The scent of damp wood and old gun oil linger in the air at the cabin. Ciaran pulls the tarp back from the remaining ammunition crates while I crouch beside him and work through the documentation I started the last time I was here, before Kieran's shoulder interrupted the process.
"These are the same crates," I say, photographing the stenciling on the nearest one. "Same military surplus markings. Same bungee cord fastening."
"I see them," Ciaran says.
"I'm narrating for the record," I tell him. "If this ends up in front of Brynn, I want a documented chain of evidence."
He grunts in agreement and moves to check the second crate while I work the first.
The stenciling runs along the upper left corner—lot numbers, shipping codes, a supplier designation I've seen before. I photograph it three times from different angles, then hold the camera still and read it.
The supplier stamp reads *Vantage Ridge Supply Co.* followed by a distributor code.
I sit back on my heels. "Ciaran."
"I see it," he says, from the second crate. He's crouching over it, ice-blue eyes moving across the same stamp. "Vantage Ridge is a licensed outfitter supplier. I've seen that name in Gideon's financial correspondence—he's had dealings with them for at least two years."
"That's a direct link," I say. "Physical goods from a supplier he has a documented relationship with, found in a cabin being used to stage an operation against the pack."
"It's a link," he says carefully. "It's not proof of direction."
I look at him. "How much more do you need?"
"Enough that Gideon can't call it circumstantial and walk away from it." He straightens and looks at the crates for a moment. "That's why I'm here. To make sure whatever we bring back is airtight enough that nobody in that council can question the handling."
I hold his gaze. "You thought I might fabricate something."
"No, but the council won’t trust it coming from just you," he says.
"Right. I’m the untrustworthy outsider," I say with an eye roll.
"Exactly." He nods toward the crates, but grins to take the sting from his words. "Photograph everything. We take both crates back intact."
I finish the documentation—all four sides of each crate, the fastening, the tarp, the position relative to the cabin walls and the maps still pinned above the space where they sat. By the time I'm done, I have forty-three photographs and a timestamp record that runs from entry to departure without a single gap.
Ciaran hauls the first crate toward the cabin door, and I take the second, and we load both into the truck he parked a quarter mile down the access road.
I'm stowing my camera when my phone buzzes. I check it, then look at Ciaran.
"I need twenty minutes," I say. "There's something I need to do before we go back."
He crosses his arms. "Define ‘something.’"
"The hunters are regrouping on the lower forest roads." I pull up the image folder on my phone and show him. "I have photographic evidence of collusion to trespass on private posted property. If I get it to Sheriff Graves before tonight, he can deploy deputies to the boundary roads and shut down the hunter threat without the pack engaging directly."
Ciaran is quiet for a moment. "You want to meet with the county sheriff?"
"Graves is reasonable. He was cooperative when the rogue attacks first started. He's not going to like armed civilians trespassing on private land any more than Alden does, and he'll like the liability of something going wrong out there even less."
"And if he asks questions about the pack?"
"All he needs to know is about the trespassing. I can give him some scientific lingo to satisfy his curiosity about my investigation." I hold his gaze. "Twenty minutes, Ciaran. I'll be at the south boundary marker."
He looks at me for a long, drawn out moment. "Fifteen," he says.
Graves isa compact man in his fifties, weathered by his twenty years doing outdoor work in mountain counties, and he meets me at the boundary marker with his hands in his jacket pockets and the expression of a law enforcement officer who would rather be anywhere else.
"Dr. Ellis," he says. "You look like you've had a week."
