Casey relaxed when he saw the county cruiser parked in the drive next to Naomi’s pickup. But he wouldn’t be satisfied until he laid eyes on her. She was the biggest victim of all in this mess. She had been deceived by everyone around her.

  Inside, the house was empty. Casey’s guard went up. “She said she and the deputy on detail were searching the house again.” Though this looked a little intense, maybe she’d reached her limit on patience. Naomi wanted answers more than anyone.

  “Let me give my guy a call and find out where they are.”

  Casey would breathe easier when he knew where she was. He waited while Tanner made the call. When he frowned and ended the call, he said, “No answer.”

  They walked back outside and to the cruiser. Tanner looked it over, glanced inside. “I thought Higgins had detail this morning, but this is Lawton’s vehicle.”

  Worry niggled at Casey. “I was going to ask—there’s been a different deputy on detail every shift except for Lawton. He’s covered several shifts this week. Is he one of your most trusted deputies?”

  “They’re all trusted,” Tanner said as he put through another call on his cell. “Lawton volunteered for extra shifts because his sister is a longtime friend of the Honea family. She was Dr. Honea’s nurse for years.”

  “Is that right? He never mentioned it.” Casey thought about all Naomi had said about her mom’s clinic. “As a matter of fact, Naomi didn’t, either. She mentioned the nurse but not the connection to Lawton.”

  An uneasy feeling welled in his chest. Casey had to force himself to hold still while Tanner did what he had to do.

  Tanner ended the call he’d made. “Lawton’s not picking up, either.” The sheriff made a third call then, ordering someone on the other end to find Deputy Higgins. He surveyed the parked vehicles in the driveway before turning his attention back to Casey. “Naomi’s vehicle is here. So is Lawton’s. Let’s operate under the assumption they’re both on the grounds somewhere.”

  “I’ll get my people over here searching.” Casey reached for his phone, realized he didn’t have it.

  Tanner nodded. “I’ll have my people bring your people.” He made another call. “While I’m at it, I’m having Lawton’s sister picked up and brought over here. I think we need to talk to her. Clear up this confusion.”

  Casey was fairly convinced there was no confusion. Only desperation.

  * * *

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS.”

  Naomi had been pouring through ledgers for the past half hour or more. Arlene kept precise notes on every incoming “product” and each sale. Naomi was equally stunned and horrified.

  She looked up, surveyed the rows and rows of glass containers. Each held carefully stored bones. Every imaginable human bone. All carefully cleaned, from the looks of them, and stored. The room—basement, whatever it was—was climate controlled. It wasn’t that large, maybe twelve feet by twenty feet. Spotless, immaculate. The floors, the walls and the ceiling were white. Boxes of gloves sat on a table, she suspected for handling the bones.

  “It’s pretty incredible,” Deputy Lawton said. “Can you imagine how long it took to build a collection like this?”

  Naomi stood from the desk and moved toward the wall of bones. “I can’t even imagine.”

  “The prep area is state of the art,” he pointed out.

  She turned to the opposite side of the room. He was right. Stainless-steel tables and sinks. Refrigerator, supply shelves. How on earth had this room gotten here without her parents’ knowledge? It just didn’t make sense.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “How is this possible?”

  “I’ll bet it took lots of money.”

  Naomi glanced at the deputy. He seemed astonished, as well. Who wouldn’t be?

  “My parents couldn’t have been part of this. It’s impossible. They would never do this.”

  “You’re right,” Deputy Lawton agreed. “It takes a certain kind of person.” He tapped his temple. “A certain genius, too.”

  Naomi wasn’t sure she would call it genius, but she understood what he meant. Maybe. She walked back to the desk and opened more of the drawers. Arlene had been meticulous in her record keeping. The buyers were recorded as numbers. Now all Naomi needed was the key to the numbers. The buyers should go down for their heinous parts in this, too. She thought of the numbers on that file folder. There had to be a connection. Now that she thought about it, the patterns were similar.

  “What you looking for?”

  She glanced up. “There should be a key or a legend somewhere that tells us who the buyers are or what these numbers mean. I’m certain the FBI will want to round up the buyers, too.”

  “I can’t let you do that, Naomi.”

  She looked up from the middle drawer. “What?” She must have misheard him.

  “You see.” He sat his hand on his service weapon and started toward her. “My sister and I have worked a very long time to help build this business. We started a very long time ago, but it wasn’t until we met Arlene that everything clicked. She truly was a genius. It’s a shame her disturbed brother thought he had to save the world from her. We told her to get rid of him a long time ago, but she wouldn’t.” He laughed, a deep one that shook his round belly. “Can you image, she couldn’t bear the idea of killing her brother when she did all this.” He waved his free hand around the room. “Oh, and far more. You have no idea all the things she did.”

  Naomi backed away from the desk.

  He continued coming toward her.

  As much as she wanted to charge him and try to get past him, the gun be damned, she desperately needed him to keep talking. She needed to know the truth.

