Let Loose by Rae Davies Read Free Book Online Page A

anything?” he asked, coming up
with that question all on his own.
    I was proud. I was also a little bit
confused. Had I? Should I have? The campground was four miles from
my house, but noise did travel. Actually it traveled too well. I’d
heard gun shots before and never paid them any attention. I lived
in the woods. Hunting was a huge sport. Things got shot, and
usually any shots I heard had happened miles away. Never a reason
for concern. But I couldn’t remember hearing anything in the last
day.
    “Not that I remember,” I replied. Which meant
nothing. I could have been inside with the TV on too loud or asleep
with my heater cranking.
    The answer, non-committal though it was,
seemed to satisfy him. He stared toward the bridge and tapped his
finger against his leg some more.
    Finally, I asked, “Can I leave?” I had no
intention of actually leaving, of course, but some bored little
demon inside me rose up and forced me to poke at him.
    The answering look of panic in Chuck’s eyes
almost caused me to regret the poke. Almost, but not quite,
especially since I was pretty sure I could use said panic to my
benefit.
    “Maybe you should ask Detective Stone,” I
prompted. “Or I could, if you’re supposed to stay here?” I opened
my eyes extra wide. My earlier efforts at gathering information had
been cut short, and if I was stuck standing out in arctic
conditions, I might as well be snooping while I was at it.
    And it wasn’t like I wanted to snoop just for
gossip’s sake either. I hadn’t worked at the local paper in a
while, but I still did the occasional piece for them, and since it
appeared boy wonder, Daniel Rowe hadn’t managed to roust himself
out of bed yet to do his job and investigate a potential murder, I
had a civic duty to do it myself.
    I took a step toward the campground.
    Chuck held up a hand stopping me. “Wait here.
I’ll...” He looked over his shoulder. “...ask Detective Stone.”
    “Okay.” I rubbed my hands up and down my
arms. “But it’s pretty cold out here. Could I sit in your car?”
Police cars had radios. Radios that relayed information to anyone
within hearing range. I just needed to be in that range.
    He glanced at my Jeep parked right behind
me.
    I twisted my lips. “They’re evidence. I
didn’t think you would want me messing with them.”
    “Evidence?” Then apparently remembering the
part of the story where I’d told him that the dogs were, I assumed,
Red’s, he nodded. “Okay.” He walked me to his car and opened the
front passenger door. He watched me climb in, started to walk away,
and then seemed to think better of it. He reached past me and
flipped off his radio. “Don’t touch anything,” he added, before
pushing the door shut and jogging across the bridge to the
campground.

Chapter 5
    After a good two minutes of fighting with the
devil inside me, I flipped Chuck’s radio back on and prepared to be
inundated with slews of ill-gotten yet fascinating facts.
    What I got? Radio silence. That’s what I got
for living in a - aside from the murders I seemed adept at
discovering - low-crime town.
    Annoyed, I plopped back against the seat and
looked for something else to do to while away my time. My gaze
caught on the clipboard that I’d expected Chuck to pull out for my
interrogation.
    It was sitting close by, not hidden at all.
Not marked with words like “confidential” or “hands off or else.”
Those kinds of things would have made me think I really shouldn’t
touch it. But nope, nothing like that was scrawled across the metal
lid that snapped closed over whatever documents lay inside.
    I tapped my finger against my thigh and
glanced out the window. No sign of Chuck, or Stone, or any other
living thing except the seven dogs wrestling inside my Jeep and a
squirrel that had decided to wander out in the cold apparently to
torment the dogs inside my Jeep. The squirrel ran down the Jeep’s
length, paused on the windshield for a second and then, once it