We started walking, and after a while, I wasn’t so sure Foley had given me the right directions, but then I saw the cabin sitting in a small clearing, its roof bowed inward at the center, the wood darkened with moss. One of its shutters was missing. The other was hanging on by a thread. The more I looked at it, the more the whole structure looked like it had exhaled and given up.
Giovanni turned toward me, giving a low whistle. “This place looks like it’s about to collapse.”
“I hope it doesn’t, not until we get the chance to look around.”
“I’d feel a whole lot better if you let me check it out first.”
He phrased it as a statement rather than an option I was being given, so I held back as he stepped onto the porch, testing the boards before putting his weight down.
Turning toward me, he said, “It’s sturdier than it looks.”
I nodded and followed him inside, noting the air was cold and stale, carrying the scent of rot and something else I couldn’t place. Light filtered in through a gap in the roof, spilling over a broken table and a scattering of debris on the floor.
“Someone’s been here,” I said, kneeling near the hearth. “See that?”
He leaned over my shoulder, and I pointed out the ashes in the fireplace. They were gray and compact, but the scent of smoke was long gone.
“It looks like it’s been a while,” he said.
“A few weeks, maybe a month, or even longer.”
We searched the main room first. A few rusted nails clung to a wall where something had once hung, and in the far corner was a single wooden chair, which was missing a leg. I walked to it and flipped it over, checking out the seat. In the corner, the initials LL were carved into it inside a heart. I took a step back, studying the carving. The letters were somewhat fresh and deliberate, carved with a steady hand.
“This is interesting,” I said.
Giovanni leaned in. “Do those initials mean anything to you?”
“Audrey was dating Logan Lambert. It makes sense that she carved it. And here’s another one—AF.”
“AF wouldn’t be Audrey. Her last name is Ashford.”
We kept looking.
I walked over to the remnants of what used to be a bed, curious to see if there was anything beneath it. “Hey, will you give me a hand?”
Giovanni nodded and joined me. We moved the bed to the side, and I noticed most of the floorboards beneath it were gone.
“Wonder what’s down there,” I said.
“Care to find out?”
I nodded, and he stepped out of the cabin, returning a minute later with a shovel. I gripped the handle, dragging it across the rotted floorboards as I made my way back over to the bed.
“Looks like some of the boards in this place have given out,” he said.
“Or someone pulled them out and used the bed to cover it.” I glanced around. “I don’t see the missing floorboards anywhere, which seems strange to me. If they gave way, wouldn’t they be here, in this hole?”
Beneath the splintered planks, it was hard to tell whether the dirt in the hole had ever been disturbed or not, but there was one way to find out.
I began to dig, a curious Giovanni looking on.
A few feet down, the dirt changed color, darker and wetter, perhaps seeping in from an abandoned body of water nearby. I knelt and began brushing it away with my hands, and then I saw something, a rock maybe. I wasn’t sure. I dug around it with care until it came free.
“What have you found?” Giovanni asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s curved like the link of a chain. I don’t think it’s a rock.”
I brushed the mud away with my fingers, though the grime clung tight, making it impossible to know what I’d found.
