Page 210 of Rangers Unexpected Return

Then Sheriff Tate slowly removed his hat.

His face had gone pale.

“I’ve seen those initials.”

“Where?” Judy asked.

“They weren’t on camp property.” He looked toward the burned office. “They were stamped on evidence boxes.”

“What evidence boxes?”

“The ones that disappeared after Emily died.”

Every heartbeat in the room seemed to stop.

“They disappeared?” Trigger asked.

“I thought they had been transferred.”

“Transferred where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who signed them out?”

Sheriff Tate slowly shook his head.

“I never found the paperwork.”

Judy looked down at the recorder and then toward the smoking remains of the camp office.

“The Keeper didn’t come here tonight to kill us.”

Wolf nodded.

“He came to make sure we found exactly what he wanted.”

“And what didn’t he want us to find?” I asked.

Nobody answered.

Because for the first time, that question frightened Judy more than anything we had discovered all day.

20

JUDY

The fire had burned down to glowing embers.

The abandoned camp looked like a battlefield.

Firefighters rolled hoses toward their trucks. Sheriff’s deputies photographed tire tracks while Will cataloged every piece of evidence recovered from the office.

I slipped back into the ruins.

The smell of wet ash filled the air.

The brass cabinet stood where the firefighters had left it.