Page 73 of Call it Reckless

There was a knock at my door. “That’ll be your dad, I expect,” I told Lexi.

Her mouth twisted. “Oh. I wish I didn’t have to go home. I like spending time with you.”

Oh, my heart. “I like it, too, sweetheart.”

The knock sounded again. “I guess I should answer that before your dad thinks I kidnapped you or something.” I winked at her, making her laugh.

I left her to finish eating and answered the door, where I found Reid standing with his one hand braced on the door frame. “I’m surprised you didn’t just barge in,” I joked, then stopped laughing when I saw the grim look on Reid’s face.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

Reid

“Damn, man. They’ve wiped it pretty clean.”

I’d hated leaving Lex and Bristol. But when I’d gotten the phone call from Zane saying some hikers had found a wounded dog in the woods and had heard the barking of others further off the trail, I’d hoped we’d find some clues that would further our investigation.

Zane was right. I looked around the crude shack nearly hidden by overgrown forest several yards off an old lumber road that wasn’t used anymore. There wasn’t anyone who lived out here, but occasionally, hikers would use it for some off-trail adventure.

The shack was very minimal, just large enough that two, maybe three men could have slept in it if they didn’t mind being on top of each other. Even though I’d only hiked this trail once or twice, I knew that shack wasn’t there last year. And someone had taken some time to clear enough of the overgrowth to create a small patch of about twenty square feet.

“Still think it was a small-scale meth lab?” Zane asked, bagging a piece of rubber tubing and a syringe we’d found in a clearing outside the shack. “Could it be poachers?”

“Could be,” I answered. “Either could explain using dogs as an alarm as well as to scare off any would-be snoopers.”

“And easy to abandon,” he growled, eyeing the animal control worker checking out the whimpering dog we’d found. God only knew how long it had been there, but it was close to starving. He looked like he’d had a run-in with a wild animal, too. He reminded me a bit of Buddy. Could Bristol’s dog have been part of this setup as well and somehow escaped?

“Something still doesn’t add up,” I added, squatting while I looked at the ground several yards away from the shack. “The ground is scuffed, there’s hardly any trash left except for food wrappers, and there’s no chemical scent.”

“Maybe they cleaned up really well. Or it’s been a while. It wouldn’t take long out here in the open air for those smells to dissipate.”

“I don’t know. If they had that kind of time, why not take the dog? This seems more like someone left in a hurry.”

Zane blew out a frustrated breath. “Shit, I don’t know, man. Nothing makes sense. I just want to catch these bastards. Whatever they’re doing, they’re up to no good.”

“Agreed.”

“Hey, Brax.”

I heard my name from farther up the path and headed to where a friend in the park service was standing. “What’s up?”

Jonathan pointed to a pile of plywood scraps and sticks that had been thrown into a small ravine. “Take a look at that. Someone definitely took the time to dismantle something and throw it away.”

I peered at the mess. “A lot of something, I’d say.”

Together, we made our way down the steep hill, grunting and sliding along the way. It was going to be a bitch to climb back up. I put on a pair of gloves and poked through the rubbish. More syringes. I pointed to a reddish-brown spot on a piece of wood. “Does that look like blood to you?”

“Definitely could be.”

“Let’s pull forensics in and see if they can lift any prints from these boards or the shack and get a sample of that blood. Maybe we’ll get lucky and get a hit. If we can identify the who, we may find the what.”

Over an hour later, I finally got back in my patrol truck and headed back down the mountain to Sterling Mill. As I hit the outskirts of town, it had seemed perfectly natural for me to drive past my neighborhood and head toward Bristol’s house.

When I arrived, I got out of my car, but before I could head toward the porch, the door to the guest house opened. Paige stood in the light that spilled from inside.

“Paige. How are you?”

“I’m good. You look like you’ve had a rough evening.”

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