Page 235 of Property of Whiskey

We move toward the sound slower this time, watching where we put our feet and checking the spaces between trees instead of charging straight through them. Whiskey stays half a step ahead with his pistol low but ready.

I let him.

Only because he has the damn gun. That’s my story.

Our flashlight beams cross over a deep impression beside the roots of an oak.

A human boot print. Fresh enough that rainwater is only beginning to collect in the bottom. I crouch while Whiskey lowers his light beside mine.

“That yours?”

“No.”

“Mine neither.”

The tread is different from both of ours, larger than my boot with a narrower heel than Whiskey’s. The edges haven’t softened yet, and displaced mud still ridges one side.

Somebody was here very fucking recently.

I follow the direction of the print and find another farther downhill, then a third several feet beyond it. Beside that one lies something small and laminated.

I pull on another glove and pick it up.

It’s a faded card with a white background and tarnished gold border, water damage curling the edges. An old logo stretches across the top.

Two wrought-iron gates.

I know exactly what I’m looking at before I finish reading the faded print beneath them.

PEARLY GATES YOUTH & FAMILY RETREAT

Whiskey’s flashlight lowers several inches.

“Fuck.”

“Yeah.”

I turn the card over. There’s no handwritten name, and whatever address was printed near the bottom has blurred into nothing. A short prayer remains on the back, most of the ink smeared beyond reading.

Whiskey takes one step backward and looks uphill toward his house. Toward Wren’s bedroom. Every trace of humor leaves him.

“You got another bag?”

“Yeah.” He digs into another pocket and hands me a second Ziploc without making the snack joke this time.

I slide the card inside and seal it. “This could be old.”

“No.”

“You think?”

“Somebody was just here.”

“The boot print proves somebody was here. It doesn’t prove they dropped this card tonight.”

“Twila.”

His voice stops me, not because it’s angry but because it isn’t.