From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,88

turned on the patrol car’s lights and siren and raced toward Buckhorn through the darkness. This time they would be going into the hotel—into the bowels of it.

He couldn’t help but think about what Marshal Hugh Trafton had said as he’d hit the gas and the Crenshaw Hotel had disappeared behind them that night ten years ago.

“That is one scary-ass place,” Hugh said, glancing in his rearview with a shudder.

Leroy had looked at him in surprise. He’d never taken a big, strong, by-the-book man like Hugh to be afraid of ghosts and foolishly said as much.

“Ghosts?” the marshal howled. “Ain’t the ghosts that scare me. It’s the evil I felt the one time I stepped in that place. Something lurks in the depths. Mark my words. Something dark and dangerous.”

At the time, Leroy had kept his opinion of that to himself. He’d silently scoffed as he’d looked in his side mirror, the lights of the hotel barely visible behind them.

* * *

FINN HELD CASEY tightly to him as they waited by the back door. The marshal had been abundantly clear. Don’t touch anything else. Stay where you are. Don’t tell anyone else. I’m on my way.

“We’re not staying down here. We’ll meet you at the back door,” Finn had said.

The marshal had sworn. “We?”

“Casey Crenshaw and I. She’s with me. I’m taking her upstairs.”

“I just told you to stay—”

“It’s cold down here by the wine cellar, and we both need air,” he’d snapped. “We’ll meet you at the back door. Everyone else is outside by the campfire. We haven’t told anyone, and we won’t.”

He could almost hear the marshal grinding his teeth. “I’ll see you at the back door.”

They’d stepped out onto the patio, where they would be able to see when the marshal arrived but no one at the campfire would see them there in the dark. They huddled together, both in shock. He hadn’t told Casey any more than he’d told the 9-1-1 operator and the marshal. He’d given his name, his location and said that there’d been a murder.

“It’s Claude?” she’d asked, and he’d nodded. “Devlin?” He’d nodded again, and she’d begun to cry. Now they were both silent, comforted by being together with no need for words.

Finn’s head was spinning trying to make sense out of everything. Claude and Devlin were dead, locked in the wine cellar of the hotel, killed apparently the same way Megan had been. He didn’t think that was a coincidence.

When the first law-enforcement vehicles pulled in, lights flashing, siren blaring, the marshal had barely gotten out before two more squad cars pulled up.

Marshal Leroy Baggins was much younger than Finn had imagined, but he carried himself like a seasoned veteran. He was tall, lean and all business as he strode up to them. “Finnegan James?”

Finn nodded.

The marshal turned to Casey. “You’re the owner of the hotel?”

She shook her head. “I was, but I sold it to Finn earlier today.”

The marshal looked from one to the other before turning to his deputies, who were standing beside their vehicles as if waiting for orders. “Cordon off the hotel. Get the names of those people at the campfire, and keep them down there until I tell you different.” He turned back to Finn and Casey. “You two, show me where you found the body.”

“Actually,” Finn said, “it’s bodies.”

* * *

LEROY COULD TELL that the last place either of them wanted to go was back down to the wine cellar. He was hit with the smell first, then that feeling of being underground with the weight of the hotel overhead. Nothing about it was pleasant.

Within yards of the wine cellar, he ordered, “Stay here.” He saw the drag marks on the floor going into the wine cellar, but none outside it. Stepping closer, he saw what appeared to be narrow tire tracks. That could explain how someone had gotten the bodies in. But how had they gotten them down the steep stairs from the floor above?

“Is there an elevator that comes down here?” he asked over his shoulder.

“No. There’s a service elevator near the kitchen, but it was never brought down here because of the cost,” Casey said.

Leroy nodded and entered the wine cellar, careful to step around the tracks that were already in the dust. The bodies were at the far back. He crouched down next to the first one. There was no reason to check for a pulse; the man was obviously dead and had been for some time. He did worm out