A Pack of Their Own novel · Chapter 10 of 32

Chapter 10: Roark's Choice

Roark's POV

The footage was forty seconds long, and I watched it three times in the barn.

Grandpa held the camera steady on a hay bale. Teddy leaned over my shoulder. Nobody breathed.

On the little screen, the gate swung in and out of focus, and the picture tilted whenever the wind caught the strap.

At the back, behind a redheaded girl, a smaller figure had her hands jammed under her arms.

At the thirty-first second, her hands came out.

The picture was grainy and gray.

But anyone who looked twice would see brown fur on her knuckles and the length of her nails.

"There," Grandpa said quietly. "That's what that hunter was after."

"They haven't seen it yet."

"They left it on my gatepost," Grandpa said, and his mouth went hard.

"Either they forgot it, or they wanted me to find it. Either way, they'll come back for the card."

I took the camera and turned it over in my hands.

It was an Eskildsen camera. My father's name was stamped on the back plate, small and neat.

I had trusted every piece of Ironwood equipment my whole life.

"I'll fix it," I said.

"How?"

"His men will report to my father that the camera failed. It came apart in a rainstorm, or a bear knocked it down. They can't prove otherwise."

"Boy." Grandpa looked at me for a long time.

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