Page 5 of Rangers Unexpected Return

Mills looked from the photograph to the dead woman on the bed. “Where does she live now?”

“Eagle River.”

My phone was already in my hand.

The Keeper wasn’t returning to where his killing began.

He was going back to finish it.

2

MACE

The Last Stand Tavern looked nothing like the building my Ranger brothers had inherited years ago.

The sign hung straight.

The porch had been repaired.

Fresh paint covered the brick, flower boxes sat beneath the windows, and enough trucks filled the parking lot to prove the place was doing well.

I almost kept driving.

Max lifted his head from the passenger seat and looked at me.

“Don’t start.”

His ears moved forward.

“I’m not nervous.”

He stared.

“I faced men with machine guns without blinking.”

Max yawned.

“Your support is overwhelming.”

For three years, the two of us had driven wherever the road took us. We slept in cheap motels, camped beside lakes, crossed mountains, and left every town before anyone could ask whether we planned to stay.

We never did.

There was always another road.

Another state.

Another reason not to stop.

Then Wolf called two weeks ago.

He hadn’t asked where I was.

He hadn’t told me to come to Eagle River.

He had only said, “Your room is still here.”

I never told him I was coming.