Present Danger by Elizabeth Goddard (shoe dog free ebook .txt) 📗

bother locking it? Jack had mentioned getting cameras up in these woods near the cabin, but she doubted that had been done yet.

She walked the perimeter on the inside, then stood in the middle and stared up at the ceiling.

Think bigger.

Terra moved back outside and walked around the cabin in ever widening circles.

Okay. Bigger.

A doe dashed away, startling her. She was entirely too edgy. She hadn’t known the deer was watching.

“Foraging for berries in the bushes, were you? I didn’t mean to—” A strange-shaped rock near a bush caught her attention. She stooped to look closer.

Was it stone? Wait, no. Clay. An artifact they’d missed? Terra pulled on gloves to scrape away the earth, except the corner wasn’t buried, after all, but rested on pine needles beneath the bush, as if it had broken off from a larger piece and fallen to the ground. She assumed this was related to the cache they’d found. She took a few photographs of the object and the area surrounding it, then took a wider image showing where the object rested in relation to the cabin.

Then she carefully lifted it. Roughly the size of her palm, it appeared to be the corner of a clay tablet. Turning it over, she noticed etchings unlike anything she’d ever seen—except in photographs.

Her heart rate kicked up.

Terra hadn’t heard anything back from the forest service archaeologist about the artifacts they’d secured from the cabin. This broken corner was something different altogether. Hands shaking, she carefully wrapped the piece in the gloves to protect it and placed it in a zippered pocket of her jacket.

Terra would give the cabin another look before she left. If this was missed, maybe something else had been missed too. She had the feeling that the investigation had just gotten . . . bigger. But she wouldn’t jump to conclusions until she had an expert examine the object.

And, unfortunately, she knew just the expert.

Inside the cabin again, she flipped on the flashlight and shined it around. Though she didn’t believe she and Jack had missed anything, or the county evidence techs either, stranger things had happened. After all, she’d found the unusual fragment near the cabin.

She gave up the hunt, stashed her flashlight, and opened the door. Or tried to.

It was locked.

What? Terra pulled and yanked and kicked. She shined her flashlight on the knob. Was it the kind of knob that could be locked and unlocked from the outside only? No. Twisting from the inside should release the locking mechanism.

Okay. She could unscrew the entire thing. Except she didn’t have a screwdriver. She’d climb out the windows then. Oh, right. They were boarded up.

Terra moved to one of the windows. Maybe she could remove enough boards to climb out. A pungent odor tickled her nose. Alerted her senses.

Smoke.

Panic grabbed her.

Peering through the crack in the boards to see outside, Terra had the eerie sense she was trapped behind prison bars. A pop resounded. Sparks drifted across her line of sight. She shifted to peer at the woods behind the cabin and saw nothing. Then . . . fire.

And a hooded figure running away.

Terra stepped back from the window, her breath catching in her throat. She turned around.

Flames licked at the far corner of the cabin. Soon it would be engulfed.

Fear ignited her whole body. She reached for her cell, her slippery fingers hindering her efforts to grab on. Come on! Of course she had no signal here.

She texted Jack, hoping at least that would go through. But she wouldn’t wait for someone to save her. She had to find a way out of this cabin before toxic fumes overcame her.

THIRTY-TWO

Jack had received news that the preliminary comparison of shoe prints from the woods behind Neva’s home didn’t match prints near Terra’s home the night of the break-in. He’d been hoping for that answer.

Regardless, he was late to meet Terra when he parked his vehicle next to hers on the Maverick Trailhead.

Of course she had already hiked up the trail without him. He wouldn’t have waited on him either. Before he got out of his vehicle, he thought to text her to let her know he was on his way, though she might not receive it up the mountain.

He noticed that she’d beat him to it with a text of her own.

The words jumped out at him and grabbed him by throat.

Alarm ignited.

Oh no.

Jack called 911 while he still had a signal and reported the information Terra had relayed—the woods were on fire and she was trapped in the cabin—then ended the call.

He hopped from his vehicle and instantly smelled the smoke. Heart pounding, he rushed up the trail, hoping he hadn’t just wasted seconds making that emergency call. Seconds that could make the difference in saving her life.

“Terra!” Jack’s leg muscles screamed as he pushed himself faster up the trail, then he slowed before his heart burst. He picked up the pace again. If he survived this, he would take up trail jogging.

His lungs burned as he sucked in oxygen and smoke. The acrid stench thickened as he drew closer. He stopped in his tracks to catch his breath.

He kept going as far as he could go, but it wasn’t nearly far enough. The forest burned, creating a wall of flames and heat so he couldn’t push deeper into the woods.

Terra.

The blaze crackled and hissed, its fiery fingers hungrily reaching for more as sparks swirled into a sky already darkening with toxic smoke.

No . . . Terra . . .

His heart spasmed.

He hadn’t realized he’d fallen to his knees. Shock. Grief. He didn’t know. He couldn’t let that cripple him now. He wouldn’t give up. Because if he knew anything about Terra—she was a fighter. She would find her own way out. Please, God, let it be so.

Jack got to his feet and moved around the edge of the fire, heading northwest from the trail, to find a way to get closer to the cabin if he could. The smoke and heat caused his eyes to water, his lungs