Page 68 of Silent Bones

“It’s the old magician’s trick,” Noah said. “You are distracted looking one way, when something else is being done elsewhere. The question is, by who?”

McKenzie gave a small nod. “Or he’s just that arrogant.”

“I’m sure there is some of that involved too.”

A long silence followed.

Finally, McKenzie said, “You’re not suggesting another knock on his door, are you?”

“No knock,” Noah said. “No flashlight. No cruiser. Just me visiting from a distance.”

Callie looked unconvinced. “If he’s moving product, he’s not going to do it while he’s being tailed.”

“He’s not being tailed,” Noah said. “Not officially.”

McKenzie looked toward the wall map, then back to Noah. “He’s smart. Slippery as hell. You need to be careful.”

He grabbed his coat and keys. “I’ll be back before midnight. I just want to watch. See if he moves. See if he meets anyone.”

McKenzie gave a half-nod, but his eyes held weight. “You see anything resembling a deal or a dump site, anything that’s not wildlife, you call. No playing lone ranger.”

Hours later,Noah killed the engine and let the quiet settle over him like a net.

He was parked on the shoulder of an old forest access road, pine needles crunching beneath his tires. No signs, no driveways, just a break in the trees he wouldn’t have noticed if he hadn’t been looking. A half-mile in, behind brush and stunted birch, lay Mack Hawkins’ off-grid world.

He stepped out into the deepening dusk and closed the door without slamming it. No badge tonight. No notepad. Just instinct and a growing unease in his gut.

The air hung thick with the scent of rain-soaked earth and woodsmoke. Noah moved carefully, his boots silent against the wet ground as he crept along the embankment. From this vantage point, the cabin emerged in fragments through the darkness—a corrugated metal roof streaked with rust, weathered log walls, and a crooked stovepipe threading pale smoke into the air. Golden lamplight flickered behind a curtained window.

Through his night vision binoculars, shadows drifted across the illuminated glass. A figure passed once, then again—unhurried movements of someone simply going about their evening routine.

Noah adjusted his focus and panned left.

A ramshackle shed crouched deeper in the treeline, its tin roof buckled and sagging, one corner door hanging askew from a broken hinge. But it wasn't the dilapidated structure that caught his attention, it was what lay in the clearing beside it.

A blue plastic tarp stretched across the ground, heavy and rumpled as if hastily abandoned. Alongside it, a disturbed patch of earth showed drag marks, shallow but distinct grooves carved through the mud. Someone had hauled something substantial across this ground, and recently. The effort it must have taken was written in those tracks.

This wasn't about moving firewood. It was effort.

Farther to the left, nestled in the trees, something made his pulse skip.

Something silver.

A faint glint between branches. Just enough curve and shine to identify it.

An Airstream.

His brows drew together. “What?,” he muttered.

Could that be the same one?

It couldn’t be. They’d already processed it. Seized. Cleaned out. Locked it down under chain of custody. And yet there it was, the same model, same decade, tucked in a different location.

Unless…

Unless there were two.

He raised the binoculars again. This one had a cracked vent cover and a dent over the back fender. The one they’d searched had no damage. He was sure of it.