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Back Midnight Sacrifice Save as PDF
Chapters (34)
  1. CHAPTER ONE
  2. CHAPTER TWO
  3. CHAPTER THREE
  4. CHAPTER FOUR
  5. CHAPTER FIVE
  6. CHAPTER SIX
  7. CHAPTER SEVEN
  8. CHAPTER EIGHT
  9. CHAPTER NINE
  10. CHAPTER TEN
  11. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  12. CHAPTER TWELVE
  13. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  14. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  15. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  16. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  17. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  18. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  19. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  20. CHAPTER TWENTY
  21. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  22. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  30. CHAPTER THIRTY
  31. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  32. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  33. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  34. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

“But not all of them have been nature’s fault.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Mandy loaded coffee cups and small plates into the dishwasher. The last hour had rushed by in a flurry of chores.

Danny carried the empty cookie tray into the kitchen. He stepped on the foot pedal of the garbage can and brushed the crumbs inside. “Have you seen the girls from Boston?”

Mandy recalled the small crowd in the dining room. She mentally ran through her guest list. Between what had happened on the riverbank and getting back to the inn late, she’d been flustered through the refreshment hour. “No, but I think I saw everyone else.” She squinted out the window. Dark clouds had steamrolled over the sunny day. “I don’t see their car.” Apprehension coiled in her belly. “And I don’t like the looks of that sky.”

“There’s still two hours of daylight,” Danny said.

“They’ve been back by this time every other day.” Mandy dried her hands on a dish towel. “I’m going to check their room. Maybe they came back, changed, and went out for pizza or something. Would you please check the weather report?”

“Sure.” He was already moving toward the little-used countertop TV.

She grabbed her master key and jogged up the steps. Staring at the door, her stomach crunched tighter. She knew as she put her knuckles to the wood that no one would answer her knock. The locked yielded to her key, and the door opened with the soft squeak of old hinges crying for oil. The room was empty. Inside, three suitcases appeared to have exploded. Clothing was strewn across chairs. Toiletries covered the dressers. The three twins beds were neatly made, but the inn had a policy of not touching the guests’ belongings.

No backpacks. Mandy scanned a pile of shoes in the corner. No hiking boots.

The girls hadn’t returned.

The Winston Museum of Art and Archeology was a big-ass brick house on a side street in Bangor. Conor parked his latest POS, a twenty-year-old Porsche 911 still in the restoration stage, at the curb. Unlike his brother Danny, who treated his convertible like the high school sweetheart he married, Conor restored a new car every year or so. He fed the meter and jogged up the steps onto a wide porch. According to the plaque by the door, the place was open. The door wasn’t locked, and he walked into a tiled lobby big enough for a half-court game of basketball. The old house was a center hall design. A dark wooden staircase bisected the foyer, and a hallway led to the rear of the house. An archway on each side of the huge entryway led to exhibit rooms.

There was no sign of the curator, Louisa M. Hancock, PhD, or anybody else, for that matter.