From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,28

one is going to take credit for this reunion?” She searched the group speculatively, meeting with only silence. “If none of you invited us all here,” she asked, “then who did?”

“That’s the million-dollar question,” Jason said, grinning. “Someone wanted to get us all back here awfully bad. Got to wonder why, huh?”

“That about sizes it up,” Finn said, seeing how quickly things could get out of hand.

CHAPTER NINE

BENJAMIN RATHER LIKED watching the others squirm. They were all terrified—even of Megan’s ghost. It amazed him how much the young woman had affected all of their lives.

She’d ignored him as if he were nobody. He’d worked hard to prove to himself that she was wrong, which was silly. There was no proving anything to her. She was dead. Her body was slowly decaying in her dark, cold coffin.

He looked around the campfire, wondering why the others had come back. Were they that afraid that if they hadn’t, someone would think that they really had killed Megan?

He scoffed at that as he watched them all trying to have a good time, drinking too much, looking warily at each other. They really didn’t know who killed her—or if they were next.

Ten years ago, he’d watched them play games, stabbing each other in the back, being tossed away like trash when Megan was done with them.

Benjamin tried to gauge which one of them had hated her the most. It was difficult because any one of them had wanted her gone, himself included.

He noticed, though, that no one seemed leery of him. What fools they were.

* * *

CASEY FOUND HERSELF watching Finn out of the corner of her eye. He was holding his own, which didn’t surprise her. He had just let the cat out of the bag, as her grandmother would have said. It wouldn’t be long before the press picked up on it and he was making headlines again. She was surprised that he’d given up his anonymity for her.

She could see him studying the people around the fire, questioning each of their motives. She wondered about his. Was he really going to make her an offer on the hotel and property in the morning? Why was he doing this?

Looking around the campfire, she couldn’t understand what they were all doing here. Were they really that interested in Megan’s murder after all this time? If one of them were the killer, wouldn’t they be glad to hear that the hotel was going to be razed? Any evidence would be gone. Or would it? Was the killer afraid something would be uncovered?

They really didn’t look as if they had changed, except for Ben. Benjamin, she corrected. Patience still wore her dark hair in a pixie cut and looked younger than a woman hugging thirty. A curly brunette, Jen’s hair was shoulder-length and jagged as if she had taken scissors to it herself. Shirley’s long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail that stuck out the back of her baseball cap. Jason looked exactly the same, same smirk, same shiftiness in his gaze. Devlin appeared to be getting a little bald. He kept brushing his brown hair back as if to cover the sparsely covered spot.

She watched them all share a look around the campfire and felt the atmosphere change as if they were finally starting to question why someone had wanted them here. One of them had purposely gotten the others back here. Finn was right. Someone had an agenda. But what?

Jen laughed as if wanting to ease the tension. “Interesting that we all came back.” She took the wine bottle from Shirley and took a drink. “So you’re all good with this? It’s really happening? Three nights, two days, here in a supposedly haunted and now-abandoned hotel.” She looked at Casey. “You are going to let us stay, aren’t you?”

“I only came here to sell my grandmother’s property,” Casey said as she felt everyone waiting for her reply.

“That doesn’t exactly answer my question,” Jen said, looking from her to Finn. “On the invitation, it said we were all to stay in the hotel for the weekend.”

“Casey said she is fine with it, but we all have to fend for ourselves,” Jason said, again as if she’d really said that.

“Like you’ve ever had to fend for yourself,” Benjamin mumbled under his breath.

She’d been determined to throw them all out in the morning. But by morning, she hoped that she no longer owned the hotel and it was someone else’s problem. “That will be up