Known by Kendra Elliot Read Free Book Online Page B

within a few minutes; the winding curved driveway to her rented place stirred up her nausea as Frisco cut the hairpin turns as tightly as possible. Her heart stopped as they came within sight of her vehicle. Someone had smashed the driver’s window.
    All of Chris’s concerns from the previous day shot through her brain.
    Someone else has been here.
    “Holy shit!” said Frisco, spotting the mess. “I was just here an hour ago and it didn’t look like that.” He slowed the snowmobile next to her Suburban and pulled a turn to reverse direction before they stopped and dismounted. They both slowly scanned the woods, Frisco resting his hand on the butt of the weapon at his waist. With the snowmobile abruptly silenced, the woods seemed eerily quiet.
    Gianna’s gaze halted on the burned cabin. Would someone hide in there?
    Are we being watched?
    The broken vehicle window simply made her sigh. There had been nothing to steal out of her old Suburban and there was nothing she could do about the damage right now.
    “Maybe they were desperate. Perhaps their vehicle’s snowed in and they needed to get to town.” She scrambled to find a possible explanation for the broken window. One that didn’t alarm her. “I don’t know why the Suburban won’t start.”
    “No one’s driving this out of here even if it would start. You wouldn’t get past the first turn in the road. The snow’s too deep. This was done by a jerk who was looking for something to steal.”
    “Well, all they found was an owner’s manual. And my grocery bags.”
    “I wonder what direction they came from.” Frisco gestured at the tracks Chris, Violet, and Gianna had made the previous morning. “I saw that path when I was here earlier.” Then he pointed at the far-off path that led east. “Is that the track you guys spotted when you left?”
    “Yes, we made the ones that head west,” Gianna said. “But there’re definitely more prints now than when we left. Think he . . . or they . . . could be in the cabin?” she asked in a low voice.
    Frisco looked in the cabin’s direction. “Hello!” he shouted, making Gianna jump. “I’m with the forest service! Does anyone need help?”
    They waited. His shouted words were swallowed up by the woods and snow. They didn’t echo. They simply vanished.
    “Anyone here?” he shouted.
    Silence.
    Frisco shrugged. “Either they don’t want to be found or they took off after breaking your window.”
    Gianna felt as if a dozen eyes watched her from the woods, but she turned her attention back to her sad vehicle.
    “Let me look in the truck first.” Frisco peeked through the windows, checking the back row of seats and the cargo area. “All clear.”
    The vehicle was nearly ten years old but ran like new. It’d acquired a few extra squeaks and rattles since she’d first bought it, but it’d had no real problems until it had refused to start for Violet last night. “Are those marks from your snowmobile?” Gianna pointed at distinctive grooves in the snow and stepped carefully over to her vehicle.
    “Yep. That’s where I turned when I came by earlier. And those are my tracks where I walked over to your vehicle. You were smart to leave it unlocked for me to find the note.” He winced and gave her an apologetic look. “I locked the doors after I found it. Maybe they wouldn’t have broken the window if I’d left it unlocked.”
    “You did the right thing.” She sighed. “Wish I had some duct tape and plastic, but it’s not a priority right now.” She eyed the cabin again, curious about what might be inside.
    Frisco slipped a small camera out of his pocket. “I’ll take some pictures before we make any new paths.”
    “Good idea.” Gianna was a fan of as many pictures as possible when it came to collecting evidence. She’d testified in court several times and had found photographic evidence could be the determining factor when life insurance companies fought against claims. She’d seen a