Page 179 of The Case of the Missing Love Stone

Wes crouches without releasing my hand.

A narrow wheel track cuts through the mud, too small for a truck, too wide for a handcart.

“Utility vehicle,” he says.

Roman points at the cypress beside it. A strip of white thread is caught on the bark, the same thread used in the relief bundles.

Tom signals the deputies forward. We follow the track until it splits beside a flooded ditch. The left branch turns toward an old timber landing. The right disappears into thicker cypress.

Roman studies the mud. “Tire marks go left.”

I look at the water. My grandmother’s correction bends right. “Then the tire tracks are the wrong route.”

Wes turns toward me. “Why?”

“Because they’re obvious.” I point toward the left branch. “Someone drove through soft ground and left us a trail. My grandmother’s route was meant to survive floods, not advertise itself.”

Tom looks toward the deputies already moving to investigate the landing. “A diversion?”

“Maybe.” I crouch beside the right-hand trail.

Beneath the palmettos, a row of cypress knees rises through shallow water. Three close together, then a gap. The pattern repeats farther ahead.

My pulse accelerates. “This is it.”

Roman follows my gaze. “The marks on the correction.”

“They weren’t three cypress knees at one location. They were a trail marker.” My grandmother must have used the roots because floodwater could wash away paint, ribbons, and carved signs.

The cypresses remained. Three knees. A gap. Three more.

The pattern leads away from the vehicle tracks and into the water.

Tom recalls the deputies from the landing. One team remains, to secure the false route, while the rest move with us.

The water rises over my boots. Wes’s hand closes around my waist.

“I can walk.”

“I’m aware.” He lifts me over a submerged root anyway and sets me down on firmer ground.

Roman steps across behind us, keeping one hand on Wes’s shoulder until all three of us are steady.

The trail narrows.

White thread appears again, this time tied loosely around a branch. Farther ahead, dried marigold petals float against the current. Fresh markers. Someone wants part of this path followed too.

The realization reaches me too late.

A sharp hiss comes from the trees, and Wes slams me against his chest and turns his body over mine.

A dart strikes the trunk where my neck had been.

“Down!”

Deputies scatter behind the cypress trees.

Roman drops beside us, one arm shielding my head while Wes searches the trees.