dev,” she said, knowing he hated the nickname, “you need a woman like me on your arm, along with my family connections and their money. You and I could conquer the world because you get it. All the others want love—and, of course, sex with me. But not you.”

  She’d played him, teasing him with a picture of what his life could be like with her. He’d felt like a fish on a hook. If he tried to pull away, seeing that she was only teasing him, she’d reel him back in.

  Until she didn’t.

  She’d dangled the carrot in front of him and then laughed when she’d finally grown tired of the game. “Dev, you’ll never have me or anyone like me. Sorry, but it’s true. I can see your future, and it isn’t pretty.”

  It was the last thing she’d said to him the night she died. She’d been laughing. “Did you really think you were good enough for me? I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but, Dev, you’ll always be a loser who thinks he deserves better.” She’d made a sad face as she’d patted him on the cheek and turned to walk away, leaving him gutted and homicidal.

  It had stayed with him the past ten years, her voice mocking him even as he’d tried to become the wealthy man he’d always dreamed of being. He realized now, standing around this campfire, that Megan had been right. He was a loser.

  So what was he still doing here? He’d come here to make money on this deal. But he’d blown that, too. He’d been avoiding the investors’ calls and texts all day. They’d been anxious for him to close on the purchase.

  He needed this money desperately since he’d already spent most of what he thought he was going to make. When this was over, he’d be worse than broke. He’d be in debt to the wrong people.

  What a fool he was. He’d come here thinking he was the one who was going to have the last laugh.

  Then again, I kind of did have the last laugh, didn’t I, Megan?

  * * *

  I KNOW WHAT YOU DID

  Casey had scrubbed the words from her bathroom mirror and then taken a hot shower, too impatient to soak in the tub. Her sunburn ached. What had she been thinking?

  Now she lay in bed listening to the old hotel moan and groan and creak. She told herself the noises had gotten worse over the past ten years. Either that or she was too aware of who else was here at the hotel. Supposedly they were all still outside. But how easy it would be for one of them to sneak away. Just as they had done to leave the message on her mirror.

  She closed her eyes, trying to pretend that the hotel was full of real guests just like in the old days. The place would ring with the joyful sounds of people on vacation, laughter and music and children running down the hallways.

  Back then, the hotel had felt alive in an entirely different way than it did tonight. She’d felt safe here—until Megan and the murder. Tonight the hotel’s moans and groans made her feel as if it knew what she planned to do with it. She knew it was ridiculous, but if buildings could have feelings, the Crenshaw would be one of them.

  She was on the edge of sleep when she heard the footfalls. She tensed as they approached. Probably just someone coming back from the campfire. But if true, the staff would be on the lower level. Only Finn would be on this floor. He couldn’t be coming to her room. They’d said all they had to say for the night.

  The footfalls stopped outside her door. She froze as she waited for a knock. Her breath caught in her throat as she saw the knob move. Someone was trying to open the door.

  She lurched up and out of bed, afraid she hadn’t locked the door even when she knew she had. Her cell phone ringing made her jump. Who could be calling her this late? Finn? They’d exchanged numbers earlier, but she didn’t recognize the incoming number. She looked from the phone to the door and back before she answered.

  “Hello?” she asked in a whisper. Of course it wasn’t Finn. Why would he call if he was standing right outside her door? She could hear the sound of muffled voices in the background. “Hello?” she said a little louder. It was probably a robocall.

  She tried to call the number back, but it went straight to an automated voice mail.

  She disconnected, her gaze going to her door. She moved toward it, debating what to do. She hadn’t heard whoever had been outside leave. She thought about grabbing the straight-backed chair and shoving it under the knob.

  Whoever she’d heard coming down the hallway, whoever had tried to open the door, whoever it had been was now still standing just outside. She moved to her purse on the entry table. Slipping her hand in, she closed it around the gun handle. Flipping off the safety, she stepped to the door, listening the whole time. Could she hear someone breathing on the other side? Or just feel them out there?

  Quietly, she unlocked the door, grabbed the knob and flung it open, gun ready.

  It took an instant for her eyes to send the message to her brain. The hand holding the gun trembled. The hallway was empty.

  She felt a cold draft curl around her neck. Heart hammering, she stepped back into the room and closed and locked the door again. She stood for a moment, telling herself that she’d only imagined the footfalls in the hallway. Only imagined someone standing outside her room. Only imagined that cold gust of air that had circled her neck almost...teasingly.

  Then she pushed the chair against the doorknob and took the gun with her back to bed. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to sleep a wink.

