Page 106 of Deadly Revenge

Jenna climbed into the driver’s side of her SUV while Max jogged around to the passenger side and climbed in. Silence rode with them as they drove to the Armstrong farm.

They were almost to the farm when Jenna broke it. “It’s almost like they knew we were coming.”

“My thoughts exactly, but how?”

“Could be coincidence. At least we can check everything out—maybe they left something behind.”

Twenty minutes later they pulled in the drive, parked behind Weaver, and climbed out. The place certainly looked deserted. Max turned to Weaver. “Did you get a driver’s license from the person renting the place?”

“I always get a license.” Weaver flipped through the rental file. “Here it is.”

Jenna snapped a photo of the license and handed the paper to Max. It was a Tennessee driver’s license for one Johnathan Smith with a Chattanooga address. “You want to call it in to DMV?” he asked Jenna.

“On it.”

He followed Weaver inside the house. “At least they left it clean,” the rental agent said.

Max walked through the house. Clean wasn’t quite the right word. More like sanitized. Even the plates on the light switches looked as though they’d been polished, and there wasn’t a scrap of paper left behind, not even in the trash cans. He turned as Jenna joined them. “Any results?”

“The license is fake.”

“Fake?” Weaver said. “That can’t be!”

“Did you check it out?”

“Well ... no. It looked real enough.”

That figured. All Tom Weaver saw was dollar signs.

“Do you have a key to the barn?” Jenna asked. “We’d like to see inside it.”

“What are you looking for?” Weaver asked.

Max said, “We don’t know, but it’s possible the people who rented the property were doing something illegal.”

“Can’t trust nobody anymore,” Weaver muttered and pulled a key ring with several keys on it from his pocket. After sorting through the keys, he pulled one off and handed it to Max. “Do you need me to come with you?”

“No,” they both said in unison.

He stiffened. “Just asking.”

They stepped outside into the bright sunlight. “Want to walk or drive?”

“Are you kidding?” Her tone had an attitude.

“Just asking,” he mimicked in Weaver’s high-pitched voice.

At least that got a chuckle out of Jenna.

“You can drive, but I’m walking,” she said. “It isn’t that far.”

He declined, and they approached the barn, both pulling on nitrile gloves. Once Max unlocked the door, he slid it open and they entered the building. Dust motes swam in the rays from a skylight window. He sniffed the air, and a lingering musk odor explained what the men had been doing here.

“They were growing marijuana,” Jenna said. “But I don’t think they were growing it in this room. Maybe in one of the side rooms?”

“Check it out.” He waved his hand in front of his nose. “It smells like some of them were smoking it.”

Judging by a couple of bales of hay against one wall, the building was used as a hay barn at one time. Max kicked a shoe box out of his way and eyed a couple of cardboard boxes. Apparently, it was also a place to store junk people didn’t know what to do with. He approached the two tables in the middle of the room.

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