  “How did she hide it from my parents? I can’t believe they missed all of this.” She looked around the room. “It’s too much.” He only grinned. So, she took a different tactic. “Maybe I’m wrong. It must have been my mother. She was a true genius. I’ll bet she’s the one who arranged everything. The mastermind. Arlene probably took orders from her.”

  Fury tightened his face. “Oh, no. Poor Muriel was like you, she believed the best in everyone. But then she let herself get in the way.” He shrugged. “She may have gotten a little suspicious, but Sarah took care of that. Did you know there are certain chemicals you can add to a person’s food and drink that will cause cancer? Really fast, fatal cancer.”

  Pain followed immediately by outrage roared through Naomi. “Are you saying she poisoned my mother?”

  He shook his head, grinning like a fool. “I said no such thing. But while she was sick and with you so far away, it was easy to set all this up. To expand the business. We took every opportunity to construct the things we needed but after you moved to California your parents just didn’t take vacations the way they used to. A couple of days here or there but nothing extended. Your father wouldn’t leave her side in those last months. We accomplished a lot during that time.”

  Ice slid through her veins. “What about my dad?” Every fiber of her being screamed in pain at the idea of what this man—this monster—was telling her.

  “For a long while he only muddled through, allowing Arlene to do as she pleased, but then he started to get a little nosy. Maybe it was all those extra deposits she made for him. He started to wonder where she was getting all that extra cash.”

  Her heart seemed to rip apart in her chest.

  “Exchanging his heart medication for something stronger was simple. Took no time at all. He didn’t suffer. Not the way your mother did. It was too bad, but it was the best way to do it, my sister said. No one is ever suspicious of cancer and, you know, heart attacks happen all the time.”

  For the first time in her life, Naomi wanted to hurt someone. No, rage exploded in her chest—she wanted to...

  What she wanted didn’t matter. She had to find a way to escape. Casey and Sheriff Tanner needed to know what had happened here. They needed to stop these people. Otherwise, her parents would end up being blamed in the end.

  She would not allow their reputations to be destroyed.

  She held up her hands to stop his advancement. “Just tell me what you want. The farm? What? They’re probably going to blame my parents, anyway. I’ll just go back to California and never look back. We all get what we want.”

  Another of those deep rumbling laughs burst from his throat. “Don’t try pulling that on me. I’ve got your number, lady. My only job was to find this place. You see, Arlene didn’t trust us completely. She liked hiding certain things like the records.” He nodded to the desk. “And the money. She doled it out like she was the only one in control. All I have to do now is set this place on fire and leave you to burn up with the evidence of our buyers.”

  She had to get out of here. “But what about the money? Don’t you want it? I know where she hid the money.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Don’t lie to me.”

  Obviously Sheriff Tanner and Chief Brannigan had not briefed all their deputies and officers about the find at High Street. Thank God.

  “You remember where I found that head in the box?” She held her breath. Prayed he would believe her.

  “’Course. I heard about that. I’m a deputy, after all.”

  “Well, what I didn’t tell anyone was that I found money, too.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know what was going to happen with all this and I thought I might need to run away if the police tried to blame me. So I hid the money. It’s a lot of money. A whole lot of money.”

  He studied her a moment. “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s in bundles. All small denominations. A whole lot of money.” She emphasized the last part.

  “Where did you put it?” His fingers tightened around the butt of his weapon.

  “I’ll show you, but I’m not telling you. And you already know it’s not in my house. I’ll bet you’ve checked the barn and the lab.”

  His lips pursed with anger. “Tell me or I’ll kill you now.” He drew his weapon.

  She shrugged. “Then I guess you’ll never get your hands on the money because you will never find where I hid it. Never in a million years.”

  For a moment she was certain he wasn’t going to go for it, then he motioned with his gun. “Let’s go. You do anything I don’t like, and you’ll regret it.”

  She nodded.

  “First, take out your cell phone. Turn it off and leave it on the desk.”

  She hated to give up her cell but if it got her out of here, she would have a far better chance of survival. She took it from her pocket and turned it off as requested and then placed it on the desk.

  “This way.” He motioned with his gun again.

  She moved in front of him. She should have known something was wrong when he lowered the hydraulic lift after they came down the stairs. But the sight of all those bones had thrown her off balance.

  No problem. He had to raise it again for them to get out. When he did and they got to the top of the stairs she was running, gun or no.

  Rather than go to the stairs and press the button behind the locked glass panel, he went to the cabinet next to the sink. He opened the doors and checked inside, then moved around the wall on that end of the room, sliding his hand over the white surface. What the hell was he doing?

  “There it is.” He stood back and watched as a panel opened in the wall.

  Okay, this was too much.

  “I thought you didn’t know where this place was.” What a liar!

  “I didn’t, but my sister said Arlene talked about it all the time and the escape tunnel she installed.” He hitched his head toward the wall of bones. “I figured it probably wasn’t there or behind the desk where all the files are. This was just a guess.” He gestured to the small opening. “Ladies first.”

