The farmhouse loomed ahead like a rotting skeleton against the night sky. Its windows were shattered, and the front door hung off its hinges, groaning in the gale-force wind. But the footprints didn’t lead to the front door. They veered toward the back, wrapping around the side of the decaying structure until they stopped abruptly at a heavy, iron-reinforced cellar door set into the ground.
A heavy rusted padlock had been hastily smashed, the latch hanging loose.
Natalie drew her service weapon. Her heart hammered against her ribs, echoing the frantic rhythm of the storm. She thought of seven-year-old Ashley, miles away in the back of an ambulance, clutching her stomach and whispering that her daddy had promised to come back.