  * * *

  SHIRLEY HAD DRAGGED Jen away from the fire more easily than she’d expected. But Jen was determined they were going to stay at the hotel, so they’d gotten the extra bottle of wine and their overnight bags from the car and headed inside to find a room for the night.

  Once in bed, Shirley had tried to relax. She had no desire to see Megan’s ghost, she thought as she lay in bed listening to Jen snore. She’d spent that summer steering clear of Megan. After growing up with eight siblings, she’d learned to disappear when possible. If not that, then how to duck and weave when one of her brothers or sisters was on the fight and looking for someone to take their anger out on.
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  She’d recognized that mean streak in Megan right away. It was hidden under a thin veneer of smiles and small kindnesses. She knew better than to take the bait. Owing Megan would be very costly.

  Because she steered clear and declined even the smallest of seemingly nice gestures and presents, Megan eventually came hunting for her. Like the cat who’d mangled all the other mice and needed a new toy, Megan came after her with a vengeance. The more Shirley hid, the more determined Megan was to corner her.

  It became a game, one Megan had clearly relished. She would go out of her way to do something nice for Shirley in front of the others to force her to accept. Shirley would decline, saying that brand of lotion made her break out, she couldn’t eat candy because of a tooth that had been bothering her, she couldn’t take that expensive blouse Megan no longer liked because the color was all wrong for her.

  Pretty soon everyone was watching—waiting and watching. By then they all knew how treacherous Megan could be when she wasn’t getting the satisfaction she demanded.

  Shirley had known it would end badly. There was no way it couldn’t, she’d learned from experience. The harder Megan tried to get to her, the more frustrated she got. Megan had grown tired of tormenting the others. There was no one left but Shirley.

  One of them was going down.

  * * *

  CLAUDE STOOD WATCHING the flames die to embers, knowing he should leave. Coming here had been a mistake, he thought as he glanced at the dark, hulking form of the hotel beyond the faint firelight.

  Most everyone was probably in bed already asleep by now. Only a few lights glinted from inside. The structure had taken on an eerie, skeletal look that would have frightened him ten years ago. Nothing could scare him now, he told himself. Not even Megan’s ghost.

  He studied the backlit windows and saw no faces. No one cared enough to watch him. Everyone had left the fire earlier, ignoring him as they walked away and disappeared inside. He glanced toward the woods. He had to go back in there. As he slipped away from the fire, just as he had that night, he thought he might have forgotten how to find the exact spot where Megan had died. Bludgeoned to death with a rock. At least that was the theory, since the rock had never been found.

  But even in the pitch black inside the pines, he made his way to where he’d last seen her. It was his amazing brain. It could hold unreal amounts of information and not explode. He could remember everything, which in this case was a curse.

  Standing where her blood had drained into the soil, he was reminded of the scrap of paper he’d picked up when no one was looking. It had Megan’s blood on it. He had stared at it for a moment before pocketing the note.

  It wasn’t until later that he’d read the words that had been printed on the paper. Meet me in the woods. It hadn’t taken all that much effort on his part to connect the handwriting to the person who had written it. But like his pocketing the scrap of paper, he hadn’t told anyone, especially the marshal.

  Until he’d returned here, he wasn’t sure he’d planned to do anything with what he knew. He stared down at the ground, remembering exactly what she’d looked like lying there. Often when he couldn’t sleep, he imagined her eyes, unfocused, her slack face, her skin already draining of color. He’d memorized her dead face and put it in a special place in his brilliant brain.

  Instead of haunting his dreams, the image gave him peace. Death didn’t scare him. Megan didn’t scare him. Nothing did anymore.

  That young boy he’d been hadn’t feared Megan. It was what she’d unlocked in him that terrified him. His parents had seen his genius and ignored the rest. They knew there was something inherently wrong with him. He’d seen the alarm at what they realized they had created. Megan had brought out a dark side of him, and he’d liked it.

  At the sound of a twig snapping somewhere in the darkness, he turned. For a moment, he couldn’t make out the approaching shape, but he didn’t have to. He knew exactly who it was. Like him, this person knew where to come. The scene of the crime.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you would show up,” Claude said, even though he couldn’t yet see the killer in the deep shadow of the trees. He could feel Megan’s twisted malevolence in him, thrumming in his bloodstream, just under his skin. He hadn’t been able to handle it as a teenager. It was too powerful. But he was ready now. He heard another twig break, off to his left, but he ignored it. He felt invincible and realized that, right now, he was actually glad that he’d come back here. This was where it had to end.

