Signs of Life by Melanie Hansen

and humid day, though the towering trees from the national forest provided periodic shade that made the heat tolerable. Still heat and humidity wouldn’t stop Jeremy from running, like rain and sleet didn’t, like bitter cold didn’t.
    Jeremy needed to run like he needed to breathe.
    He exited the national forest boundary and soon reached the paved road that led to his cabin on his private property. It was almost exactly a mile from the main forest road to his house, and Jeremy had it perfectly timed, speeding up into a sprint and slowing down right as the road curved and led into his driveway. As he walked around the circular drive, his arms above his head, letting his breathing deepen and his heart rate slow, he registered that something felt… off.
    He did his cooldown stretches and then paced the length of his driveway, scanning the house, not seeing anything out of place. His black Land Rover was safely in the garage, and the garage itself didn’t look tampered with. Jeremy thrust away the uneasy feeling and headed for the front door of the cabin, fishing the key out of the zippered pocket on his belt. His first priority was to hydrate and replenish what his run took out of him, and then he’d do a little more investigating, see if he could figure out what was disturbing him.
    Stripping off his belt and tossing it onto the small table just inside the front door, Jeremy toed off his running shoes and grabbed a bottle of room-temperature water he had set on the counter before heading out several hours earlier. Small sips gave way to gulps as his body adjusted to the introduction of the water, and he scrubbed his hand across his mouth, breaking off a small piece of a high-protein bar and chewing it slowly.
    He threw his sweaty shorts and the small towel into the downstairs hamper, then, stark naked, climbed the stairs to his master bedroom and got into a lukewarm shower, rinsing away the sweat and grime from his long run. Finally dressed in worn, comfortable jeans and a loose T-shirt, Jeremy thrust his feet into a pair of leather slides and headed back outside for another look around.
    While he’d been inside the sun had moved and the shadows that previously fell across the driveway were gone, revealing clear tire tracks on the asphalt. Jeremy had a landscaping service that usually came in and did the leaf-blowing and raking, but their scheduled day wasn’t until the weekend, three days away. As a result, the dirt and debris had accumulated, and those tire tracks hadn’t been there when Jeremy left for his run. Why would they be? Jeremy hadn’t had a visitor in a week, and that was only his cleaning lady, who was scheduled to arrive on the same day as the landscapers to minimize the disruption to Jeremy’s routine.
    He had a PO Box in town, so there wouldn’t be any mail delivery, and a quick scan of his front porch didn’t reveal a UPS or FedEx package waiting for him. Someone had been here, someone who had had no right to be. Jeremy had clearly posted No Trespassing signs at the entrance to his driveway, and the county-maintained road ended not far past his property line, turning into an unpaved rutted mess of a trail, impassable to a regular vehicle, even an SUV. If someone took a wrong turn off the main highway and blundered up to Jeremy’s driveway, they would have turned around at the end of it to go back the way they came, not come so close to the house.
    Rattled and unnerved, Jeremy made a circuit of the cabin, then two, still not noticing anything out of the ordinary. Finally deciding it was just some idiot who came up too far onto his property before turning around, and shaking his head in wry amusement at his paranoia, Jeremy headed back toward the front steps, intending to make a light supper and study his bar exam materials for a couple of hours before turning in early.
    He suddenly tripped over something, nearly falling to his knees before catching himself on the side of the cabin. Snorting with