Page 51 of Fatal Vision
Please come through for me, Beatrice.
Salisbury’s nose came up and he sniffed the air. Like someone had goosed him, he let out a bark and took off.
The dog was no coonhound, but he had a nose on him. Colton jogged to keep up.
Salisbury led him straight to the back window—or at least where it should have been. A gaping square was all there was, next to an empty doorframe where the back door would have been.
The door and window faced Shelby’s house.
Salisbury went into sniff mode again, nose to the dirty concrete floor, tail wagging eagerly. He probably smelled the scent of some animal that had come through. There were plenty of bird droppings and it looked like mice had made the place a home during the past winter. In places, the wooden beams had been attacked by termites.
Under the window, a thin layer of good old Oklahoma sand had blown in. Salisbury nosed around a disturbance in the dirt.
“Salisbury, come,” Colton said, snapping his fingers.
The dog didn’t want to quit sniffing, but he reluctantly obeyed, sitting by Colton’s feet.
Colton stepped forward and eyed the swirls of dirt in the shadow under the window. Shoe print?
Pulling out his phone, he illuminated the area with the phone’s flashlight and felt a spike of adrenaline.
The impression was faint, almost nonexistent. He snapped photos of the indentations anyway. Whoever had stood here hadn’t been wearing sneakers or boots—there were no ridges or circles. But there were definitely impressions of a shoe heel and possibly a toe.
Colton lifted his own foot and let it hover next to the impression. He wore an eleven. Whoever had left the print behind wore a size slightly smaller.
Salisbury whined. Colton glanced over and the dog’s nose was in the air, quivering with another scent.
Colton avoided the footprint and looked out the window. His pulse was galloping, Salisbury’s excitement affecting him as well.
Someone had been here.
Recently.
The shooter?
Did he know Shelby was home? Had he been watching her place? Colton made a sweep around the outside of the house. Nothing.
He came back to the indentation in the dirt.
Sloppy to leave a shoe print behind.
But then, the cops and FBI had long ago given up on this place.
The expanse of what should have been the backyard was overgrown with weeds and wild plants. He stood once more in the window—where he knew the killer had to have stood that night—and stared across the street at Shelby’s house.
He saw movement in the window, just a flash of Connor walking by, but he pulled out his phone and texted him.
Close front blinds. Now.
A second later, Connor’s reply.They are.
Not all the way.He and Connor had probably disturbed them when they’d been placing the sensors in the windows.
Colton saw the blinds flip.
Got them, came Connor’s response.Everything okay?
Hell, no, it wasn’t. None of this was.
