No response.
Warren tried the handle.It turned without resistance.
Inside, the lodge held the day’s trapped heat, mixed with old wood, cold fireplace ash, and the faint animal trace of mice.Fading light slipped through grimy windows, laying weak bars across the floor.His boots struck the boards, each step answering itself in the empty rooms.
“It’s Warren,” he called again.“I’m here.”
The words moved through the lodge and died somewhere beyond the hall.
Warren took in the front room first.A stone fireplace with blackened bricks.Two chairs with torn vinyl seats.Pegs along one wall where coats used to hang.A rack for rifles, empty now.Beside it, a photograph hung crooked in a cheap wooden frame.Four men stood beside a buck strung up from a branch.One of them was his father, younger and grinning, one arm around a boy who looked too proud to fit inside his own skin.
Warren didn’t step closer.
The past could wait.
A doorway to the left opened into the dining room.He found the long table where hunters had once eaten chili from chipped bowls and dealt cards after dark.Its surface had been wiped cleaner than the rest of the place, though a gray film still clung in the corners.Six chairs stood around it, all tucked in except one at the far end.
On the table lay a single white envelope.The sight of it made him nervous.
His name had been typed across the front in block letters.
WARREN HOLT
His throat tightened.Hehadbeen late.The message had been left for him and him alone.
For a few seconds, the room seemed to pull away from him.The table.The chairs.The long window with dirt gathered in its lower corners.All of it looked ordinary, and that made the envelope worse.It stood out like a white pin stuck into his side.
Warren took one step closer.
“Real cute,” he said, but the words carried no weight.He was unnerved, and no amount of bravado was going to undo that.
A creak sounded from the kitchen.
Warren turned so fast his shoulder clipped the doorframe.
“Who’s there?”
No answer.Was he alone?He felt compelled to find out.
The kitchen waited beyond another doorway, dimmer than the dining room.Warren moved toward it, each board underfoot making him wince.Old cabinets lined one wall.A sink sat beneath a window clouded by grime.A dead fly lay belly-up on the counter.Nothing moved.
“Come on,” Warren said.“I’m here, aren’t I?Show yourself.If you ain’t a coward.”
Only the trees answered, brushing against the outside wall.
His watch glinted when he lifted his wrist.
Whatever he had expected, it wasn’t this.No one to barter with; no face waiting across from him.Just an envelope on a table in a room where too many men had once laughed, and none of them were here now.
Warren returned to the dining room.He would read whatever was in the damned letter and then leave.If he could afford whatever the amount was, he would pay it and be done with this.But in his gut, he could feel it.The blackmailer would only be done with him whentheychose.
The chair at the far end in front of the envelope seemed to be waiting for him.He didn’t like that.Still, after one more glance toward the kitchen and another toward the front door, he sat.The chair gave a small groan beneath his weight.
The envelope felt dry and crisp in his hands.
His name stared back at him.
He took a breath and held it for a moment, then began.
