More precautions.
And Jack took yet one more. He slid a backup weapon from his equipment bag and handed it to Caroline. If he’d seen any indications that she wasn’t comfortable with the gun, he would have rethought his offer. But she took it right away.
“Obviously, it’s not a tranq gun,” he explained, “but you might need it if someone gets past Gunnar and Manuel.”
“Thanks,” she said. “By the way, I do know how to use it, and Lucille taught me a lot of self-defense moves.”
Hell, he prayed it didn’t come down to that, and he forced himself to believe that the best-case scenario would happen. That their attacker would rush to the inn and they could catch him or her.
Even though it was only a few miles, it seemed to take an eternity to get to the inn, and Jack’s concerns continued to snowball with each passing second. However, he didn’t see or hear anything to make him tell Clarie to turn around and go back to the ranch.
When Clarie reached the inn, she pulled up as close as she could to the wide front porch, and Jack leaned down a little so he could look up at the place. Once it had been a mansion. A showcase for someone who’d had lots and lots of money. When the rich owner had passed away, his heirs had turned it into an inn, a business that had ultimately failed, and they’d let it go when they couldn’t pay the taxes. So it had stood abandoned, empty and neglected for years. That was why there was definitely nothing welcoming about it now.
“Talk about creepy,” Clarie grumbled.
Yeah, that was the right word for it. Most of the windows had been boarded up, and the ones that hadn’t been were just dark holes of jagged, broken glass.
The grounds hadn’t fared much better with time and lack of care. Once, there’d been gardens, but now it was an overgrown jumble of trees, underbrush and weeds. Some vines coiled out from that tangle and had snaked their way up the brick-and-stone facade.
Caroline was studying the place, too, but Jack figured it was more than just creepy for her. It was the place of her own personal nightmares. Where she’d come too darn close to dying over a year ago, when Eric had kidnapped her and brought her here.
After Jack gave Clarie a nod, the three of them got out and hurried up the steps and inside. Nothing was welcoming here, either. Just an empty shell with scarred wood floors and walls with holes and graffiti.
Broken glass was scattered everywhere, and they would hopefully use that to their advantage. When Gunnar and Manuel had gone through the place, they’d kicked up piles of it next to all the doors and the unboarded windows. That way, if an intruder came in, they should be able to hear when he or she stepped on the shards.
Since the killer was supposed to believe that Caroline was there to meet a therapist, Jack and Clarie started setting the scene. He stayed right by Caroline’s side while he took out the flashlights. Not for them to carry. No, he would put these in the foyer and the adjoining room so it would seem as if that was where they were.
It wouldn’t be.
“This way,” Jack said, leading Caroline and Clarie away from the lights.
The plan was to take them to the first room off the hall behind the winding staircase, but Caroline stopped and glanced down.
There was a bloodstain on the foyer floor.
Not fresh, thank God.
Nor was it Caroline’s.
It belonged to Gemma, who’d also been attacked here over a year ago. The memory of his father, who had been murdered that night, gave Jack another sucker punch of grief. Even though Gemma had survived the attack, seeing that bloodstain brought it all back, and he was certain it was even worse for Caroline. She’d nearly been killed that night, too.
Jack pushed that all aside and got them moving to the room where they’d wait this out. It wasn’t ideal since it did have a window, but at least this one was boarded up. Plus, if thingswent to hell in a handbasket, they could move into one of the other dozen or so rooms that fed off the hall.
The three of them stood there a moment so their eyes could adjust to the near darkness. Some of the milky light from the foyer made its way here. Just enough to create some spooky shadows and show dust motes floating like little ghosts around the room.
It was no wonder that some folks called the place haunted and only came here when dares, too much alcohol or both played into the mix.
“There’s a blanket in the equipment bag,” he told Caroline, knowing she wasn’t going to use it. She didn’t.
Caroline went to the window with Clarie, each taking a side so they could peer out through the cracks in the boards. Jack took up position by the door so he could see not only the hall but the front door.
And the wait began.
Even though Grace had gotten out the “leak” fast, it didn’t mean their attacker had managed to get things ready to come to the inn. But that thought had no sooner crossed his mind when his phone dinged with a text message. A message that had Jack cursing under his breath.
“Gunnar spotted someone on the road,” Jack relayed to Caroline and Clarie. “The person’s on foot and headed our way.”
Chapter Fifteen
