Page 50 of Dirty Valentine
“Guess we don’t need a warrant,” Cole said, pointing to the open front door and drawing his weapon.
We approached the house, our footsteps echoing off the warped porch boards.The smell hit me as we reached the entrance—something stale and wrong, like flowers left too long in stagnant water.
“Ms.Hughes?”Jack called out, his voice swallowed by the darkness inside.“King George County Sheriff’s Department.We need to speak with you.”
Silence answered us.Even the wind and land hushed.
“We’ll circle around back,” Cole said, and he and Martinez split off in different directions.
Jack pushed the front door open a little wider and the hinges creaked.My flashlight beam revealed a scene of elegant decay—crystal chandeliers thick with dust, furniture covered in white sheets like ghosts waiting for resurrection, and family portraits hanging at odd angles as if the house itself was slowly sliding sideways.
But it was the living room that told the real story.Overturned chairs, scattered papers, and dark stains on the Oriental rug that might have been wine or might have been something much worse.
“Someone was here,” Jack said, noting the coffee cup still sitting on a side table, its contents long cold but the ring still visible on the wood beneath it.It was untouched by dust or time.
I picked my way carefully through the debris, my flashlight beam playing across family photographs that had been scattered across the floor.In several of them, faces had been scratched out with something sharp, leaving only gouged holes where eyes and mouths should have been.
“Jack,” I whispered, crouching down near the fireplace.“Look at this.”
My light had caught something that made my pulse quicken—tiny droplets of what looked suspiciously like blood, barely visible against the dark wood of the floor.They formed an irregular pattern leading from the overturned furniture toward the back of the house.
“Blood trail,” Jack confirmed, kneeling beside me.“Not completely dry.Could be from this afternoon or evening.”
We followed the scattered drops through the formal dining room, past the kitchen, and out through a back door that stood wide open to the night.The trail continued across an overgrown garden where weeds grew waist-high and the remains of what had once been elegant landscaping now resembled something from a fairy tale gone wrong.
Our flashlight beams converged on a massive structure that loomed against the star-filled sky—a barn that belonged to the plantation’s working past, easily twice the size of most modern houses.Its weathered siding had turned silver-gray with age, and one of its doors hung partially open.
Cole and Martinez came met us where we stood and I shined the flashlight on the drops of blood leading toward the barn.
“Should we call for backup?”Martinez asked, his hand resting on his weapon.
“Let’s see what we’re dealing with first,” Jack said.“But stay sharp.Someone was hurt here, and whoever did it might still be around.
“Wasn’t it Hansel and Gretel that followed the trail of candy?”Cole asked.“Why am I feeling that right now?”
“I don’t know,” Martinez said.“But I think they get shoved in an oven once they reach the end of the trail, so maybe think of a different fairy tale.”
“No time like the present,” Jack said, taking the lead.
As soon as we started walking it’s like the earth could breathe again and inhaled deeply.The barn seemed to pulse as we approached, its metal roof expanding and contracting with temperature changes that created an irregular rhythm of pops and groans.Wind whistled through gaps in the siding, creating a sound like distant voices whispering secrets we weren’t meant to hear.
Cole and Martinez used their own flashlights, adding to the harsh pool of illumination that only seemed to make the shadows deeper and more threatening.
The barn doors opened with high-pitched squeals that set my nerves on edge and made the flesh on my arms pebble.They revealed an interior that was a maze of agricultural equipment from decades past.Hay bales stacked to the rafters created narrow corridors between towering walls of moldering straw, and ancient farm machinery cast twisted shadows that seemed to move independently of our flashlight beams.
The smell inside was overwhelming—decades of hay and manure, mixed with something fresher and more disturbing.The metallic tang of blood, and underneath it all, the sour scent of human fear.
“Spread out,” Jack ordered in a whisper.“Watch your corners.”
I followed the blood trail deeper into the barn, my light playing across the rough-hewn beams overhead.The drops were becoming more frequent now, forming an almost continuous line that led toward the back of the structure where a series of horse stalls had been built against the far wall.
My heart was hammering so hard I was sure everyone could hear it.Every shadow seemed to hide a threat, every sound—the settling of old wood, the scurrying of mice, the distant hoot of an owl.But I couldn’t ignore the evidence.Someone had been hurt, and that someone had come here looking for safety.
The stall doors were all standing open except for one near the back corner.I motioned for Jack and he stepped in front of me, his flashlight and his weapon following the blood into a stall, where fresh straw had been scattered over what must have been decades of accumulated debris.
Jack pushed open the stall door, our flashlight beams sweeping across the interior, and that’s when I heard it—the faintest sound of labored breathing coming from behind a pile of feed sacks stacked against the back wall.
“Jack,” I whispered, nodding to the hiding spot.
