The Ruse Read Free Page B

burning. Jared let his sleeve fall back into place as he looked around to see what was on fire. He stopped breathing and listened. He couldn’t see anything or hear the familiar crackle of a fire.
     
    Maybe it’s a nearby cabin’s wood stove or fireplace.
     
    He released his pent-up breath and inhaled heavily, taking in the acrid smell of something that wasn’t just wood.
     
    “What the hell is that?”
     
    He sniffed again. His stomach rolled. It smelled like burning hair or flesh.
     
    “What a putrid smell.”
     
    He brushed it off. He’d leave the area within minutes whether he found the stupid deer or not. He would never call the fire department. Even if he saw a house on fire, unless he could block his number and make an anonymous tip. He couldn’t allow any officials to see him on park property with a rifle. The fines would be too much and the uproar ridiculous. Whether he shot the deer a kilometer away or where he stood made no difference to Jared, but the powers that be always had an ear of corn up their asses for someone just like him.
     
    He stepped into the relative darkness of the tall pines and tried to follow the tracks. Ten minutes later he entered another small clearing.
     
    The burning smell intensified.
     
    It was time to turn back. If he’d hit the deer, it would’ve dropped long before.
     
    Then it hit him.
     
    “What a fucking waste of time.”
     
    There had been no blood in the white snow or on any tree. Absolutely none. If he’d hit the animal, there would’ve been blood. All he had followed were white tracks in undisturbed snow.
     
    Amateur fucking hunter.
     
    Something banged against a tree. Jared jolted and looked to the right where the noise had come from. He could just make out the edge of a shack or cabin. The animal’s tracks had turned that way.
     
    Maybe that was the deer falling over.
     
    He stepped around a tree and took a closer look at the cabin wall. The chimney lay dormant, no smoke.
     
    That’s weird. Then what’s burning?
     
    He stepped forward, intrigued. He covered his mouth with his glove and breathed through the cloth, the smell intensifying with each step.
     
    Fifteen meters from the cabin, he could see that it was once a large house. The wall he had walked up to was a small part of the garage area left over after a recent fire. He stepped toward the front and took in the immaculate features of a beautiful two-story wooden chalet. It had the traditional look of many of the resort homes in the area. Someone had taken great care to keep this one in top shape. Many hours of labor had gone into the intricate detail surrounding the windows and doors. Cherubs and angels acted as trim. Gargoyles framed the roof’s edge along with a crazy-looking weathervane in the shape of a beast he couldn’t identify.
     
    He had never seen such a contrast. A modern wooden chalet half turned into Gothic architecture.
     
    “Fuckin’ weird.”
     
    There were no tracks in the snow except for the deer’s. If no one had come or gone in the last twenty-four hours and there was no vehicle in the driveway, then who started the fire? Had there even been a fire?
     
    The deer tracks led to the front porch of the chalet. Jared held the glove over his nose tighter as he walked toward the door. The smell of burned flesh and hair was as powerful as a fine pepper spray, served with a side dish of bear spray. He wondered if he would vomit from the pungent odor.
     
    The deer tracks stopped at the edge of the closed door.
     
    What the fuck? Where did it go?
     
    The white button on the doorbell was quite small. He held his breath, pulled the glove away from his face and yanked it off to use his bare finger for the bell.
     
    “Holy shit,” he shouted and jerked back the second he touched it. The tip of his finger turned red and began to blister.
     
    “I just got burned by a doorbell,” he said out loud. “Payback for all those years of nicky nicky nine doors.”
     
    He