From the Shadows (Buckhorn, Montana #2) - B.J. Daniels Page 0,95

young woman.

There was no way he couldn’t take this seriously. He started to thank Finnegan for bringing this to him and to order him back to his room when Deputy Hepner appeared in the doorway behind the man. Leroy didn’t need any more bad news right now.

But when he saw Hepner’s face, he knew that whatever it was, it was much worse than anything else that had been discovered tonight. That was the thing about Hepner: every emotion showed on that face. Right now it was bleached white. He’d seen the man’s reaction when they found the graves. Hepner had been stoic, calm, contained. Now the deputy looked terrified.

Leroy felt his heart drop to his feet. “Thank you for this information,” he said to Finnegan. “Now, I would appreciate it if you would go back to your room.”

The man seemed to hesitate but then stepped past Hepner and out into the lobby. Leroy motioned the deputy in. He could tell that Finnegan was even more curious about what was going on.

Hepner closed the door behind him. “You need to come down to the basement. I found...”

Leroy shot him an impatient look.

The deputy swallowed and whispered in a hoarse voice, “Bombs.”

The word was so out of place in the situation that it didn’t make any sense for a moment. Not a bomb but bombs.

Hepner was green but smart. Still, Leroy doubted the kid had ever seen a bomb except in the movies.

“Show me.” He rose to his feet, and they left the office. In the lobby, he didn’t see Finnegan. Nor was he on the stairs. He didn’t have time to worry about him, however, as he followed the deputy down the hall to the doorway to the basement and then into the dark underbelly of the hotel.

At the wine-cellar entrance, Hepner drew him down one of the series of tunnels that handled the utilities. A series of corroded piles and conduits ran along the ceiling. Leroy had to bend down in spots to keep from bumping his head as he followed the younger man deeper and deeper under one of the wings, the smell becoming more dank and stagnant and...grave-like.

“The bombs are all along the outside walls,” Hepner said, his voice cracking, as he stopped to shine his flashlight on the first one he’d found.

Leroy stared at the dynamite for only a second before he turned to Hepner. “You say there are more of these?”

The deputy nodded. “All along the outside walls of the hotel, from what I can tell. I saw a half dozen before I came to tell you.”

The marshal swore under his breath. Bombs along the outside support walls? This wasn’t the first time he’d seen something like this. He had an uncle who specialized in explosive demolition. Uncle Pete had dropped some huge buildings in some of the country’s largest cities. He was an expert, dropping them straight down. He did beautiful work, which his nephew had always admired. He’d seen his old newsreels and videos of his jobs and been amazed at how a huge building could just drop to its feet, crumbling into nothing but dust and debris.

“There’s a knack to it, kid,” Uncle Pete had said when Leroy had asked how it was done. “It has to implode from inside and all at the same time. One little foul-up, and you can take out half the block.”

He’d asked if it was scary planting the explosives.

Pete had laughed. “Not if you know what you’re doing and it’s not your day to die.”

“Your uncle’s an idiot,” his father had said. “He has a death wish. I suppose he didn’t tell you about the time they didn’t go off and he had to go back in, knowing that at any moment he could be blown to smithereens. Death wish. One of these days, his luck is going to run out.”

Apparently that might have been true. Uncle Pete had died in one of his buildings a few years ago. No one knew why he’d gone back inside right before the building blew.

Leroy turned to his deputy, working to keep his tone calm and in control. “When we get upstairs, you’re going to use some of those boards outside to board the doors into this place once everyone is out. Then I’m going to pull the fire alarm. I need you and the rest of the deputies to get everyone out of the building. No mention of bombs. Just get them out and yourselves a good distance away