Page 40 of Carnival’s Playground

"What did you find?" I urgently ask, hurrying to his side. My pulse kicks up, hammering hard against my ribs.

Wyatt reaches into the brush and pulls out a weathered black canvas duffel bag, the fabric coated in dried mud. He unzips the heavy brass zipper with deliberate care, peeling the flaps back to reveal the contents under the pale sunlight.

"Heavy-duty steel bolt cutters," Wyatt states, pulling the tool out. "Industrial headlamp, a bastard file, and this."

He reaches into the bottom of the bag and pulls out a folded, grease-stained sheet of heavy drafting paper. He hands it directly to Dutch.

Dutch unfolds the paper, and the color instantly drains from the old man's weathered face. His hands tremble slightly against the paper.

"God almighty," Dutch mutters, his thick fingers shaking. "This is an exact technical schematic of our big top aerial rigging. Every load-bearing cable, every winch location, every tension rating."

"Who the hell has clearance to look at that?" I angrily demand, a cold knot of dread twisting in my stomach. My voice comes out thinner than I want it to.

"Hardly anyone," Dutch answers. "Me, Frank, the master riggers, and the previous maintenance supervisors."

"And whoever worked this circuit in the past," Wyatt adds, his jaw set like concrete.

"Rourke," I whisper, the name tasting like ash on my tongue.

"Maybe," Dutch cautiously replies, folding the paper with a violent snap. "Or maybe somebody's working overtime to make damn sure we blame Rourke."

Petey pulls his own folder of crew records from his jacket, furiously flipping through the clipped pages until he finds the matching technical layout from the spring tour.

"Dutch, look at the secondary winch placement on this diagram," Petey urgently points out, tapping the paper. "This schematic is over a year old. It shows the old counterweight setup we phased out back in March. Whoever drew this was using blueprints from last season."

"So either the saboteur hasn't worked our show recently," I reason, "or he's deliberately leaving outdated documents behind to throw us off his scent."

"Or both," Wyatt counters, his eyes scanning the tree line. "A smart operator feeds you the exact evidence you expect to find so you stop looking at the shadows right beside you."

Dutch flips open the sign-in clipboard, running his scarred thumb down the columns of handwritten names from the vendor gate. His breathing's gone shallow, and I can see the exhaustion pulling at the corners of his eyes.

"Wait a damn minute," Dutch growls, his voice dropping into a dangerous rumble.

"What is it, Dutch?" I press, stepping closer.

"Three nights ago, at eleven-fifteen." Dutch furiously reads, his eyes flashing with rage. "Somebody signed in as an outside mechanical contractor. Left the company line completely blank, and the signature is a smudged initial."

"Every outside contractor is required to provide a company name and an insurance certificate," Petey nervously states. "That's standard state protocol."

"Unless the gate guard was lazy or someone flashed an old carnival badge," Wyatt rebuts.

"Can you make out the initial?" I urgently ask, leaning over Dutch's shoulder.

"It's a capital letter R," Dutch mutters, staring at the smeared black ink. "The rest of the name is wiped out with grease."

"Rourke again," I breathlessly state, feeling the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up. "It's everywhere we look."

"And that's exactly why I don't buy it," Wyatt flatly declares, stepping between me and the dense brush, his posture completely defensive. "It's too clean, Avery. A guy trying to stay hidden doesn't leave his initials on a sign-in sheet, drop an old blueprint in the dirt, and wear a company jacket in front of a trail camera. Somebody's handing us a scapegoat on a silver platter."

"Then who the hell is doing this, Wyatt?" I ask, frustration boiling in my chest. My hands are shaking, and I shove them into my jacket pockets to hide it. "If it's not Rourke, who wants to kill our performers?"

"Someone who knows how this circus operates from the inside," Wyatt answers, his tone dark. "Someone who knows where the blind spots are, who knows how Dutch runs his books, and who knows exactly how to make us tear ourselves apart looking for ghosts."

Dutch carefully packs the tools and schematic back into the canvas duffel, his expression grim and lethal.

"We take this straight to Deputy Renn," Dutch decides. "Let the crime lab pull fingerprints from handles and paper. Petey, call Frank and tell him to lock down the tool sheds."

"What about the truck tracks?" Petey asks, pointing toward the gap in the brush.