“How’d you get those scratches on your face?” the marshal asked Jason.
He looked away for a moment. “I stumbled into a wall earlier when I went down to the kitchen for a drink. I was trying to explain to Casey. I guess she thought...”
Finn had a sudden urge to beat the man senseless. “Why were you chasing after Casey?” he demanded, sensing there was a whole lot more to his story.
“She saw me holding Patience’s broken necklace, and I guess she thought...”
Finn swore. He could guess what Casey thought.
Jason looked worried. “I tried to stop her and explain, but that damned fire alarm was so loud.” Finn saw that the man was close to tears. “I didn’t hurt her. I swear.”
“When you saw her,” Finn asked, “did she have her shoulder bag with her?”
Jason seemed to think for a moment before he nodded. “She did.” So she had her phone.
“You say someone hit you from behind?” the marshal asked.
“I couldn’t have been out long, but when I came to, I was lying in the stairwell. Casey was gone. I thought she’d already be out here, too.”
“You were also the last one to see Patience Riley, who is missing as well,” the marshal said. Jason started to put up an argument but was cut off. “Go to the motel and stay there. If you leave town, I’ll have you arrested. I’d hold you now in a cell until both Casey and Patience were found, if Buckhorn had a jail.”
“I didn’t hurt either of them. Patience left, and Casey...” Jason shook his head. “I don’t know what happened to her.”
The marshal reached for the necklace in the man’s hands. “The clasp is broken.” His gaze rose to Jason’s.
“It was an accident,” Jason cried.
“Deputy,” the marshal was saying, “take Mr. Underwood to the motel, and make sure he stays there. Take Mr. James there as well.”
Finn rolled the Scrabble piece in his fingers as he looked toward the woods. He wasn’t going to the motel. He had to find Casey, because all his instincts told him that she wasn’t far from here—and if he didn’t find her soon...
“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
