Deadly Reputation (A Sam Lawson Mystery Book 4) by David K. Wilson

Author:David K. Wilson [Wilson, David K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

36

Gravel crunched under Sam’s boots as he walked down the path to the barn. Once again, the air was still and heavy with humidity, magnifying the heat of the noonday sun. The high-pitched cawing of crows echoed from piney woods that ran behind the rusty structure.

Sam peered through the crack in the broken doorway. Other than a few shafts of sunlight breaking through holes in the tin roof, the barn was dark. Sam sighed and pulled out his phone to use the flashlight.

“I really need to get a flashlight,” he muttered to himself as he stepped inside.

The sun had heated up the metal building and, with no real ventilation, the inside of the barn was like an oven. Sam almost gasped as the stale, hot air slammed into his body. As sweat poured down his brow, he used the camera flashlight to make out the general layout of the barn. A large, open space was surrounded on three sides by rows of open-air pens. Broken wooden fencing had one time separated each pen, but it had fallen apart over time. Behind the pens along the back of the barn, there appeared to be a wooden wall with one opening that led to pitch black darkness.

Sam walked around the room, looking for anything suspicious. Any signs of life. Or death. He noticed something odd in one of the pens. A large wooden slab, about the size of a door, lay across the dirt floor. As he got closer, he could hear the buzzing of flies and, as his light shone on the slab, he knew why.

It was covered in blood.

He knelt beside the slab to get a closer look. There were several deep cuts in the wood, and blood splatters covered the fence and floor all around it. It was as if the slab had been used as some sort of chopping block, the deep cuts most likely from an axe or other sharp tool.

He stood and looked around for other clues. The floor was dirt and, along with the blood spatters, there were a lot of footprints. But, as Sam studied them closer, it was clear there were two distinct sets. One was from boots. The other from running shoes. It also looked as if something had been dragged through the dirt on either side of the slab. Sam followed the tracks with his light. They all led toward the dark opening in the wooden wall.

Sam aimed his phone’s flashlight toward the opening and jumped back when he noticed something moving in the shadows. Had someone been watching him?

“Who’s there?” Sam yelled.

His voice was answered with the flurry of wings from a dozen barn swallows that had been nesting along the fence. Sam pulled his gun and aimed it in the same direction as the flashlight, toward the opening in front of him. Slowly, he started walking toward it.

“Quinton Police!” he yelled again as he stepped forcibly into the darkness.

The room was so pitch black it almost swallowed up the light from Sam’s phone.

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