Free A Game of Greed and Deception: A Mystery Drama by John Mathews Page B

foil-covered air ducts heading
in different directions. Also hanging from some hooks in the center of the
ceiling were several large portions of meat that had been seasoned, wrapped in
cheesecloth, and left to cure. Tammy went up and smelled the meats. They were
dried and in excellent condition, ready to eat.
    On
either side of the walls there were smaller bricks put together to form a
series of storage units, which seemed to mostly be empty. The outside of these
cubby holes was covered with dust. She looked into some of the small units and
saw mostly just more dust and some spider webs. One of them had a few bits of
broken glass inside, and in another there was a metal vice.
    Against
the back wall there were some large barrels stacked one on top of the other all
the way to the ceiling of the room. The barrels were covered with a thick, grey
blanket of dust that must have been accumulating for some time. Tammy wiped off
the barrels one at a time to have a better look at them. The strips of metal
holding the barrels together were completely rusted out, and the wood in
between looked rather rotted. So this is
the old wine cellar. Those barrels are ancient and it looks like nobody has
stored any wine down here in a long time. So then how long have those pieces of
meat been hanging out to cure?
    Next
to the barrels was a HVAC unit. The unit looked fairly new and in good working
condition. It connected to the air ducts in the ceiling, but two of the three
ducts had been damaged – cut in half down the middle. Warm air was blowing into
the room through the openings made from the cuts. The remaining smallest duct
was still connected to the unit. Tammy felt a rush of nervous energy from
seeing that the heating ducts were damaged. Someone
had to have sabotaged the heating from down here, but left one duct working to
heat the den. But why? I need to know how the hell they could’ve gotten down
here and back upstairs without me seeing them.
    Tammy
turned to the center of the room to see an old wooden table made from barked
pine logs. On top of the table was a small cherry wood box. She opened the box
and inside was a package of Alec Bradley Prensado Churchill Cigars. Tammy felt
a chill knowing that her husband enjoyed a fine cigar, although she had not
remembered him packing any in his luggage. The cigar box had already been
opened and several of the cigars were missing. In the space where the other
cigars had been there was a metal lighter engraved with the initials “SW”.
Tammy recalled the moment when Steven had received this lighter as a gift on
his last birthday. Her heart was racing and she whisked her head around to make
sure that nobody else was there.
    Holy hell, so Stephen HAS been inside the
cabin! That son of a
bitch. But how the hell did he get down here without me seeing him? And why did
he go back outside? He must not be hurt at all and is up to something. He would
never just leave his lighter here by accident. He wanted me to know that he was
here. She nibbled on the tip of her painted fingernail. I need to figure out what the fuck he’s up to. Don’t be scared, Tammy.
There ain’t no way he is daring enough to hurt you. I can explain this all as
an accident anyways. I never even touched anything on the car. She quickly
put the lighter into her pocket.
    Tammy
needed to calm herself down. She reached up to move one of the barrels to sit
on. It was lighter than it looked. Using her fingertips, she slid the barrel
along from on top of the others and caught it in her arms. She set it on the
floor, sat down, and lit a cigarette. While taking a puff of her Capri , she looked towards the far right corner of the
room just next to the rest of the barrels. There were two canisters sitting on
top of a tightly-roped bale of hay. One was marked “propane fuel” and the other
“hydrogen gas”. A pile of hay had been scattered about in front of the bale.
Tammy set her cigarette on the edge of the table, and got closer to the