Page 45 of The Fragile Ones

“And?”

“I just don’t quite trust anything in that town to be at face value,” he said.

“That’s true. But I also didn’t want him to think we were snooping around behind his back.” She thought about it. “I hope I won’t regret that decision.”

McGaven gave her a curious look.

“Let’s just be cautious and alert to everything,” she said.

“And did you report in to our sheriff?”

“Of course. I’m not putting us through another one ofthosemeetings again.”

“It’s like going to the principal’s office.”

Katie laughed. “I bet you were sent there more than once in your school years.”

“Once or twice.”

The traffic had dwindled to zero cars, making it easier to navigate the narrow road as the Jeep came to a tight set of turns. Katie slowed to take the first, then the second…and then slammed on the brakes, bringing them to a screeching halt in front of a fallen tree branch around the third turn.

“Crap!” she exclaimed. “I would have been really upset if I’d dented my new Jeep.”

She maneuvered the vehicle as best she could in case someone came around the corner. “There are some road hazard sticks in the back. We should put them a ways back to alert anyone coming. I’ll put one up in the other direction.”

McGaven grabbed the flares and headed back down the road.

Katie assessed the branch. It didn’t seem too big, just awkward, with smaller pine branches jutting out at all angles. Between the two of them, they could ease it out of the way and clear the road. The hillside at the edge of the road was very steep, so, with a couple of flares in her hand, she climbed over the branch and spaced them ten feet apart on the other side to warn drivers.

Returning to the Jeep, she located the pine tree where the branch must have fallen from, and stopped in her tracks. Carved into the trunk were the numbers 3, 7 and 2.

“What the…?” she said softly to herself.

McGaven came around the corner and saw her expression.

“What’s up?” he said.

“Look.” She pointed.

“Is this some kind of joke?” He moved closer to get a better look at it. “It’s been carved recently, look at the shavings on the ground. They aren’t even wet from the overnight moisture.”

“That would suggest that someone knew we were coming, and made sure this branch blocked the road. But who? And why? How could they have timed this so perfectly?”

“It doesn’t look good,” he said.

“Somebody knows what we’re looking for—but is it a clue, or a threat?”

“C’mon,” he said. “Let’s get this tree limb out of the way.”

Katie shook off the shiver that ran down her spine, and pushed up her sleeves. It took less than ten minutes for them to heave the branch off the road and send it down the hillside, out of harm’s way.

Before getting back in the Jeep, Katie took several photos of the carving on her phone.

“We’ll have to leave it for now. There’s no way to process it or look for fingerprints. We don’t have the equipment, but there probably isn’t anything to process—except for the numbers themselves.”

“Oh, I’m so looking forward to going into town again,” McGaven said sarcastically, as Katie drove them down the other side of the mountain and back into Rock Creek. Today, there were more cars and people milling around than on their last visit, which made the town seem more ordinary.

“We’re looking for 261 Pine Street, apartment number 3,” said Katie, searching, then making a sudden turn off the main road.