Page 19 of Crimson Moon Falling

I leaned into him for a moment, allowing myself that small comfort. “Let me finish with the truck, and we’ll talk tonight.”

Gunnar straightened from examining the pickup bed and the toolbox. “Nothing back here except about what you’d expect.”

I returned to the cab and began methodically working through the interior. As I leaned down to check under the seats, a tingle moved through my fingers. The energy drew me to a spot under the speedometer and gauges on the dashboard.

A small compartment popped open when I pressed it, probably meant for loose change. Inside were a few quarters, a dime, and a crumpled piece of paper wedged in the back corner.

Determined, intentional energy bled off the paper, and I smoothed it out on my thigh. It was a torn receipt, only partially intact, from Emma’s Café in Afton, Wyoming. The date was a few days before Viggo went missing.

The partial receipt showed printed food items and a total, but there were also numbers written on the back. It was a series of numbers and dots, but with a portion of the sequence missing where the receipt had been torn in two.

Two fours with a dot, then six three nine eight, and what looked like a zero, but the rest was gone.

I put the receipt in a small evidence baggie and pocketed it. Apex Mentes had compromised one of the Rangers in Carlsbad. I’d learned my lesson. We finished searching the truck, then expanded out to the parking area, but didn’t pick up anything new.

Later that evening, when Freda and Bennion went for a grocery run, and Ash and Conall were in the living room discussing the upcoming talks in Washington, I pulled the baggie from my pocket and set it on the table.

“I think I found something in Viggo’s truck.”

“Looks like trash,” Gunnar grunted, glancing up from his computer and over his tiny bifocals.

“It doesn’t feel like trash, though.”

His eyes shot back to me. “What’s it feel like?”

“Like Viggo wanted me to find it.” I held the baggie up. “It’s a receipt from a diner in Afton, about two hours south of here, near the Idaho border. But what’s written on the back is what I’m really interested in.”

Gunnar pushed his bifocals up to get a better look. “Is it a phone number?”

Conall walked up behind him and shook his head, pointing to the first two numbers, then to the decimal point. “It’s part of a GPS coordinate, but you’re missing the longitude.”

“Can we try to narrow down the area with just this section?” I asked.

Ash came up on Gunnar’s other side and studied the numbers. “It’s not enough. It could be a thousand different places between Greenwich and the equator. This only tells us how far north or south of the equator this location would be.”

Gunnar grunted. “This could also be a fucking fishin’ hole.”

I knew it wasn’t. “Viggo’s residual energy led me right to it. I think this is related to what he and my dad were working on.”

Conall went still. “Are you saying the missing ranger and Eli knew each other?”

I leaned forward. “Yes. Gunnar, where’s the journal I gave you?”

He pulled it out of his jacket. I laid it on the table and showed them what I’d found. “I haven’t read it all, thanks to Langston, but something was happening at Rocky Mountain National Park when Dad went missing, and now I think it’s happening here too.”

Ash folded his arms. “Yellowstone is over two million acres.”

Gunnar nodded. “We gotta narrow it down then. Tomorrow, let’s go to Afton and visit that diner to see if anyone knows where the other half of this receipt is.”

Conall looked at Gunnar. “You stick out, and people may not talk to you.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Gunnar grumbled. “I don’t understand why people don’t like talking to me. I’m perfectly pleasant, damn it.”

“I can’t imagine,” I murmured.

He raised his shaggy caterpillar eyebrows at me. “You bein’ a smartass?”

“A little. Viggo’s cabin isn’t far from Afton. Maybe they know him.”