Page 57 of If You're Reading This

If Knox was inside, Logan wanted to take him by surprise.

The living room, kitchen, and small dining area filled his gaze. Above him, half the roof was gone, burned by the fire. Snow gathered in the corners inside.

He tested the floor to make sure it was safe. Then he stepped farther inside, his gaze wandering throughout the cabin.

With every step, the stench of death grew stronger.

He wasn’t normally given to anxiety. But nausea roiled in his stomach.

He couldn’t get the image of what may have happened to Morgan out of his head.

He cleared the living room, then the kitchen.

He’d seen no one yet, no signs of what had happened or where the smell of decay was coming from.

Then he reached a single bedroom in the back.

As he did, the stench thickened. The rank odor of death seeped through the cracks like a warning.

He drew in a deep breath before opening the door.

His whole world froze when he saw the body there.

Please, Lord. . . . don’t let it be Morgan. Please.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Logan turned awayfrom the sight of the dead body.

He hated to feel relieved. But he did.

It wasn’t Morgan, but this was still a horrible crime scene.

“Gibson?” Duke’s voice stretched through the air.

“It’s clear.” He shoved his gun back into his shoulder holster.

Duke peered past him, and his eyes widened as he glanced into the room. “That’s . . . not Morgan.”

“It’s Knox.” Logan rubbed a hand over his face.

Facts continued to churn in his mind—pieces of truth that begged for his attention.

Duke shined his flashlight on what remained of Knox.

The man was arranged with grotesque precision against the back wall of the cabin. His body was positioned to mirror the composition of one of Morgan’s photographs. If he remembered correctly, she’d called it the “Forgotten Watchman.”

The photo was a haunting image of an abandoned hunting shack with a tattered coat still hanging on a hook, silhouetted against the window frame.

Only here, Knox’s body replaced the coat, his arms outstretched in a macabre parody of the original image.

“We need to call this in,” Andi reminded him gently. “There’s no time to waste.”

Logan nodded, already dialing.

Logan, Duke, and Andi waited outside, the bitter cold preferable to the ghastly atmosphere inside the ramshackle hunting cabin. Logan paced in front of the structure unable to stand still as adrenaline and dread coursed through him in equal measure.