Page 37 of Rangers Last Promise

“Three numbers. Eight, seventeen, and twenty-three.”

No one speaks.

Mara looks at the strip from Grant’s journal.

“This isn’t only about recovering the evidence,” she says. “They want us to follow it.”

I stare at the broken window, the dark street, and the rain washing away tracks that might have led us to the shooter.

She’s right.

Someone brought me to Eagle River.

Someone was waiting for Mara to find Grant’s journal.

And now that person is leaving us a trail.

The question isn’t where it leads.

It’s which one of us will still be alive when we reach the end.

5

MARA

“I’m going to the mill.”

“No.”

Sheriff Tate doesn’t even look at me when he answers. He stands behind the bar with his phone pressed to his ear, directing deputies to secure the road around the burning SUV.

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

“That’s unfortunate, because you need it.”

“I’m the deputy assigned to this investigation.”

“You were the deputy assigned to investigate the shot fired into your mother’s house. You became the victim when someone put your photograph in a rifle scope.”

“I can be both.”

“Not tonight.”

I look toward Wolf for support.

He suddenly finds something interesting about the broken front window.

Trigger does the same.

Cowards.

Doc stands near the wall with his arms folded across his chest. His jacket is gone, leaving the black shirt beneath it stretched across broad shoulders. The scar through his eyebrow makes him appear even more dangerous beneath the red emergency lights.

He isn’t avoiding my gaze.

Of course not.

“You agree with him.”