Dark Prey : A Ryan Weller Thriller by Evan Graver

Author:Evan Graver [Graver, Evan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Third Reef Publishing, LLC
Published: 2021-02-13T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ryan felt Tim Davis staring right at him as he slithered to his right to get behind the washing machine he had so carelessly kicked a minute earlier. He held his breath and tried not to move as Tim squatted in the grass, looking at the trail Ryan must have left as he moved across the yard from the old boat to the house. Tim crept closer; the muzzle of the shotgun aimed straight into the shadows where Ryan hid. Ryan had his Walther clutched in his hand, ready to shoot if the kid so much as touched the scattergun’s trigger.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Tim’s phone ring and the kid stood to answer it. A moment later, the younger man went into the house, and Ryan tracked Tim’s movements via the hollow footsteps on the floorboards above him.

Tim and P.J. soon began moving packages from the shack to the truck. Ryan snapped several photos from his vantage point beneath the house. With the packages loaded, the two swamp rats got in the truck and drove away. Ryan lay under the house, listening to the truck’s noisy muffler as Tim added and reduced throttle to negotiate the rutted drive.

When Ryan was sure they weren’t coming back, he crawled out from under the house and made his way up the steps to the back porch. A trotline lay stretched across the weathered deck boards, and Ryan stepped gingerly over it to avoid becoming entangled in the large circular hooks.

He removed a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before slowly turning the doorknob. It was unlocked. Ryan’s first thought was to barge straight into the house, but then he decided against it as the hairs on the back of his neck rose.

Something wasn’t right.

It was a similar feeling to what he would get when he disarmed an IED in the hovels of Iraq.

Why would they have left it unlocked?

While there was still a certain code of conduct in the North Carolina backwoods about leaving the property of others alone, lest they wanted to meet the business end of a gun, Ryan didn’t think leaving the doors unlocked was good operational security. And a couple of river rats would know that better than anyone because they’d probably snooped around every property from there to Wilmington.

Stepping back from the door, Ryan scanned the edges of the doorframe, looking for signs of a booby trap or something that would show Tim and PJ that an intruder had tampered with it. He saw nothing to ease the tingling at the base of his spine, and he didn’t trust thieves who left their hideout unlocked.

Ryan remembered the old saying that Henry O’Shannassy used to tell him: “A lock keeps a man honest.”

To his right was a window. Unlike the rest of the windows he’d seen around the house, this one didn’t have a screen. As he examined it more closely, Ryan saw that the paint on the sill had been worn away.

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