  “Why don’t we just go out the way we came in?” This is not how she had planned this happening.

  “Your FBI friend is probably back at the house by now. For all we know, the place could be crawling with feds and cops.”

  Exactly what she’d hoped for.

  “Let’s go,” he repeated.

  She ducked into the opening, grateful for the dim lighting, and walked two steps before she could straighten to her full height. About every ten feet there was a small dim light overhead. Like emergency lighting in a stairwell. He came in right behind her.

  “Let’s go,” he ordered.

  “I thought you were burning the place.” If he set a fire, surely smoke would set off an alarm in her dad’s workshop. There had to be ventilation.

  “I’ll do it after I have the money.”

  She got it now. He didn’t care about destroying the evidence. He had just assumed the money would be here with the bones and ledgers, but it wasn’t. He had searched the place while she studied the ledgers. The money is all he wanted.

  “Fine.”

  She started forward. “Do you have any idea where this goes?”

  “Nope, but I’ll go back the way we came if you run into a booby trap.”

  Her heart skipped a beat. She hadn’t even thought of that.

  They walked onward. The tunnel was narrow and she was surprised his broad body didn’t scrape the sides. The floor and walls looked like concrete, but she couldn’t be sure. Finally, the tunnel ended at an iron ladder that led upward.

  “Start climbing,” he ordered. “When you get outside, if you run, I’ll shoot you in the back. I’m not going to prison.”

  He was if she could do anything about it. “Okay.”

  Naomi steadied her breathing and reached for the ladder. She was halfway up when he said, “Don’t forget I’m right behind you.”

  She reached the top of the ladder and the exit appeared to be one of those round hatch openings like the ones in submarines—at least in the movies. She had to grab hold with both hands and twist with all her might to open it. When the lock released, she pushed the hatch upward as she climbed the last few rungs.

  The opening was narrow. If she was lucky, he’d get stuck.

  Looking around, she took her time climbing out. She needed to get her bearings before his head was out of the opening.

  Woods. Had to be only a short distance from the house. They hadn’t walked that far. She climbed out, pulled herself up onto the ground.

  All she had to do was run.

  A strong hand clamped around her ankle and jerked.

  She hit the ground face-first.

  Lawton was out of the hole and towering over her with his gun before she could scramble up. “If you scream, I will shoot. If you run, I will shoot,” he growled as if he’d been reading her mind all along.

  She eased into a sitting position and stared up at him. “So, shoot.”

  He grabbed her by the arm.

  She grabbed the weapon with both hands.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tanner’s missing deputy had been slugged from behind, secured in the trunk of his cruiser and left on a side road less than a mile from the Honea farm.

  Casey found no relief in his statement of events. Lawton had arrived and told him there was a problem at the barn. Halfway around the house Lawton had attacked. When Higgins had awakened he had been secured in the trunk of his own cruiser. Naomi had still been in the house at the time Lawton showed up, only minutes after Casey had left. Naomi had likely still been asleep.

  Fury whipped through Casey. He and the others, including Wagner, had fanned out around the farmhouse and started the search. The barn, the lab and workshop, and the woods around the perimeter of the front and back yard had yielded nothing so far. Brannigan had ordered a team with dogs but it would be a bit before they arrived.

  The cell phone Casey had borrowed from a deputy vibrated. Tanner. “Is the nurse here?” he asked the sheriff.

  “My deputies just arrived with her. Two others stayed back to search her property. You want to question her, or do you want me to do it?”

  Casey considered going back to the house, but he needed to be on the ground. “See what you can find out. I’ll stick with the search.”

  With all the vehicles accounted for, unless someone picked Lawton and Naomi up, they had to be out here somewhere. If the sister had picked them up, hopefully they would soon know.

  “I’ll call you back as soon as I know anything.”

  Casey put the phone away and started walking again, deeper into the woods.

  “Agent Duncan!”

  The shout came from his left. Good distance away. He shouted a response and started in that direction.

  “We’ve got something over here.”

  Casey found the two officers from Brannigan’s department maybe a hundred yards from the workshop. They were huddled around something on the ground.

  His gut clenched and his heart slammed against his sternum.

  “It leads down a ladder into a tunnel,” one of the officers said. “You want me to check it out.”

  “Call for backup first,” Casey said. To the other officer, he ordered, “You come with me.”

  They started forward as the officer left at the tunnel opening called for backup.

  “Which direction is the road?” Casey asked. If that was an emergency egress, there was no doubt a way to get away from the farm. A vehicle or something stashed nearby.

  “This way, sir.”

  The urge to call out to Naomi was so strong he barely held it back. They couldn’t take the risk. The element of surprise might be their only leverage at this point.

  Casey and the deputy covered a good distance when a sound...a whisper or wheeze...stopped Casey in his tracks.

  He held up his hand, then motioned with a finger to his mouth for the other man to stay quiet. The sound came again. A gasp or wheeze.