Page 55 of Silent Bones
In the sink, scrub marks curled in overlapping ovals. It was the work of a scouring pad. Deliberate. Showy.
Callie peeked under the futon with her Maglite. “Even the dust bunnies have been exorcised.”
McKenzie opened the tiny bathroom door. “He even cleaned the goddamn grout.”
Trash bin: empty. But the faint ring of dirt still outlined its base. A tiny detail, but telling, something had been there recently.
“Looks like someone was in a hurry to erase themselves," Noah murmured.
Callie, just behind him, ran a gloved finger along the bottom lip of the window screen. “Duct tape.” She peeled a half-hanging strip loose. “Maybe it held something. Maybe it didn’t.”
Noah’s eyes caught a faint set of boot prints under the fold-out table, muddied, drying. Not from any of them. Old. Faint. But real.
Then Callie’s voice: “Here.”
She pointed to the floor near the back hatch. There was a long, faint scratch mark.
“Looks like something heavy was dragged out of here,” she said.
No one answered that.
They regrouped outside, squinting into the heat-hazed trees. Thunder grumbled in the distance. Noah glanced at the paperwork again. Time stamps showed the warrant had sat idle for hours in someone’s inbox before it was forwarded.
“No rush, right?” he muttered, voice flat.
Callie crossed her arms. “Somebody delayed the warrant, maybe tipped him. Either that, or Mack’s just five steps ahead.”
“He's ex-Ranger,” McKenzie said. “Maybe he's got someone inside the department who warned him.”
“Or he knows Luther,” Noah added.
A voice startled them. A man in a black T-shirt and camo hat had stepped out from a neighboring camper across the dirt trail. A seasonal worker. Probably pushing sixty.
“You folks looking for the bearded fella?” he asked. “That trailer guy?”
“We are,” Noah said. “You see anything unusual?”
The man shrugged. “Saw him loading gear real late, one night back. Maybe 1, or 2 a.m. Dark pickup. Couldn’t tell the make. No plates on the back.”
“Did he load any boxes?” McKenzie asked.
“Hard to tell. Plastic totes, maybe. Could’ve been camping stuff. Could’ve been something else.”
Noah made a note. Still no real timeline. Just glimpses. Clues without edges.
As the man walked off, McKenzie squinted toward the trees. “If he’s this good at cleaning, what else is he hiding out here?”
Noah looked back at the Airstream. Every time they got close to truth, it felt like the air shifted. Like someone was rearranging the furniture just to keep them guessing.
Savannah stared at the silver hull. “That meth bag we found. You think he’s got a cache of meth somewhere else?”
“He’s not dumb,” Noah said. “And he’s got land out here. If he moved something, we may never find it.”
Then Callie looked at her phone. “The Linwood interview is in twenty. You ready for another dance with the town’s kindest?”
Noah lingered; a hand pressed to the Airstream’s side. The metal was cool. Hollow. Impenetrable. They walked to the SUV. As they pulled out, Callie glanced at the rearview mirror.
“You think Mack is watching us somewhere out there?”
