Free LustUndone by Desiree Holt

can do to facilitate this.”
    “Yeah, well, that still doesn’t mean I’m buying into your
theory. But what you put up on the board back at the barracks at least makes me
want to take a look at all the possibilities.”
    She opened the folder she’d brought with her and pulled out
eight-by-ten pictures of the crime scene. “I know it was impossible to preserve
any of the scene with the snow and all,” she said, “but can one of you just
walk us around it?”
    “Scott and I will,” Rebecca said and led the way toward the
house.
    The porch ran full length across the front of the building.
Two benches flanked the front door and a large wooden chair filled a corner.
Sophia stood on the top step, Logan next to her, and watched as her sister
paced out the crime scene diagram.
    “He was found here,” Bec said as she drew an outline with
her feet in front of one of the benches. “He only had his long johns on and a
pair of jeans.”
    “Not what you’d step outside in when the temp hovers near
zero,” Logan commented.
    “Right. He was still holding his shotgun. Actually, as cold
as it was, by the time Paul Maquire found him it was frozen in his hand.” She
took the pictures from Sophia and shuffled through them. “He was stretched out
like this,” she pointed to the top photo, “as if he’d just stepped out of the
front door and was dead in seconds.”
    “If it was the Chupacabra,” Logan said, “that’s most likely
the way it happened.”
    “His body was drained of blood,” Bobby said from behind
them. “But if he was killed while it was still snowing we figured the snow had
washed away whatever blood there was.”
    “There wasn’t any blood when my nephews were killed,” Sophia
reminded him. “Or at the other bodies back at that time.”
    “Or at the ones Night Seekers have looked into since then,”
Logan added.
    “Okay, okay, okay.” Bobby shook his head. “I’m just saying
there are a lot of explanations for this.”
    Sophia got right in his face, her temper on a short leash.
“Yes. You’re right. Remember that. Yours isn’t the only one.”
    “Kids,” Rebecca said, stepping up to them. “We’ve got
business to take care of, remember?”
    Sophia stepped off the porch and took a long look around the
area. Not much different from all the other kill scenes they had pictures of—or
had seen personally. Isolated. Distant. A person living alone. Except in the
case of her nephews who’d been caught sneaking off on a forbidden trail. This
time, however, acres of snow covered the landscape, permanently eradicating
even the tiniest possibility of a trace. And the cold effectively killing the
remnants of any odor, such as turpentine. Well, hell.
    “It would be really impossible for a human being to sneak up
on this place,” she commented. “It’s so exposed, even with the trees. And when
did this most recent snowfall start?”
    “Four days before the body was found,” Bobby answered.
“That’s one of the reasons the campground owner was concerned. He wanted to
make sure Darrell was weathered in properly.”
    “Then tell me, Bobby.” Sophia looked up at him, unsmiling.
“How would a human being get in here to attack the man? And why would he? Or
she? If the killer is human and looking for prey, there are a lot easier places
to hunt than out here in the middle of nowhere. Places where someone could get
in and out without detection.”
    Bobby glared back at her. “He could have come in before the
storm really got up a head of steam. Driven up the driveway while it was still
clear. Taken care of business and gotten away before the weather settled in.”
    “And that doesn’t seem like a lot of trouble to go to for
one kill?”
    “Less chance of being disturbed,” he said stubbornly.
    “You don’t think Darrell Franklin would have been suspicious
of someone showing up out of the blue?” Sophia asked. “I get the impression he
wasn’t a person to let his guard down easily.” She