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
