Chapter 1 - COLD HUNT - An Aria Hunt Crime Thriller
- Chase Austin
- Mar 27
- 6 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
Disclaimer
This is an unedited version of the book and may contain typographical errors, grammatical mistakes, or inconsistencies. If you spot any such issues, please don’t hesitate to report them to contact@thechaseaustin.com. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!
CHAPTER 1
Sheriff Clay Marrick's patrol car crept along the snow-packed forest road, headlights carving twin tunnels through the darkness. The wipers fought a losing battle against the relentless snowfall, scraping across the windshield in a hypnotic rhythm that matched the pounding in his chest. Twenty below and dropping—the kind of cold that turned breath solid and made metal brittle as glass.
"Dispatch, I'm approaching the Lawson cabin now." His voice sounded hollow in the empty car. He'd killed the sirens five minutes back. No need for them now.
The response came back fragmented. "Copy... signal weak... backup... forty minutes..."
Clay adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, knuckles white. The call had come in thirty minutes ago from Jonas Reed, checking on his neighbor who wasn't answering his door. Just a wellness check, until Reed had peered through the window and seen something that made him back away fast.
His headlights illuminated a wooden sign nearly buried in snow: PRIVATE PROPERTY. Below it, barely visible: T. LAWSON. The narrow drive wound another quarter-mile through dense pines before opening to a small clearing. Clay's tires crunched over fresh powder as he pulled up beside an older model pickup truck, its dark outline ghostly under the accumulating snow.
A second vehicle—Reed's Subaru—was parked haphazardly near the cabin's entrance, driver's door still ajar, interior light casting a sickly glow across the snow. Clay reached for his flashlight, thumbing it on, then stepped out into knee-deep snow. The cold hit him like a physical blow, stealing his breath.
"Reed?" he called out, his voice swallowed by the dense forest. "Jonas?"
The cabin door stood open, spilling yellow light onto the pristine white ground. Clay's hand instinctively moved to his holster as he approached, tracking a single set of footprints leading inside. They looked rushed, uneven—the steps of a man who'd seen something he couldn't unsee.
"Jonas Reed? Sheriff's Department."
A figure materialized in the doorway, face ashen in the harsh porch light. Jonas Reed—mid-sixties, retired logger, respected resident of Whitetail for forty years. The man's hands trembled visibly, and Clay knew it wasn't just from the cold.
"Thank Christ you're here," Reed's voice cracked. "Tom's... he's..." He gestured helplessly behind him.
"Stay there," Clay ordered, unsnapping his holster as he climbed the three wooden steps to the porch. "Anyone else inside that you saw?"
Reed shook his head. "Just Tom. Been dead awhile from the look of it." He swallowed hard. "Never seen a man's head open like that before."
The cabin's interior hit Clay with warmth and the unmistakable copper smell of blood. A wood stove radiated heat from the corner, still burning strong—meaning whoever had been here last had intended for the body to be preserved, not frozen. To the left, a kitchen area with an unwashed coffee mug and half-eaten breakfast. To the right, a living space with worn furniture arranged around a low table covered in maps of the surrounding mountains. Beyond that, a desk where Thomas Lawson sat slumped in his chair.
The back of Lawson's head was gone. Blood and brain matter spattered the wall behind him, a dark starburst against pine paneling. A hunting rifle lay across his lap, barrel pointing toward the floor.
Clay paused, letting his trained eyes take in the entirety of the scene before moving closer. "Did you touch anything?"
Reed remained rooted in the doorway. "No. Called you right off. Knew he was gone just looking through the window."
Clay approached the body, careful to avoid the splatter pattern. Lawson—late sixties, military-straight posture even in death, wearing flannel and jeans. His right hand rested near the rifle's trigger guard. Left hand palm-down on the desk beside an open gun cleaning kit.
"Looks like he was cleaning it," Reed offered. "Must've gone off."
But Clay frowned, the skin between his shoulders tightening. Thomas Lawson had been in Whitetail less than two years. Kept to himself. Former military or intelligence—nobody knew exactly which, but the way he carried himself told the story his mouth never did. Bought this remote cabin with cash. Polite but distant at the general store. Clay had pegged him immediately as a man who'd seen combat. Not the careless type who'd clean a loaded weapon.
"When's the last time anyone spoke to him?" Clay asked, eyes still scanning the room.
Reed thought for a moment. "Margaret at the general store mentioned he stocked up three days ago. Said something about the storm coming."