  * * *

  THE BIGGER THEY ARE, the harder they fall. The words came out in singsong bursts on hot, hurried breaths as, deep under the hotel, the explosives were placed in the boreholes along the structural outer walls for maximum effect.

  Dynamite was the explosive of choice. Simply absorbent stuffing soaked in a highly combustible chemical, once the chemical was ignited, it would burn quickly, producing a large volume of hot gas that would expand and apply immense outward pressure.

  The powerful shock wave would bust through the columns at supersonic speed, shatter the concrete into tiny chunks. The secret was spreading the explosive devices throughout. Then setting them off like knocking over dominoes. Boom...boom...boom as the explosions raced around the hotel’s footprint, and the building imploded.

  It had taken some calculation. A person had to be smart when working with this much firepower. One wrong move and it could blow up too soon. But if done correctly, the explosions would accomplish what had to be done.

  The hotel wouldn’t just be brought down; it would be turned to dust—including anyone in it. Ultimately every secret would be erased. Nothing could come back to haunt the guilty or destroy the innocent. The Crenshaw Hotel would be gone and eventually forgotten.

  Just like misdeeds.

  The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Soon. Very soon.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Saturday

  WHEN FINN WALKED into the hotel kitchen the next morning, he overheard Jen telling Shirley about Megan’s car wreck that Jason had related to her the night before. The story shouldn’t have shocked him, given what he now knew about Megan.

  The two women left as he entered. But he’d heard enough that when Jason came in right behind him, he demanded, “Is it true? Megan killed someone?”

  Jason rolled his eyes. “I knew I shouldn’t say anything to Jen, of all people.”

  “How do you know Megan was driving the car?” Finn demanded.

  Jason sighed. “Because she admitted it to me. She was really drunk and scared, and she told me about the car wreck. Some of her friends were hurt, and one of them was killed.”

  “Megan swore she wasn’t driving. That’s what she told the cops. She said her friend had taken the keys from her. The one who died was driving.”

  Shaking his head, Jason helped himself to a cup of coffee and took a seat at the table. “Megan lied. She was really upset because she’d lied to everyone, including the police, and had gotten away with it, except now she believed that someone was stalking her, determined to make her pay for what she’d done.”

  Finn stared at him, feeling the truth at gut level. “She was driving.”

  He nodded. “She was apparently upset and driving too fast after a party. Two girls were in the back, passed out. The girl who died was in the front and trying to get her to slow down. Holly, right? Holly had unsnapped her seat belt and was trying to get out when she thought Megan was going to stop at an intersection. Instead, Megan sped through it and then missed a curve in the road. Megan was upset over some boy she’d wanted to hook up with at the party, but he was with some girl who’d gotten to him first.”

  Finn took a breath and let it out slowly. He poured himself a cup of coffee, his hands shaking. Megan had lied. Not just to him, but the cops, her parents, everyone. “Surely, if that’s true, the cops would have realized who was driving.”

&nbs
p; Jason shook his head. “None of them were wearing seat belts. After the car rolled and some of them were thrown clear, it was hard to tell who was driving. Holly was dead and couldn’t deny the story. The two in the back couldn’t, either. Megan said she was lucky she hadn’t been killed herself. I guess they all sued the dead girl’s family.”

  Only because they believed Megan’s story. Finn shook his head, wondering why Megan had confessed to Jason, of all people, instead of him. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but he could practically hear Megan saying the words. It sounded just like her. She hadn’t been sorry that she’d framed her dead friend. She was sorry that someone knew and was after her.

  “She thought one of the staff was, what, a hit man?” he asked.

  Jason shook his head. “More like a friend of a friend who wanted justice for Holly and her family. Someone was definitely messing with Megan, from what she told me. I just thought it was Casey trying to get back at her, you know, moving things around in her room, turning the heat way up or way down, leaving windows open when a storm blew in, that sort of thing. Just silly, vindictive things.” He chuckled. “The same things Megan had been doing to Casey.”

  Megan, Finn thought with a sigh. She’d been so busy making enemies here that it was hard to know who had wanted her dead. Someone after her because she’d lied about the car accident? Or one of the staff members she’d pushed too far?

  “She said someone had stolen her diary, and she was worried they would send it to her parents. Apparently she’d confessed everything in the diary. I didn’t even know she kept one,” Jason said.

  Finn only knew because he’d seen it once at her house in California. “She said she’d confessed in the diary about the car wreck? Did she also mention that she’d written down who she thought was stalking her?”