Looking Through Darkness Read Free

sure it’s not hiding somewhere.” Leigh Ann inched forward, straining for a closer look. “I wonder what’s in that gray metal box?”
    She shifted the broom to the top of the box, pressed it against a small handle, and tried to pull it toward her. When she realized there was a string attached to the handle, she tried to break it away with the broom.
    An enormous flash and boom shook the entire attic, yanking the broom right out of her hand. Stunned, Leigh Ann ducked, clapping her hands to her ears, and nearly rolled off the narrow board. Her ears ringing, she peered through the cloud of dust and debris, trying to make sense of what had just happened.
    â€œLeigh Ann. Are you okay?” Rachel’s voice seemed to floating in from the distance. “Leigh Ann? Leigh Ann!”
    Leigh Ann shook her head, backed up a couple of feet, then turned around, looking at Rachel, who was halfway into the opening now. “Umm, I’m okay, but something just blew up.”
    â€œWhat did you do?”
    â€œI don’t know. I hit a string with the broom, then something exploded.”
    Rachel pointed. “Over there. Is that a fire? I see smoke.”
    As Leigh Ann turned, she saw shattered fishing gear and shreds of cardboard littering the top of the insulation batts. One of the truss beams that braced the connection between the roof and rafters had been peppered with holes and was shattered in half. Farther to the right, she glimpsed something she finally recognized. Sticking out of one of the black plastic bags was a big gun barrel. A thin wisp of smoke curled from the muzzle. “Nope, no fire. I smell gunpowder, though.”
    â€œRachel, that’s Kurt’s pump shotgun,” she added, still trying to make sense of things. “I wondered why I’d never been able to find it.”
    â€œDid you touch the trigger, or did it go off by itself?”
    Suddenly things popped into place in her mind. “Neither. Kurt set a trap with that damn thing! He loaded the shotgun and aimed it at the front of the box. I saw a piece of string, which must have been attached to the trigger. If I’d have moved that metal box myself instead of using the tip of the broom, my brains would be splattered all over the attic right now.”
    â€œWant me to call the sheriff?”
    Leigh Ann was still shaking like a leaf. She couldn’t move, and she was almost sure she’d wet her pants, but her thinking was crystal clear. “No. Hold off on that. This wasn’t meant for you or me. Kurt knew we wouldn’t come up here. This was meant for someone else. Before we get the police involved I want to look inside the box. It’s no toolbox; it looks more like one of those petty cash containers. There’s a lock on the side below the lid.”
    Kurt hadn’t been violent, yet he’d been willing to kill to protect the contents of that box. She had to know what was inside.
    Leigh Ann took a shaky breath and reached for the box, making sure that the string was no longer attached to anything. “No more secrets, you bastard.”
    â€œLeigh Ann?” Rachel called.
    â€œI’m coming.” She edged back on hands and knees, dragging the surprisingly heavy box with her, and made it down the small ladder a few minutes later, carrying the box by the handle on top, a piece of string still attached to it. “I can’t stop shaking.”
    â€œIt’s little wonder.” Rachel took the metal document box from her hands and tried to open the latch. “It’s locked. Do you know where he kept the key?”
    â€œNo. I didn’t even know this box existed until about five minutes ago. After I go get the shotgun I’m coming down.
    I’ll get this thing open even if I have to blast it with buckshot.”
    *   *   *
    It was getting late, and the darkness outside robbed Melvin Littlewater of the contrast between objects that provided him