by B. J Daniels
“Wait,” the marshal said as Finn started to walk away. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“To look for Casey,” Finn said, already striding toward the trees. “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving town,” he said over his shoulder. “And I won’t go back into the hotel.” He glanced back at the lawman. Their gazes met for just an instant. He’d heard a deputy say the words booby trap, he’d seen the looks on all of the lawmen’s faces, and given the way he and the rest had been hustled out of the structure, he had a bad feeling the hotel might blow at any moment.
He had no desire to go back in there, anyway. The marshal said he’d sealed off the basement before he’d pulled the fire alarm. So there was no way someone had taken Casey down there without being seen. Unless there was another way into the basement from inside. Either way, there was no chance that Casey would go back down there on her own. Someone had to have taken her.
* * *
AS LEROY CUPPED his hands against the rising sun, he watched Finnegan James head into the woods and swore before getting on the radio to Hepner. “Leave Wilson at the motel. Tell him to radio me if there is any change over there or if Casey Crenshaw shows up. You get back over here with the other deputies and secure this place—from a distance.”
Disconnecting, he then called the state crime lab and told them what he had.
“The entire building is rigged to blow?” the state’s explosive expert from the bomb squad said when he came on the line.
“Are you familiar with the Crenshaw Hotel? It’s huge, and it appears that there are bombs set at all the crucial structural supports. Whoever did it appears to be planning to demolish it with an implosion. I had an uncle who was in the business.” He answered questions about what type of explosives he’d seen and what size each were.
“How close is it to other structures?”
“It’s on the main highway but a few blocks from town. There’s a motel down the highway about a block away.”
“You have no idea who rigged it?”
“None.”
“I’d stay clear of the place.”
“You think? What do we do until you get here?”
“Stay a half mile from it and pray. We’re on our way, but if you’re right, I’m not sure what we can do. I’m not sending my men into a situation like that.”
“There’s another problem,” Leroy said. “We found a bunch of graves in the basement. They might be those of young women who have disappeared over the years. The parents of those women...”
“I hear what you’re saying. We’ll assess the situation when we get there.”
Leroy hung up and looked toward the woods where Finnegan James had disappeared. The man was smart. He might not know how bad things were under the hotel, but he knew enough not to go back inside.
Unless he thought Casey was down there. Then there would be no stopping him, because Leroy couldn’t jeopardize his deputies by sending them in there after him.
* * *
AS CASEY SLOWLY SURFACED, she felt as if she were walking through a fog and realized she’d been dreaming. Finn had been in the dream. They’d been together, and everything had been wonderful. Until it wasn’t. Suddenly they were adrift on a raft of rotten wood. Pieces kept breaking off, and soon it would just be them and the endless sea full of sharks—
Her eyes flew open as the last piece of wood between them and the water broke apart. It took her a moment to realize it had only been a bad dream. Until she took in her surroundings and knew she was in maybe far worse trouble.
The room, if you could call it that, had a low ceiling and stone walls. There was a bare bulb overhead that provided only faint light. The walls had wooden shelves on them that appeared full of all kinds of tools and junk.
The smell alone, wet earth and cold, along with the grave-deep silence, told her she was underground. Her last clear thought had been that she was being taken to the basement of the hotel. But now she wasn’t so sure. At each side of the space there was a dark opening, as if they were in the middle of a tunnel. She’d taken that all in within a matter of seconds.
A jolt ran the length of her body as she sensed someone coming from out of the darkness at one end. She tried to move, only then realizing that she was duct-taped to a chair. Her arms were behind her, her wrists taped to what felt like a back slat of the chair. Had she been able to catch her breath, she might have screamed as Emery stepped into the small space. He had to bend over to keep from hitting his head on the boards shoring up the roof.
Her memory came back as her panic soared. Him finding her after her fall. The drug he used to incapacitate her. This room underground where he had her bound to a chair. Terror rocketed through her, sending her pulse hammering in her ears.
“Welcome back,” he said in a casual tone that only made her panic grow exponentially. Dragging a small wooden stool over, he sat down facing her. She had the feeling that this wasn’t the first time he’d done this very same thing, and that was like a knife to her chest.
“Don’t look so frightened,” he said, shaking his head as if amused. “You know I would never hurt you or your grandmother. You were both kind to me.”
Her mouth was dry as sand. She swallowed. “Where am I?”
“Somewhere safe.”
She didn’t believe that. “Why have you brought me here?” Her voice broke.
“To protect you.”
“Protect me?” She cleared her throat as her gaze fell on a pickax covered with dirt leaning against the opposite wall. She noticed other digging tools. Burying tools. Her heart rate galloped out of control. She strained against her restraints, the chair under her creaking.
“Calm down,” he said, as if speaking to an unruly child. “It’s your own fault that you’re here. If you’d sold the hotel to my sister, none of this would be happening right now. Vi would have kicked everyone out of the hotel, and it would be over by now.”
