“Be ready for anything,” Riley said, fingering her sidearm.
“OK,” Ann Marie replied nervously.
As Riley and her partner followed the road through the woods,they kept their flashlights tilted downward, still trying not to advertisetheir presence. Riley could see that the drive was riddled with potholes, butfresh tire tracks showed that it was recently and frequently used by some largevehicle.
Finally a bungalow came into view, situated in a small clearingthat was overgrown with weeds. The house was completely dark. Riley avoidedshining her flashlight directly onto the house, but in the moonlight she couldsee that it was in bad need of repair and a new coat of paint.
“It doesn’t look like anybody lives here,” Ann Marie said.
“Let’s find out,” Riley said.
They made their way through the weed-infested yard to the houseand climbed up a handful of rickety steps onto the porch. With one hand on herweapon, Riley knocked on the door.
She called out, “Is Gabriel Ballard here? This is the FBI. We’djust like a word with you.”
There was no reply.
Ann Marie said wishfully, “There’s nobody home. I guess we’dbetter leave, come back tomorrow or something.”
“Let’s look around first,” Riley said.
Ann Marie let out a sigh of wordless disapproval. They steppeddown off the porch, and Ann Marie followed as Riley waded through the weedsaround the side of the house. Riley soon detected a faint but horrible smell.
“Oh my God,” Ann Marie muttered.
“You smell it too, huh?” Riley said.
“Uh-huh,” Ann Marie said.
“And you know what it is?”
“Uh-huh.”
Riley wasn’t entirely surprised. As a mortician’s daughter, therookie must have had some familiarity with the vile smell of death with itshint of disgusting sweetness. Not all the corpses her father had dealt withwould have been in pristine condition.
Riley turned and retraced their steps back to the front of thehouse.
“What are we doing?” Ann Marie asked.
Riley didn’t reply as they climbed the front steps again. Whenthey got to the door, she reached into her purse for her lock-picking kit.
She asked her partner, “How are your lock-picking skills? Iassume they still teach that at the Academy, don’t they?”
Ann Marie’s eyes widened with alarm.
“We’re not going in there, are we?” she asked.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Riley said.
“Well, it would be … breaking and entering, wouldn’t it?”
Riley said, “I think we both agree that there’s something dead inthis house. And we’re investigating a murder. I’m pretty sure that gives uscause.”
“But not completely sure?” Ann Marie asked.
Riley stifled a growl of impatience. She knew perfectly well thather rookie partner wasn’t nearly as worried about the legality of entering thehouse as she was about whatever they might face in there.
She said, “Go ahead, get on your cell phone and call a lawyer. Orbetter yet, get us a search warrant. Let me know how that works out for you.Meanwhile, I’ve got a lock to pick. Give me some light to work by, OK?”
Ann Marie nodded and pointed the beam at the door lock. Rileyused a pick and a tension wrench to twist the lock, then turned the door handleand pushed. The door squeaked as it swung open. Riley and Ann Marie steppedinside.
Riley’s partner felt around the wall for a light switch.
“Don’t do that,” Riley said. “If somebody’s anywhere in the area,I’d rather they not notice that we’re here.”
Riley and Ann Marie shined their flashlights around the smallliving room. There was a decrepit-looking stuffed armchair near the fireplace,but the other furniture was covered with dingy white sheets.
Ann Marie said, “It really doesn’t look to me like anybody liveshere.”
For a moment, Riley almost agreed. But her eye was caught by atelltale glint from the fireplace. She walked over and looked inside. Sureenough, she could see the glow of warm embers.
“There’s been a fire here recently,” Riley said. “Somebody usesthis place for something, even if he doesn’t live here.”
She sniffed and added, “That smell is stronger in here than itwas outside. Can you tell where it’s coming from?”
“No,” Ann Marie said.
“We’d better find out,” Riley said.
They moved on through the house, checking it out room by roomwithout finding anything unusual. When they got to the kitchen, they saw thatthe sink was piled high with dirty dishes.
A different kind of stench emerged when Riley opened therefrigerator door and its bulb came on to reveal a grubby interior with moldyfood and containers. She quickly shut the door and looked around. She stillhadn’t seen any sign of that large freezer chest.
Then Riley heard Ann Marie say, “Agent Paige, I think the smellis coming from over here.”
Riley turned and saw her partner standing outside a door. Rileychecked it out and saw that it was locked with a hasp and a padlock. Againusing her pick and tension wrench, she quickly snapped the lock open.
She opened the door. As she’d expected, the doorway led down intoa basement. And the smell was much stronger and more unpleasant than before.
A feeling of dread was starting to creep over Riley. She feltsure she wasn’t going to like what she found down there. And given Ann Marie’scurrent state of mind, she doubted that her partner would be able to deal withit.
She said to Ann Marie, “Go back to the living room and keep watchout front. If you see anybody coming, let me know.”
Ann Marie nodded and went back through the house. Riley shinedher flashlight down the basement stairs. There was a light switch on the wall,but she still didn’t want to turn it on in case the basement had windows.
Slowly, she moved down the creaking wooden stairs. Once she heardsomething scurrying, but she couldn’t catch it in her flashlight beam.
Rats, she realized. That made her hesitate, but then sheturned her light back on the steps continued on down.
At the bottom, she used her flashlight to see that she was in anunfinished basement with bare cinderblock walls and a concrete floor. There wasquite a bit of clutter on the floor, including buckets and ice chests.
A shotgun and several rifles were in racks on one wall. She sawother weapons on another wall—bows and arrows, including a couple of crossbows.Those were certainly powerful enough
