Blood on Copperhead Trail by Paula Graves Page B

path.
    “Because we’re raised to drive and walk on the right,” he said.
    “And to leave the left side open for others who might pass.” She pointed to the two dips in the snow. The one on the left was shallow, the one on the right definitely deeper. “Someone came through here sometime last night. This path wasn’t here when we came through, and it’s a little deeper on the right here than the trail on the left we made on the climb up.”
    She was right. He’d have never noticed the subtle signs, or been able to read what they meant.
    “It could have been one of the other search parties, couldn’t it?”
    “Maybe, but nobody else was supposed to be looking in this area. And I don’t see signs that anyone came up here behind us.”
    He looked doubtfully at the snowy expanse ahead. “Not sure how you can tell that.”
    “The track would be deeper, like this one on the right. But it’s not. It’s only about three inches deep. Three inches is about how much snow there was on the ground when we came through, so these are our tracks. Whoever came through on the way back down tamped down more than three inches. About six inches fell in total, so whoever came through here came through when there was already five inches on the ground.”
    “The snow was around five inches deep last night when we went out in search of whoever made that sound,” Doyle remembered.
    “So maybe we were following in the wrong direction,” she said, standing.
    “Maybe they were heading back down the trail instead of away from it?”
    She nodded, starting forward again. She kept clear of the trail she’d discovered.
    He followed her lead, trying not to jump to any conclusions. Even if there had been someone outside the cabin last night, and someone hiking back down the trail after five inches of snow had fallen, they couldn’t be sure that person was up to no good. It might have been another hiker, looking for shelter and shocked to find the cabin already inhabited.
    Although why he wouldn’t have knocked on the door and asked for help—or why he’d have screamed bloody murder—
    “There’s the second shelter.” Laney pointed down the trail and he spotted the trail shelter about fifty yards ahead. “That means we’re about eight miles from the staging area where we all gathered yesterday. If there are any search parties out looking for us, we should come across them soon.”
    “Mind if we stop a second? I keep feeling something in my boot. Maybe I picked up a pebble or something in the cabin.” He’d been feeling it more sharply the longer they’d hiked, and he’d prefer not to keep going with whatever it was rubbing a blister on the bottom of his foot.
    As he leaned against the wall of the shelter to take off his boot, Laney wandered over to the wooden pedestal that held the logbook box. “Maybe whoever was on the trail last night did us a favor and stopped to write something in the log,” she said, her tone facetious.
    Doyle found the offending wood chip that had gotten in his boot and dumped it out onto the dirt floor of the shelter. Shoving the boot back on and tying the laces, he was about to ask Laney if she’d found anything when she let out a profanity. “Doyle, come here!”
    He quickly tied the knot and hurried outside, where she stood staring at the log box, a scowl creasing her brow. Her blue eyes snapped up to meet his. What he saw there made his gut tighten.
    “Look at this.” She punched her finger at the logbook.
    He crossed to her side and looked over her shoulder. The logbook was open to a page that was blank except for a square photograph and a single line of block lettering. “You’re never really safe,” the message on the logbook read.
    The photograph showed two people sleeping half slumped inside a cabin, their features illuminated by the glow of a woodstove. The image was a little blurry, as if taken through a grimy, time-warped glass window.
    Doyle felt as if he’d taken a punch to the