“I don’t understand.”
Emery sighed and leaned closer. He breathed on her, but she forced herself not to turn away even though his breath was like death warmed over. Absently, he reached toward her. She tried hard not to cringe as he began to stroke her long hair. She felt strands of her hair get caught in his calloused hand. He didn’t seem to notice.
“I remember you as a little girl,” Emery said and continued to run his hand the length of her hair while her stomach twisted into knots. Her head ached from being drugged. Her mouth was desert-dry. She tried to swallow, tried licking her lips, but she had no saliva.
“Water.” The word came out on an arid breath.
He looked surprised but jumped right up. “Sorry, I should have offered.” He turned his back on her for a moment. Casey looked around for something she could use to free herself. Behind her were more shelves filled with junk like the ones in front of her. She only had a moment to quickly search for anything that might be within reach. The room was so small, her chair had been pushed back where it was touching the nearest shelf. She leaned back, rocking the chair just enough that she could lock her fingers around a rusted blade about an inch wide from a bow saw.
It would be worthless as a weapon, but she thought she might be able to saw through the tape binding her wrists to the back of the chair when his back was turned.
She’d barely started when Emery turned with a jug of what looked like water but might have been something else entirely. He shuffled over to her, took off the cap and held the large jug up to her lips, tipping it. The liquid came gushing out. She caught a stale, chemical smell and turned her head quickly to the side. The liquid splashed down the front of her, drenching her clothing and sloshing onto the floor.
“What is that?” she managed to say as she tried to spit it back out.
“Water.” Emery chuckled. “I forgot your generation doesn’t even drink out of the hose anymore. Got to have fancy bottled water.” He
shook his head as if amused by the changing world.
He held up the jug again.
She shook her head. “It smells funny.”
“Now you’re just being silly.” He grabbed her head with one large hand, cocked it back and poured the liquid over her face.
She tried not to breathe or swallow, but the water was going into her nose, choking her. She gasped and swallowed a huge gulp.
As if satisfied, Emery let go of her and turned to recap the jug and put it away. Casey began to frantically saw at the tape. She felt the blade bite into the flesh of her wrist and winced but didn’t stop until he turned back to her again.
“Now, isn’t that better?” he asked.
She looked away from his weathered, aged face. She could feel a trickle of blood running down her hand to drip on the ground behind her. She had to get away from him. All her instincts told her that, otherwise, she would die down here. She thought of the graves in the basement, and she knew in her heart that Finn had been right. Those girls who’d disappeared—they’d never left the hotel.
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE SUN SHONE through the pines, painting the forest with gold. Finn hadn’t gone far when he saw another piece from the Scrabble board lying in the dried pine needles. As he moved closer, his heart began to pound harder. He stooped down to pick it up, turning the tile to see the letter. F.
I have fallen for you.
His gaze lifted to the trees ahead—and the decrepit outbuilding in the distance. She was here. Someone had taken her from the hotel. All he had to do was find her. But he felt as if a clock were ticking toward a deadline, one that had the marshal and his men getting as far away from the hotel as possible.
Rising quickly, he headed toward the outbuilding, watching the ground as he moved, hoping for another tile, another clue, but sure he was on the right track.
The outbuilding, which was probably eight feet square, was set back against the side of the mountain, away from the others. While it looked as if it might fall down at any moment, he saw where someone had shored up the stone foundation.
There were no windows and only the one door. He saw that it had been padlocked. The police had broken the lock when they’d searched it. With the shape the building was in, it being locked was definitely a red flag. Padlocked like the door to the basement, padlocked like the wine-cellar door.
He pushed the door open, not sure what he would find. The officers had already checked the building. The door swung open, and he looked inside. Not that there was much to see. No Casey, that much he’d seen at once. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light inside and the dust settled, he saw shelves along all four walls and piles of junk.
If Casey had been here, she wasn’t now. He frowned. Something was wrong. He’d found one of the tiles from the Scrabble board only yards from here. Disappointment made his heart ache. He’d been so sure that whoever had taken her hadn’t gotten far. Otherwise the person would have been seen. No vehicles had left since the law had arrived, so she had to be here somewhere.
As he started to turn away, he saw something on the floor. The same tracks he’d seen in the dust in front of the wine cellar. Two narrow tire tracks that ended at the edge of a crack in the floor. His gaze flew to the junk at the other end of the shack where he spotted a cart, the kind used to drag out a deer carcass from the woods.
He moved to the dark crack between the boards and knew he hadn’t been wrong after all. A trapdoor.
* * *
THE SUN SHONE off the side of the string of motel rooms. “I don’t get it,” Benjamin said as he sat down on the curb outside Jason’s room where the others had gathered.
Jen sighed. “What don’t you get?” She’d whined enough that they all knew she wanted to go down to the bar. But the cops had been told to keep them all here until the marshal said otherwise.
