The Ruse Read Online Free PDF

there’s nothing wrong with the house, right? I mean, we did get it pretty cheap.”
     
    “Jared’s hunting rifle was found on your porch. Everyone knows that, but when we searched the house, we found nothing.”
     
    Tessa could tell the cop was lying. The whole conversation, he’d looked at either one of them directly when he talked. He seemed sure of himself as a veteran of the RCMP. But when he said they’d found nothing in the house, he looked away and fiddled with his car keys as if lost in thought.
     
    Eric would’ve caught it too. He was a writer and claimed to be a people watcher. He studied them to grab nuances and character traits that he could offer his characters.
     
    “Okay, well, thanks officer. We’ll keep our eyes open, and at least now we’ll know what they’re doing if we see people wandering around the property.”
     
    The cop nodded and slid into his cruiser. He backed the car up, spun the wheel and drove down their narrow driveway too fast for the curves.
     
    “What was that all about?” Tessa asked. “I’m seriously creeped out now.”
     
    “I don’t know, but I intend to find out.”
     

Chapter 3

    Tessa stayed on the porch as Eric walked into the house, no doubt on his way to the computer to see what he could research on the house and area.
     
    I know him too well.
     
    She took in a deep breath and detected the faint smell of something burning. It had been permanently stuck in her nose since they’d moved in.
     
    Eric shouted, and she jumped on the spot.
     
    “What?” she yelled back.
     
    “Get in here.”
     
    Tessa ran through the front door. Their furniture lay piled in the center of the living room covered in a white sheet until the room could be painted. The cathedral ceiling was sixteen feet high with a wooden railing along the top that led from one bedroom to the other. He wasn’t upstairs by the railing where she’d last seen his computer.
     
    “Where are you?” she asked.
     
    “In the kitchen,” he said.
     
    At the archway to the kitchen, Tessa stopped and gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.
     
    “Why did you do that?” Eric asked.
     
    She had nothing to do with what sat in the oven, and since it was only the two of them at the house, it had to be him.
     
    “You know I didn’t do that ,” she said, pointing at the oven. “I’m not capable of doing that .”
     
    “Then who did?”
     
    “I have no idea,” she said.
     
    Eric looked away from her. “You don’t have to be sarcastic. There’s only the two of us and since I didn’t do it, it had to be you.”
     
    The smell intensified as the oven’s door lay open. Tessa wanted to cover her nose but instead crossed her arms and stared at Eric.
     
    “That’s funny. I was just thinking the same thing. Is this some kind of prank?”
     
    “You’re kidding, right? You set this up and now you’re pretending it was me.”
     
    “Okay, Eric, I trust you,” she said, unfolding her arms. “But if I didn’t do this and you didn’t, then who did?”
     
    He looked at the stove and then back at her. “I have no idea. Could someone have come in while we were talking to the cop?”
     
    “How? The back door is covered up with furniture. They would’ve had to walk right by us at the front door.” The smell became overwhelming. “Can you grab that thing and toss it in the bush, and then we’ll talk about this outside?”
     
    Eric opened the cutlery drawer and pulled out the barbecue tongs. Carefully, he leaned into the stove and applied the tongs to either side of the rat’s burnt carcass. With the blackened rodent’s body held firm in his grip, Eric walked across the kitchen toward the door. Once outside, he continued away from the house and tossed the body into the trees.
     
    “There, it’s gone,” he shouted back at her as she stepped outside.
     
    Tessa shuddered the length of her body. “We’ve been here since yesterday. Do you think that charred smell was the rat all