Death Trap: An Anna Hale, PI Thriller by January Bain

Author:January Bain [Bain, January]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rough Edges Press
Published: 2024-08-27T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

Anna crept through the house, gun held firmly in both hands, ready for anything. She sensed rather than heard Friday moving ahead of her, his movements as furtive as the intruder she suspected may have breached her home.

She checked the bathroom first, listening carefully for a repeat of the sounds she’d heard earlier. Nothing. She worked her way down the hall, opening the door to the spare room. Empty. As were all the other rooms she entered.

At the entrance to the living room, she waited in the hall for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dimness as she listened to the house. Friday moved passed her and stood at the front door, then gave a low growl. At that second, her phone vibrated in her pajama pocket and she cursed under her breath. Now what?

“You can’t save them all, Anna Hale. Better check your front door.” The same robotic AI voice sounded as grim in her ear as usual. Right. It was midnight again.

“You’re becoming rather tiresome.” She hung up before they could say anything else. Then went and unlocked the front door, cautioning Friday to stay inside. He whined at her words, though he obeyed. She stepped out on the front step and that’s when she saw the fire, flames shooting from a metal bucket left not six feet from the house. Her heart gave a lurch and she sucked in a deep breath, filling her lungs with fresh air tainted by some kind of an accelerant. Gasoline?

She kicked snow over the flames, snuffing them out, before dumping the contents onto the ground with a shove of her foot. Lumps of charred plastic fell out. At first, she couldn’t make any sense of it. Then realization took hold and she realized she was staring at melted fashion dolls, each one with an arrow piercing some part of its anatomy. The pure creepiness of the idea of someone going to such lengths to set this up makes her skin crawl. What the fuck was going on? Was someone trying to warn her? Or gaslight her?

She had to get this cleaned this up before anyone else caught a glimpse, especially children. It was too gruesome for words. She turned to go back inside to enter the attached garage to retrieve a shovel and that was when she saw it, a piece of paper taped to the door. She tore it off without thinking, angry at being blindsided by what felt like a personal attack, realizing too late there might be fingerprints on the page. She stepped back into the hall, not knowing if she was shivering more from cold or outrage. She checked the note, prepared for another stab at her confidence.

But instead of words, it only contained one drawing. The same symbol she’d found in the tree near the medicine wheel where Laura had been left. The symbol of a triangle with the inner blood drop and the number thirteen. The one she felt was connected to The Order of the Blood and Bone.

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