“Why are we being kept here?” he said. “Legally, they have to arrest us, don’t they?”
“Why don’t you tell them that,” Jason suggested and mugged a face just in case Benjamin missed his sarcasm.
He studied Jason, wondering if being arrested was exactly why the man was acting so strangely. “Why are you so nervous? You’ve been acting weird since we were hustled out of the hotel. And what happened to Patience?”
Jason groaned and got to his feet. “If I want to be interrogated, I’ll go find the marshal.” He stormed into his room.
“Something is definitely wrong with him,” Jen whispered. She’d been a lot friendlier after Claude left and before his body was found.
“I just talked to the deputy,” Shirley said as she walked up. “He said we can order food from the café. Bessie will bring it over.” She looked down at her cell phone. “Well?”
“Can we order from the bar?” Jen asked.
Shirley rolled her eyes. “Come on. I’m locked up here, too.”
Her friend laughed. “You live here. You’re always locked up here.”
“Food. Yes? No?”
Benjamin could see that she was losing her patience. “I’ll take the grilled-chicken salad with the dressing on the side and an ice tea. No sugar. Make it a large one.”
Jen rolled her eyes. “Order me a double cheeseburger loaded with extra fries and a strawberry milkshake. And if she has any of those turnovers left, I’d take a couple of those. Is the marshal paying for this?”
“I rather doubt the county is picking up the bill,” Shirley said as she finished taking notes on her phone.
“Then skip the turnovers.” Jen sighed and got to her feet. “I’m going in to watch daytime television.”
“I’ll let you know when the food comes.” Shirley glanced around the parking lot. “Where’s Jason?”
Benjamin motioned over his shoulder toward the closed motel-room door.
Shirley moved to the door and tapped on it. “Jason?” No answer. “Jason!” She knocked hard.
The door flew open. “What?”
She repeated her spiel. “Well?”
He shook his head. “I’m not hungry.”
“Suit yourself, but it might be the only meal you get today,” Shirley said. “Have you heard what’s going on up at the hotel? I wonder why Casey and Finn aren’t here.”
“Maybe they were arrested,” Jason said.
Shirley groaned.
“They totally could have killed Claude and Devlin. It’s possible.”
Shirley shook her head. Benjamin could hear her ordering the food as she closed Jason’s door and walked away.
“Have you noticed how none of us have mentioned Megan?” he said to no one because Jen had gone into her room. He heard the television come on in Jason’s room so loud he recognized the reality show.
Getting up, he headed for his room for some peace and quiet. This couldn’t be over soon enough.
* * *
CASEY TRIED TO pull her wrists free of the chair and felt the tape give a little. She needed to distract Emery enough that she could finish sawing her way free. “My grandmother—” Her voice broke. “She wouldn’t like you...doing this.”
“That’s not true. I have always tried to protect you and your grandmother from the evil in the world. It’s not my fault. It’s the Crenshaw, always has been. I felt it the first time I walked in the front door. It has a hidden malevolence that feeds on the dark souls of others.”
She stared at him, her heart thumping hard in her chest. He was insane.
“It has to be fed.” He looked away, his face going slack with what could have been regret before he turned back to her.
She stared at him as she trembled from fear in her wet clothing. She knew, but she had to hear him say it. “The bodies of those women buried in the basement...”
His rheumy eyes looked vacant for a moment. “I told you. I had to feed the beast. It’s not my fault.”
“The marshal knows
about the bodies. He knows—”
Emery shot to his feet so quickly it silenced anything else she might have said. “That’s why it has to end.” He shook his head, looking as if whatever he planned to do was her fault. “You shouldn’t have invited them all back here.”
“I didn’t. It wasn’t me.” She could see that he didn’t believe her. “It’s true. I swear.”
“It doesn’t matter now,” he said. He reached into a cabinet and brought out a device with buttons. It had several wires hanging from it.
“What are you going to do?” she cried.
“What you wanted. You want the building destroyed? That’s what I’m going to do. Blow it to hell.”
“You can’t!” she cried. “There are still people in there.”
“That’s your fault. Those people wouldn’t be in the hotel if it wasn’t for you.”
“I didn’t send those invi—” Suddenly, it hit her who had. “My grandmother. Oh my gosh.” She felt a shudder thinking about that last night with Anna. “My grandmother had them sent.”
“Why would she do that?”
“Because she was determined that the killer be found. She knew about my nightmares and thought it was the only way I could move on.” It had to be true, she realized. It would have been so easy for her grandmother to set things up with her attorney. Was that what he’d been anxious to tell her about? Anna would be one of the few people who would have known about Finn and his relationship with Megan. “Anna did this to try to help me.” She met Emery’s gaze and saw how pained he looked. “She said she couldn’t rest until Megan’s killer was caught.”
Emery looked at her, wild-eyed. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t kill that one.”
She frowned in disbelief. “Then who?”
The big man shook his head adamantly. “I didn’t touch her.”
