Page 44 of It's a Wonderful Knife

“Yeah.” Max nodded, looking around. “Where the hell could he be?”

“Not sure.” If he’d passed out on his way to the cabin, we’d have come across him. But there was no trace of him.

“He wouldn’t try and cross the river, would he?” Max scowled.

“I don’t think so. He wouldn’t leave Amelia here alone and try to leave. At least, I don’t think he would.”

There were some sheds behind the main house. The farm kept equipment and supplies in two of them, and one was referred to as the reindeer barn. The farm didn’t actually have reindeer. However, when the school buses came this time of year, the farmpretendedthey had reindeer. They’d put halters with antlers on the alpacas and keep them in that shed. Then the staff would bring the kids to the reindeer barn so the little kids could pet the fake reindeer. The kids got a real kick out of it.

I pointed toward the sheds. “Let’s check those out. If he’s not there, we’ll head back,” I yelled.

“Why would he be in there?”

“Shelter? I don’t know. Maybe he got caught in a storm cell and decided to wait it out in one of those sheds. I’ll just feel better if we look. He has to be somewhere.”

Max nodded. “Okay.”

We trudged up the slight incline where the sheds were located, slipping and sliding in the thick mud. Just as I reached the top of the incline, I slipped and probably would have landed on my ass if Max hadn’t grabbed hold of me.

Grimacing, I rasped, “Thanks.”

“Sure,” he panted, his quick breaths visible in the cold air.

The first two equipment sheds were locked up tight. We made our way toward the white building that was used as the reindeer barn. I tried the door and was surprised to find it unlocked. Maybe the farm was sheltering some of the animals in the shed during the storm? I cautiously opened the door, not wanting to be trampled by scared alpacas. My flashlight illuminated the inside of the shed, showing hay on the floor and halters hung on the walls. There were individual stalls for the animals, but no animals.

“Santiago?” I called out, but my voice just bounced back at me with no response.

We stepped into the small building, thankful for a respite from the rain. Max blew out a tired breath, and he wiped his wet face. I moved the beam of light slowly around the area, searching for any sign that Santiago might have been inside the shed at one point.

When Max gave a sharp intake of breath, I glanced over at him. “What’s wrong?” I frowned.

His gaze was pinned on the ground. I followed his gaze and was confused by what I was seeing. It was like shards of glass and bright-colored plastic pieces strewn across the floor. At first I thought it was glitter, but when I knelt down and picked up one of the larger pieces, I saw the little apple symbol that was on the back of most iPhones.

“What the hell?” I muttered, turning one fragment of plastic in front of the flashlight as I examined it. “Is this a piece of a phone?”

“Royce,” Max said in a hushed voice.

“Yeah?” I kept inspecting the pieces of plastic and glass from the floor. There were all different colors, so it wasn’t just like one phone had broken in here.

“Royce,” Max repeated, only this time there was an urgency in his voice.

I glanced up. “What’s wrong?”

He pointed toward the corner of the building. I swung the light around, and it illuminated a raggedy blanket covering a pile of junk. Some things were visible beneath the edge of the blanket: broken chairs, worn bridles, and the legs of a… scarecrow?

Why would a Christmas tree farm have a scarecrow?

My heart began to pound as I moved closer. I prayed I wasn’t seeing what I feared I was seeing. Not counting the sound of rain on the metal roof, it was eerily silent in the shed as I inched toward the pile. There was a pool of red liquid beneath the legs, and hope drained away. I grabbed hold of the edge of the blanket and gave it a hard tug. The shabby material flopped to the ground in a cloud of dust.

Santiago sat hunched, legs splayed, with a knife stuck in the center of his bloody chest.

Chapter Seven

Royce (Again)

If the deathly silence made it obvious tomeSantiago was dead, it must have been even more apparent to Max. Regardless, he swore under his breath and ran over to the body. He checked Santiago for vital signs as I stared on in utter shock. Death was nothing new to me, but in this setting, it felt impossibly difficult to accept.

Move. Now. Search for the killer.