From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,54
didn’t correct her on his name. He merely smiled.
“Tina invited me to her baby shower.”
Jen raised a brow. “That’s pretty bold of her. Her mother will have a fit.” She laughed. “Sounds like the shower is going to be a lot more fun than I thought it would be.” She turned to Benjamin and gave him a short explanation of why.
“What if it’s his baby?” Benjamin asked.
Shirley just shook her head, but Jen piped up. “It’s more complicated than that. The baby is like a line in the sand. Once that little one comes into this world, well...” She raised her gaze to her friend’s. “Well, someone will finally make a decision.”
“I need a beer.” Shirley looked at the two of them and saw that she wasn’t going to have to go to the bar alone.
* * *
MEGAN WAS DEAD. There was no ghost. But someone wanted Casey to believe that Megan’s ghost roamed these halls wearing her signature perfume. That was why the door was locked. Casey felt anger replace that earlier moment of shock and fear. Whoever was behind this, she was going to find them.
Turning, she ran down the hallway to the registration desk. She was only mildly surprised that the keys to room 33 weren’t in their slot. She rushed into the office for her spare passkey. It was gone. Finn probably had it. That was an unsettling thought. It meant he could get into any room at any time.
Where was he? In his room? She headed for the stairs. As she climbed, she realized that Finn must have smelled Megan’s perfume in the staff hallway. Why else had he left the note to meet him down there? He would know Megan’s perfume. But if he had the passkey, then why hadn’t he opened Megan’s old room?
Casey swore under her breath. She was going to put an end to this as soon as she could get into that room. If she got there in time. She feared that with all this wasted effort, any evidence in the room would be gone.
Storming up the stairs, she was almost to the top of the staircase when she looked up and saw Finn. Startled, she heard him say “Where’s the fire? Sorry, bad joke, and not funny in an old hotel like this.”
Her head had jerked up and, taken by surprise, she lost both her momentum and her balance. As she began to fall backward down the staircase, she’d grabbed for the railing, but it was too far away to reach. Her arms windmilled as she frantically tried to grasp anything to stop her from falling.
Suddenly Finn’s warm, strong hand closed over her wrist. For a few seconds, the two of them were suspended on the top edge of the towering staircase before he pulled them both up and onto the landing.
“What the hell, Casey?” he demanded, breathing hard as if his heart was drumming like her own. She could hear the fear in his voice. That had been too close. Had she been any more off balance, they both would have been plummeting down the stairs at this moment.
* * *
FINN’S BLOOD WAS pounding in his ears. He could see that Casey was visibly shaken as well. He drew her away from the stairs, trying to slow his thundering pulse. Gripping both of her upper arms in his hands, he turned her to face him. “What is going on?” he demanded.
She blinked, looking even more upset than she’d been when he’d seen her on the stairs. “Your note.”
He stared at her as if she were speaking a language he didn’t recognize. “What note?”
She reached into her pocket and shoved the note at him. Taking it, he unfolded the paper and read the words, then looked up at her, his gaze meeting hers. “I didn’t write this. This isn’t my handwriting.”
“You weren’t on the staff wing? You weren’t in room 33?” she demanded.
He let go of her. “No. Why would I have gone—” He stopped and sighed. “Megan’s old room?” He knew it was her room, and she knew he knew. “What happened?” His voice came out a little high, the scare on the stairs still fresh.
“I...I smelled her perfume.” He didn’t have to ask. He remembered Megan’s signature perfume. She wore it all the time. That smell had haunted him many a lonely night as a teenager. “If you didn’t leave the note...” He could hear the doubt in her voice.