From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,45
erupted at once, rising bright orange and emitting a cloud of dark smoke. Even knowing she would be missed in the kitchen, Casey had stood watching the diary burn until nothing but ashes remained. Sixteen and foolish, she believed she was saving herself from Megan and her lies.
The memory turned her stomach. She’d known Megan would throw a fit when she’d found her diary missing. She’d also known whom Megan would accuse. The staff quarters had been searched. Everyone had been questioned. Everyone had been under suspicion, especially her. Each staff member had sworn that they hadn’t seen it, hadn’t taken it, hadn’t even known she kept a diary—Casey among them.
But Casey had always feared that her grandmother had known, because Anna knew her too well. But no one could prove a thing. Megan had only become worse after that, as if terrified that the diary would be found before she could get her hands on it. What had she written in it?
Megan was the only one who knew. A few days after the diary went missing, she was murdered. That argument in the woods? That had been Megan accusing Casey of taking it. After Megan’s body was found, after the marshal arrived and began questioning everyone, Casey told herself the diary wasn’t important. So she’d lied by omission.
Later when there was a search for the book, she’d lied about not seeing it. She’d lied to her grandmother. To the marshal. To everyone. Now she was lying to Finn, who’d just spent months looking for it within these walls.
She couldn’t bear to think of what he would say if he knew what she’d done. But she might find out soon, she realized. Someone knew. The person who’d written on her bathroom mirror knew. It was only a matter of time before they told. Or were they still hoping she would confess?
She told herself to accept Finn’s offer, pack up her grandmother’s things and leave. If she was lucky, she could get away before whoever had left the message on her mirror told the world.
I know what you did
But even as she thought it, she knew that she wasn’t the same woman who’d arrived here. That woman had a plan to get out of here as fast as possible and take her lie with her. The woman she was now wanted to confess—to Finn.
She felt she owed him at least that. Admitting what she’d done with Megan’s diary wouldn’t help Finn find her killer, but it would let her leave here without the guilt she’d carried for years.
But first she would deal with at least one of the promises she’d made her grandmother.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AFTER FINISHING HER COFFEE, she pulled her grandmother’s list from the pocket of her jeans and unfolded the sheet of paper. Seeing her grandmother’s neat script hurt her heart. She missed Anna. Even after she’d quit coming to the hotel in the summers, they had remained close. Closer than she had ever been with her mother.
Casey tried to concentrate on the list. It was longer than she’d expected. She shook her head. What was she supposed to do with these items once she found them? She knew her grandmother wanted them kept in the family. But Casey lived on-site at the hotel. She had no place to store them.
For a moment, she felt overwhelmed with loss and grief and the weight of the one promise she’d meant to keep.
After a moment, she studied the list again, noting that her grandmother had suggested where a few of the items might be found in the huge hotel. So at least it wouldn’t be a case of looking for a needle in a haystack. But the list did make her wonder if the elderly woman had been in her right mind. Or was the list long and involved because Anna was determined to keep Casey in this hotel as long as possible? So long that she faced the past and her part in it? It wouldn’t have been unlike her.
She decided to start with one item that was supposedly in the tower. It had always been her and her grandmother’s favorite spot in the hotel. For a moment, she considered taking the elevator, but she decided to walk.
Taking the stairs, she quickly climbed. The last part of the stairwell to the tower was narrow and steep. She was glad when she finally pushed through the door, breaking out into the bright light of the circular tower with its walls of windows.