And his gut screamed,No.
He grabbed her jacket and pulled her back, and she nearly fell into his arms. He caught her, trapped her in his embrace. “Me first.”
He set her behind him. “Wait.”
Her eyes widened, and she nodded.
Then he went inside.
A gloomy darkness hovered through the room, dented only by the windows that allowed in the ghostly light of the day. The great room rose two stories tall, with a couple round tables in the middle and a leather sofa facing a cold, dead hearth.
He could nearly hear his heartbeat echo.
A chill ladened the air, although not freezing, so some heat remained, but on the counter sat a French press coffeepot, half full. A cast iron pan on the gas stove with standing grease, and...
Yes, something felt ... off.
“Is anyone here?” Keely came in behind him.
He rounded on her. “I told you to wait.”
She pulled down her scarf, and her mouth opened, and aw, he hadn’t meant it that way, but ... “Something smells ... oh no—”
Blood. He spotted it, a dark puddle on the kitchen floor. Heput out his hand to keep Keely away, but she wasn’t moving, her gaze on something else.
He turned and spotted a dish, broken on the floor. And then a trail of blood from the kitchen through the house.
“Please, stay here,” he said quietly, his heart thundering, and followed the blood.
It pooled in the bathroom in the claw-foot tub, but a handprint on the wall in the hallway led him to a bedroom.
Ransacked, or at least the bedclothes torn off, onto the floor.
“Dawson?”
He headed toward the front door. She stood in the opening, pointing out, and as he came up, he spotted a couple drops of blood in the snowy debris of the covered porch. In the distance, a shed’s doors hung open. He went down the steps, crunched in the snow, and stood at the edge of the shed.
Empty.
She’d followed him, now edged up behind him. “What were you hoping to find?”
“The ATV that Griffin mentioned. And maybe the snowmobile that Sully borrowed from the community.”
His gaze fell on a pair of cross-country skis hanging on the wall, along with a hunting bow, and a number of rifles locked up behind a cage.
He turned to her. “Let’s get inside. Warm up. We can call Moose on the ham radio.”
She said nothing, and he hated how he’d barked at her.
They returned to the house and he closed the door behind her and then deadbolted it. Then he pulled off his goggles, mittens, and face mask and set them on the table. She did the same, and pulled off her parka hood, shaking out that beautiful blond hair.
The memory of his fingers tangled up in it last night swept through him. Oh boy.
He’d really been hoping Sully might be here.
“I’ll get a fire going,” he said. “You look for the radio.” He pointed to a small adjacent office off the main room. “Could be in there.”
Cordwood piled against the side of the tall fireplace. The damper lay open, so no wonder the freeze had found its way in.
