Page 253 of Taken Away

Declan slowed.

“Well now,” he murmured. “Isn’t that interesting?”

The dirt road ran behind the winery.

He eased the car forward, studying the terrain through the windshield.

A person could park here and never be seen from the main drive. Could move through the trees, reach the edge of the vineyard, and come onto Blackwood land without passing a gate camera.

He drove on until the production warehouse came into view, a low metal building tucked beyond the last orderly rows of vines. A forklift sat near the open bay door. Two workers loaded cases onto a flatbed truck.

Declan parked and stepped out.

One of the men looked up. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Walter.”

The worker wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. “You missed him.”

“Did I now?”

“Yeah. He was here maybe twenty minutes ago. Said he had to head back up to the office.”

“Well,” he said, more to himself than the worker, “the man likes to keep moving, doesn’t he?”

“You want me to tell him you were looking for him?”

“No need. I’ll find him.”

Declan climbed back behind the wheel, but he did not start the engine.

He sat with one hand resting on the wheel, his gaze drifting back along the dirt road. A flicker caught his eye.

A deer stood in the trees, half-hidden by shade. Small and tawny, ears turning toward him once before settling again. She did not run. Instead, she lowered her head and licked at something pale near the base of a pine.

Declan watched her, amused despite himself.

“Well, aren’t ye the bold wee thing.”

The deer lifted her head, stared at him as if deciding he was no threat, then returned to the block.

Declan’s smile faded into interest. He stepped out.

The pale square was a mineral block, weather-worn at the edges, placed deliberately inside the tree line.

“Ah,” he said. “That’s one way to keep them coming back.”

The deer bounded off, her white tail flashing once before the woods swallowed her.

Declan followed the direction she had come from, his gaze moving over the trees.

That was when he saw it.

Small. Camouflaged. Strapped to the trunk of a pine.

A trail camera. Easy to miss.

Declan moved toward it.