Page 4 of Rangers Last Promise

Then the tone changes.

Four days before his death, the handwriting becomes cramped and uneven.

Someone altered the route.

I read the sentence twice.

The entry beneath it is longer.

Orders came through the correct channel, but they weren’t the orders command sent. Doc thinks I’m seeing ghosts. Mace believes me. We were directed into that valley for a reason. Someone knew there wouldn’t be air support.

My stomach tightens.

The next page has been torn out.

So have the three after it.

I flip through the journal, searching for the final entry.

It was written the night before Grant died.

I know who changed the coordinates.

My heart pounds so hard the words blur.

I blink and look again.

I was right. We were sold out. I copied everything before he realized what I found. If we make it back, I’m taking it to⁠—

The sentence ends there.

Someone has cut away the bottom half of the page.

“What did you find, Grant?”

The floorboard creaks in the hallway.

My hand goes automatically to the gun at my hip before I remember I’m not wearing it. I came here on my day off, dressed in jeans and an old Eagle River Sheriff’s Department sweatshirt. My service weapon is locked inside the small safe beneath the driver’s seat of my SUV.

I close the journal and rise slowly.

“Hello?”

No answer.

The bedroom door stands open. From where I’m standing, I can see part of the hallway and the top of the staircase.

The house settles around me.

That’s all it is.

An old house reacting to the afternoon heat.

I walk into the hallway anyway.

“Sheriff’s department,” I call. “If someone is inside this house, identify yourself.”

Silence.