Page 119 of The Coppersmith Farmhouse (Jamison Valley 1)
“Just trying it out.”
“Try something else.”
“Will do, Sheriff.”
“Okay. See you tonight.”
“Love you. Bye,” she said and hung up the phone.
She ended the call before I could tell her that I loved her too. But I figured I could tell her tonight when I got home.
Wrong.
Fuck, it smelled bad.
Not even the clean mountain air combined with the scent of pine from the trees could overpower the stench of chemicals burning my nostrils.
We’d come up on the mountain shack about forty-five minutes after driving through barely there trails and winding between trees. It was no wonder that weeks and weeks of searching for the cookhouse hadn’t turned anything up. Wes had built that fucker so far off the traveled trails it was a miracle we’d found it today. A couple of times on the drive up, I’d had to stop and get out to make sure I was following the snowmobiler’s tracks.
But after one last sharp turn, there it was, sitting in a small clearing of pine and fir trees. It was an old, shitty one-room trailer house. The exterior walls were an off-white color with brown water spots in a couple of places. The door and all the windows were boarded up with plywood sheets.
Tucked away back in the trees, about two hundred feet off the house, was a propane tank. Wes must have been using gas to run the meth cook stove and heat the trailer.
“That fucking stinks,” Milo said at my side, covering his nose.
“No shit.”
“I think I’ve got a couple extra bandanas in the truck. I’ll go get them,” Beau said and jogged away.
As I got closer, I felt it. Something was off. A knot was forming in my gut.
I slowed my progress and walked with more caution, looking around the house to see if I could spot what was making me nervous.
I knew this feeling.
When we’d been kids, Silas, Wes and I had played capture the flag on the Drummond farm. We’d each hide a flag and then set off to find where the other boys had hidden theirs. The winner was the first boy to return to our starting point with one of their opponent’s flags. Silas and I had usually hidden our flags in dark building corners or behind large trees. Our strategy had been similar. Find a good hiding spot and then search as fast as you could to find an opponent’s flag before someone found yours.
But not Wes.
Wes had always put his flag in a fairly open area. He’d forgo the time spent locating the perfect hiding place to set up traps. One time, he’d set a snare and caught Silas by the ankle. I’d found Wes laughing as he watched Silas swinging upside down from a tree.
Walking up to the cookhouse felt like walking up to one of Wes’s flags.
I veered off of my original path to the door and instead went toward a window. Before I opened that door, I wanted a better look around. Maybe I could pry off the board to a window and peek inside the shack.
But Milo didn’t notice my change of direction. He just kept on walking straight up to the front door and reached out to twist the knob.
And that’s when I saw it. A trigger on the door.
“Milo, stop!” I shouted.
But it was too late. Milo turned to look at me, confusion mixed with fear written on his face. He took a step back but the damage had been done. I’d heard the click.
And then the propane tank in the trees exploded.
Gigi
“What did he say?” I whispered to Maisy.
