Page 70 of Tangled Past
Chapter Twenty-Two
The rain didn’t wash the blood away. Asa’s flashlight beam caught traces of it.
He crouched near the edge of the tree line, fingers hovering inches from the ground, his breath fogging in the cold as he studied the trail. Drops. Smears. A partial boot print dragged sideways. “He’s injured and favoring his left side.” But still dangerous.
“He’s bleeding bad,” Rachel said behind him.
“Yes,” Asa whispered.
Will stood a few steps back, radio pressed to his shoulder. “I’ve got a trail heading north-northeast,” he said into the mic. “Toward the old lighthouse. Advise perimeter units to tighten up. He’s wounded but mobile.”
Static crackled. A response came back immediately. “Copy that. Units converging.”
The lighthouse. The words landed like a blow to the chest.
Asa straightened slowly, rain soaking into his jacket, the weight of his gun suddenly heavier in his hand. The beam of hisflashlight swept forward, catching another dark stain on a rock, then another on a low-hanging branch.
Of course. The place Jonas used to take him whenever he visited the island back when Asa was a kid. Back before the murder. Jonas loved the old lighthouse. He talked about it with a strange mix of reverence and disdain. The place he’d said was “quiet enough to think.” The place no one ever went anymore unless they were looking for ghosts.
Asa swallowed. He didn’t believe in coincidences. Not anymore. “Let’s move.”
They advanced carefully, spread out but tight enough to cover one another. The wind howled louder as they crested the ridge, the lighthouse rising ahead of them like a skeletal finger pointing accusingly at the sky.
The stone structure loomed against the darkness, rain slicking down its sides, windows black and empty like watching eyes. The door at the base hung slightly ajar.
Asa’s pulse spiked. “He’s inside.”
Will nodded once. “Stack up.”
Asa took point, Will to his right, Rachel, and two Hope Island Securities team members behind them. The smell hit him first as they crossed the threshold—old salt, mildew, rust.
Fresh blood. It streaked across the stone floor, leading toward the narrow staircase spiraling down.
Asa closed his eyes for half a second.
“Basement,” Rachel murmured. “That’s where it leads.”
Will’s voice turned to steel. “We go slow. He’s cornered. That makes him unpredictable.”
Asa moved down the steep, uneven stairs, each step slick with moisture and age. The flashlight beam bobbed with his breathing, catching flashes of stone walls, iron brackets, and old wiring stripped bare.
The drops of blood grew closer together.
At the bottom of the stairs, the space opened into a wide, circular chamber carved into the rock beneath the lighthouse. Asa’s boot slid to a stop as the light swept across the room.
His stomach dropped. “No,” he whispered.
Recessed alcoves lined the walls—dozens of them. Each one marked. Some with wooden plaques. Some with metal tags. Some with nothing more than a date scratched into stone.
Candles burned down to waxy stumps sat beneath many of them. There were photographs. Not of faces, but of shoes, bracelets, a scarf, a cracked phone, a necklace with a tiny cross.
A virtual graveyard filled with many more victims than they even know about.
Rachel sucked in a sharp breath. “I can’t believe it.”
Asa couldn’t move.
This wasn’t a hiding place.