Clay's attention caught on the desk. A computer monitor glowed, screensaver bouncing across the screen. But the tower case beneath the desk hung open, components visible. Clay crouched down, flashlight illuminating the interior. Too neat, too empty. Seemed as if something had been removed. He didn’t know what.
"Did he keep to himself up here? Any visitors you know of?"
Reed shrugged. "Guess so. Sometimes I'd see tire tracks that weren't his old Chevy. Thought it might be one of the Blaine boys—they hunt these parts without asking permissions sometimes."
Clay stood slowly, focusing now on the floor. Boot prints in the thin layer of dust—multiple sets, overlapping. Different treads. Lawson lived alone. A chair knocked slightly askew. The angle of disruption suggesting someone rising quickly. The window latches secure, but one showed microscopic scratches around the lock.
Outside, the wind picked up, moaning through the trees like something wounded. It carried the promise of a storm intensifying, the kind that would bury secrets three feet deep by morning.
"Sheriff?" Reed's voice wavered. "This an accident or what?"
Clay turned away from the body, his face revealing nothing. "Can't say yet. I need you to wait in your truck, Jonas. This is a scene now."
"But the storm—"
"Your truck." Clay's tone left no room for argument. "I'll take your statement properly when backup arrives."
PREORDER "HUNTED" (An Aria hunt FBI Crime Thriller)
Reluctantly, Reed retreated into the night. Clay pulled out his phone. No signal, as expected. He'd have to use the radio in his cruiser.
Before stepping out, he moved to the window, looking across the undisturbed blanket of snow surrounding the cabin. Perfect white, except for their two sets of tracks from the vehicles and—
He squinted, moving the beam of his flashlight across the clearing's edge. There—almost invisible if you weren't looking for it. A third trail, already filling with fresh snow, leading from the back of the cabin into the forest. Someone had left in a hurry, and recently enough that the falling snow hadn't completely concealed their escape.
Clay's radio crackled to life when he returned to his car, Deputy Simmons' voice breaking through. "Sheriff? ETA thirty minutes. Storm's getting nasty on the pass."
"Copy," Clay responded, eyes still on that fading trail. "Possible homicide. Secure the area when you arrive. Don't let anyone up this road."
He clicked off before questions came. Moving around the cabin's perimeter, flashlight beam sweeping the ground, Clay followed his instinct to the rear door. The lock was intact, but when he looked closer, fine scratches marked the metal around it. Professional work—someone who knew how to get in without breaking anything obvious.
At the edge of the tree line, the disappearing footprints showed a distinctive pattern—someone moving quickly, with purpose. Not the stumbling tracks of a hiker or hunter. These belonged to someone who knew exactly where they were going, and what they were leaving behind.
Clay stared into the dark forest, snow swirling between the pines like dancing ghosts. Whoever made those tracks had at least a two-hour head start. In this weather, they'd be miles away by now. Or watching from the darkness.
The wind whipped harder, erasing the last visible traces of the footprints. By morning, any evidence would be buried beneath feet of fresh snow. Nature's accomplice.
Clay turned back toward the cabin, where Thomas Lawson's body waited in frozen silence, secrets cooling with his blood. He'd need to call the state police eventually, but not before he understood what he was dealing with. Whitetail handled its own problems—always had.
He paused at the doorway, looking back at those trees. Something about this felt wrong in his bones. Lawson didn’t seem like he was just some retiree who'd had an accident. He seemed like a man who had chosen isolation for a reason. A man who'd been careful, watchful—until tonight.
Someone wanted to make this look like an accident but he had not been very methodical. But they might have succeeded—if not for those faint footprints in the snow and whatever was missing from that computer.
Clay stepped back into the cabin and pulled out his phone, snapping photos of everything, especially the boot prints on the floor. Evidence had a way of disappearing in Whitetail.
In this town, nothing stayed buried forever. Not bodies. Not secrets. Not even under winter's deepest blanket.
And Clay Marrick had a sinking feeling that whatever Thomas Lawson had brought with him to Whitetail was about to drag them all into something darker than the winter night outside.
Chapter 2 link is below the poll.
Reader Poll: First Impressions of Cold Hunt❄️🔍
You've read the blurb and the first chapter… now it's your turn!
Do you like the story so far?👇
Cast your vote below!
Do you like this story
I'm hooked – Aria Hunt is a total badass.
Loving the slow-burn mystery and snowy small-town vibe.
It’s interesting, but I want to see where it goes.
Not quite grabbing me yet.
What do you think so far?
Drop a comment or email me at contact@thechaseaustin.com—I’d love to hear your thoughts!
PREORDER "HUNTED" (An Aria hunt FBI Crime Thriller)
Comments