The bus chugged around a curve, but it was dark on the country road, a storm brewing, thunder rumbling. A car raced up behind the bus and rammed it, and the bus jolted forward. The driver shouted, then tires screeched and the bus swerved toward the embankment. The ridge loomed below, and fear shot through Tawny-Lynn.
She hated heights. Had always been scared on the switchbacks.
The bus jerked again, something scraped the side, then the bus went into a skid. One of the girls screamed, brakes squealed, then the bus flew out of control, slammed into the metal guardrail and careened over the ridge.
Backpacks and gym bags slid onto the floor, and she gripped the seat edge to keep from falling. Bodies fell into the aisle, blood was flying, and she was thrown against the metal seat top as the bus crashed into the ravine.
Sometime later, she roused. It was dark, so dark...pain throbbed through her chest and leg.
She couldn’t move. It was deathly quiet.
Then she felt hands pulling at her, moving her. She tried to open her eyes, but the world was foggy.
Breathing rasped around her. She tried to see who was pulling her from the bus, but it was too dark. Then she heard crying again—another scream. Voices.
Was her sister all right?
She struggled to see, but...there was a man...his face...hidden in shadows. Who was he?
Tawny-Lynn jerked awake, panting for a breath. The dream...had been so real. A memory.
She had heard a voice. Seen a face.
A man’s? A woman’s? Peyton’s maybe?
God help her, who was it?
* * *
CHAZ POPPED OPEN a cold beer when he made it home, his mind obsessing over Tawny-Lynn. Was she sleeping now? Or was she awake, terrified the person who’d left her that bloody message would return and make good on his threat?
Tension knotted his shoulders. He wanted to be back at White Forks watching out for her. Making sure she was safe.
Holding her...
Dammit, no. Tawny-Lynn was the last woman on earth he needed to be attracted to.
Why her?
Why now?
Life would be so much simpler if she cleaned that place up quickly, hung the for-sale sign, left town and never came back.
Then he wouldn’t have to think about her being on that deserted run-down ranch by herself where God knew anyone could sneak up and attack her.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t have enemies. She had too many to count.
The people who’d lost family members in that crash despised her for not being able to give them closure by identifying the person who’d hit the bus and caused the crash.
Their family members, Coach Wake and half the town had also been questioned as suspects and resented it because Tawny-Lynn could have cleared their names.
Coach Wake has literally sobbed at the news of the crash, saying maybe if he’d been with the girls on the bus he could have done something to save them. Instead, he’d driven his own car, taken a side road, then stopped for cash and a surprise cake to take to the celebration dinner.
Tawny-Lynn’s delicate face flashed in Chaz’s head, and he grimaced, sipped his beer and headed to his home office. The cabin was small, but he’d carved a workspace in the second bedroom where he’d hung a gigantic whiteboard and laid out everything he knew about the missing girls from Sunset Mesa and Camden Crossing.
A smaller board held photos of other missing young women from various states for comparison purposes so he could look for connections.
Once again, he studied the pictures former sheriff Harold Simmons had taken of the accident. The bus was a mess, dented and crushed against a boulder in the ravine, flames shooting from all sides.
Keith Plumbing, a local handyman had driven up on the scene and called it in. His statement said he’d first seen smoke, then stopped and realized it was a bus and called 911. He’d run down the embankment to rescue the students trapped inside, but by the time he reached the bus, it burst into flames. He saw Tawny-Lynn lying in the dirt several feet away. But no one else was around.
Due to the fact that Keith called in the accident and had a history of drinking on the job, and he’d worked in Camden Crossing and Sunset Mesa, the sheriff questioned him as a person of interest. Plumbing could have caused the crash, then lied about the timing, dragged Tawny-Lynn out to safety but couldn’t save the others.
Although he’d sworn he hadn’t seen Peyton or Ruth. And if he’d hurt them or kidnapped them, where had he taken them? He hadn’t had enough time between the time of the crash and when he’d called in the accident to dispose of a body.
Another photograph showed Tawny-Lynn unconscious on the stretcher, her leg twisted, blood streaking her face and hands. She looked so pale and fragile that he wondered how she’d survived.
Shaking off emotions he didn’t want to feel for her, he glanced at the list of suspects the sheriff had considered. Plumbing had been one. He’d also questioned Barry Dothan, a young man with a mental disability that affected his learning and behavior.
Dothan liked to watch teenagers and took pictures of them on the track, swim team and softball field. But his mother swore that Barry was harmless, that he would never hurt a soul. The pictures of Ruth and Peyton posted on the corkboard above his bed were the only evidence that incriminated him. Some of the girls at school claimed they felt uncomfortable around him, but none of them had accused him of inappropriate behavior.
Chaz downed the rest of his beer and grabbed another, pacing to calm himself. God, his heart hurt just imagining what might have happened to his sister and Ruth.
He skimmed the former sheriff’s notes. The investigators they’d called in from the county had found remains of three girls and the driver in the ashes left after the bus had exploded.
Ruth and Peyton were not among them.
So what the hell had happened to them?
Could Plumbing have had more time than they’d originally thought, time to kill the girls and dump their bodies somewhere?
They’d searched the man’s truck. No girls, blood or forensics inside.
They’d also combed the area surrounding the crash site for bodies, a dead end as well.
Dothan didn’t seem smart enough to abduct two girls and hide them.
But nobody else was there.
There had to be, though—or else how had Tawny-Lynn escaped the burning bus?
Peyton or Ruth could have dragged her out. But then what?
Frustrated, he slammed his fist on the desk, rattling paper clips and files.
He forced himself to look at the pictures of the two girls who’d gone missing from Sunset Mesa the year before. Almost the same time of year.
Avery Portland and Melanie Hoit. Avery grew up with a single mother, worked at the ice cream shop and was voted most likely to succeed in her class. She was popular, on the dance team at school, and class president.
Melanie was a cheerleader, pretty and aspired to be a model. Some of her classmates described her as the girl everyone wanted to be. A few others commented that she was a snob.
But so far everyone they’d questioned had alibis.
And neither girl had been found. No body. No ransom calls.
Nothing.
The parents wanted closure just as the residents in Camden Crossing did.
He