Carnage in a Pear Tree by Dakota Cassidy

Author:Dakota Cassidy
Language: eng
Format: epub

Chapter 9

“Did you get a look at him?”

Hobbs shook his head as we headed back down the hill after he’d caught his breath. “I got a look at the back of him just as he dropped the ornament and shot off into the woods. He was in a dark hoodie—average height, average size, black ski boots—and it looked like he was carrying a box of some kind. But that’s it. He was like a lightning bolt. I, on the other hand, was not. Too much butt in chair these days.”

I paused for a second. Where had I heard that phrase about butts before? I was sure it referred to something other than exercise, but I couldn’t remember what.

“What’s wrong?”

I decided now wasn’t the time to complicate things. I had to stick to the task at hand. “Nothing. Back to the guy who just knocked us down. You do think it was a man, don’t you?”

“I do. Not a weak man, either. He burst out of that door like he was the Hulk. Knocked me over like I don’t weigh two hundred and twenty-eight pounds.”

I patted his flat belly. “Of solid muscle, Big Boy.”

He laughed. “Of too many marshmallows and Christmas goodies. Anyway, he knocked me over like I was some lightweight, and we both know I’m not. Strong. Whoever he was, he was very strong.”

“I put in a call to Stiles. Maybe they can get footprints or something from the impressions of his boots in the snow?”

“But what would they match them to? There were no footprints last night. Just a hacked-up tree and a torn, bloody shirt.”

As we reached the bottom of the hill, I remembered the shirt. “Speaking of shirts, I wonder if they’ve gotten DNA or something from it yet? Surely the killer left something behind. Hair, skin, maybe? And off the trunk of the tree. There was hair there, too.”

Hobbs nodded. “Maybe. I wanna know what he was looking for in the hut. Why was whatever he had so important? Why would he want to get his hands on the ornament?”

I held it up, trying not to touch it too much in case any fingerprints could be pulled from it, and looked at it in the rapidly deteriorating daylight. It wasn’t anything special. A round, thread-wrapped ball in deep purple with a white glittery bow. I didn’t doubt it was for whoever Sabrina was, but who was she, where was she…and what did she want Joey to erase?

“I think the bigger question is, why was Joey keeping things in the hut? It’s obvious he used it as a hiding place, judging by the floorboards the thug pulled up to get to that box.”

We’d done a quick search of the hut and it wasn’t anything special. There was a small table with a battery-operated Santa who danced in the center, a small fridge with water and a chair.

But the floorboards in the corner had clearly been pried upward. Yet, there was nothing under them but a hole where the box had obviously been wedged.

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