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Now it was mine and Chase’s turn to exchange knowing glances.
“Yeahhhh…” I said, drawing the word out a little too long. My answer sounded suspect as hell.
“We got tired,” said Chase, coming to the rescue. “We went to bed kinda early.”
Julian scanned him for a moment with those piercing grey eyes. “Yeah. I’ll bet you did.”
Strapping the camera back to the tree was easy enough, and we decided not to mess with the settings. The memory card would hold thousands of photos. Better to have it set on high-sensitivity and have to scroll through some insect pics, than to chance missing whatever was out here, wandering around.
“Hey,” Chase said, just as we were about to walk back toward the castle. “Look at this.”
He was kneeling at the edge of the clearing. Running his hand over something in the tall grass.
“What is it?”
“The ground’s disturbed. It’s all dug up.”
Julian and I looked down. Intermittently, in certain spots, there was dirt among the grass.
“Animals would do that, no?”
“I guess,” I guessed.
“Gophers maybe,” offered Julian.
“Doesn’t look like gophers,” said Chase, shaking his head. “Was it like this yesterday?”
Once again Julian and I consulted each other, this time without a consensus. “I—I don’t know.”
“Seems we know less and less every day,” smiled Chase, standing up. He dusted himself off, then looked at Julian for a moment and cocked his head. “Tank! It’s gotta be Tank.”
Julian spat on the ground and turned to walk away. Chase appeared about to call a few extra names after him, when Noah came jogging up. His look was deadly serious.
“We’ve got a problem,” he said gravely. “A big problem.”
Everyone stopped, even Chase. I took one look into Noah’s eyes, and realized this couldn’t be good.
“What is it?”
“That lumber you had delivered the other day? Over by the mill tower?”
My stomach dropped. “Yeah?”
“More than half of it’s missing.”
Twenty-Eight
MADISON
I paced the inner ward, across the graveled remnants of a grain road that hadn’t seen use in at least two centuries. No matter how many times I walked it, Noah was still right:
Half the new delivery was just… gone.
“Where the hell could it be?” he roared, throwing his arms up. “It didn’t just get up and walk off!”
I looked down at the invoice for the fifth time. It still hadn’t changed.
“Is it possible they shorted us?”
