Free Burn Out by Marcia Muller

edginess, thinking of how such a sound wouldn’t begin to penetrate my consciousness in the city, I went ahead toward the cabin.
    The shutters were secure, and there was a hasp and padlock on the door, but when I touched the lock, it swiveled open. I removed it quietly, slid back the hasp, eased open the door—
    A dark figure rushed at me. I tried to dodge, but the person came on too fast, hunched over, head slamming into my chest so hard that I expelled my breath with a grunt and reeled backward. My feet skidded on the layer of slippery fallen leaves. And down I went on my ass.
    Stunned, I took a few seconds to realize that my assailant had run off, was thrashing around in the dark grove. I pushed up, and—holding the gun in both hands—ran toward the source of the sounds. My breath tore at my lungs and sharp pains spread out from my tailbone.
    Suddenly the sounds stopped.
    I stopped, too, looking around. Nothing moved. The only thing I could hear was my own panting.
    Whoever it is, they’re hiding. That’s all right; I can wait them out.
    I crept over to a thick tree trunk, leaned against it, getting my breathing under control. My lower back throbbed, and so did my head. What if I really had sustained a concussion last night, and my heavy fall to the ground had made it worse?
    It was frigid under the trees: I could see my breath. Staying still was an invitation to frostbite. After a few minutes I moved in the direction where I’d last heard the thrashing sounds, placing my feet carefully, as silently as possible. I’d dropped my flashlight back at the cabin, but that didn’t matter; using it would have given away my position.
    The woods are lovely, dark and deep. . . .
    Frost again. But these woods weren’t lovely. They were silent, full of potential hazards.
    The hell with it.
    I retraced my steps to the cabin, where I located the flash and shone it through the open door.
    What I saw made me raise the .45.
    More wreckage like that at Boz Sheppard’s trailer: overturned furniture, broken glass, linens pulled from the bed, pillows and mattress slashed, drawers in the tiny galley kitchen emptied. A door to the bathroom stood partway open.
    I slipped inside and across the room. In the bath I found more broken glass and a torn shower curtain, its pole slanting down into the tub. The lid of the toilet had been removed and smashed on the floor. Otherwise the cubicle was as empty as the main room.
    No one here, dead or alive.
    I tried the light switch beside the bathroom door. No power, of course. My flash’s beam was strong, but it wouldn’t allow me to examine the place thoroughly. Besides, that was a matter for the sheriff’s department.
    I moved back into the other room. Stepped on something soft. When I looked closely I saw it was the quilted jacket Amy had been wearing the day Sheppard had thrown her out of the truck. My light illuminated other objects that had been strewn around: T-shirts, costume jewelry, makeup, jeans, underwear, other teenage-girl attire.
    And on the wall above them, a blood spatter.
    I leaned against the Land Rover, bundled in the shearling coat, watching Lark’s team examining what she’d termed a “possible crime scene.” For a remote county that was probably operating on an insufficient salary budget, the deputies seemed well coordinated and knowledgeable. I’d seen less thorough initial investigations in the city. Not that that was any surprise: the SFPD has been through up-and-down cycles as long as I’ve lived there.
    Lark finally approached me—a slender woman in her mid-thirties with blonde curls, worn long now, and freckles on her upturned nose. We’d spoken only briefly when she arrived and entered the cabin, not at all since her backup showed minutes later.
    Now she said, “McCone, this scene looks bad. The place was tossed, there’s blood in the main room, the girl’s gone, and you say she’s Hayley Perez’s sister. How come you came here?”
    “Someone told