Kristy didn’t have any tears to hold back. She was flushed with anger. Rage boiled over; so intense that it seemed to cloud the room.

With heavy footsteps, she moved from one room to the other, trying to find something she could do to take her mind somewhere else for any amount of time.

She couldn’t sit still. The pent up energy from the burning rage inside her wouldn’t let her.

She flipped through the pictures again for about an hour while she thought about what she had just heard. Kristy was already mourning the death of Alex, and now it was like the wound had been ripped open all over again.

Kristy wanted blood.

She wanted to see the man she was sure killed her brother pay for it.

Cam couldn’t blame her. As he looked out the window he had his own thoughts about what they heard that day. Part of him thought ‘why couldn’t he have just left it alone?’ But after seeing the video, he knew why, and he admired the choices his friend had made. Even though, Cam knew deep down, that Alex knew he was going to die. That’s why he had hidden all of this with Kristy. Alex had made the ultimate sacrifice standing up for what he knew was right. Cam hoped he could be that great of a person someday, but he wasn’t sure it was in him.

It was early afternoon and Kristy was in the kitchen. Cam sat at the table with the earpiece in his hand. He turned it over in his fingers just staring at it as he thought about what they might do next. Kristy handed him a sandwich and sat down at the table opposite Cam.

“Thanks.” He said. “You seem to be taking this well. Are you okay?”

Kristy shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet. I’ve been living with the belief that Alex’s death was just a tragic accident, and now, finding out it may have been more than an accident; I’m still trying to process that.”

“Yeah, me too.” He picked up his sandwich and took a bite, thinking as he chewed.

“So, now what?” Kristy sighed.

“I don’t know, and I hate saying that.” He dropped his head and picked up some crumbs from the table before he continued. “Let’s think about this. From what was on the audio, there was something going on in Alex’s unit. So, now we know why Logan showed up at your door. Alex told Thatcher his secrets would come out if something happened to him, and then he was killed, so now it’s damage control. We just have to figure out exactly what that means; what he’s looking for.”

“Okay, well, I think it’s safe to assume we found at least some of what he’s after. And Alex said he made copies of the reports he showed Thatcher, and since that’s what he was threatening to release, those reports should tell us what else he’s hiding, right? So, that’s what we’re looking for.”

“That’s as good a place to start as any.” Cam agreed. “Are you sure he didn’t say anything? He didn’t mention that something was going on?”

“Never. Believe me. Everything Alex said when he was home, I’ve gone through it in my head over and over. Nothing seemed odd at all.”

“Hmm, yeah, me too. Look, let’s go back to your apartment and look through his stuff again. Maybe it will look different now that we know more. And then we’ll go to my house. There’s really nothing we can do from up here.”

“What about the bugs?”

“I’ll ask Juan to do a sweep and remove them before we get there. We’ll have to give him a little time.” Kristy nodded and as she chewed the last bite of her sandwich. Cam took out his phone and walked away from the table while he talked to Juan. Kristy picked up their plates and cleaned up what she could while she waited.

“We should start packing up.” Cam said when he got off the phone. “Juan is going to head over to your place and see what he can find. We’ll need to be good and ready when he calls.”

They headed to separate ends of the cabin to divide and conquer. Cam started packing up what perishable food they had, while Kristy made her way to the small bedroom and packed her clothes, and then she started to roll up the sleeping bags. They hadn’t brought much, so they were done quickly. Cam broke down the cot and started loading his truck. Soon they had everything loaded except the guns and Cam’s backpack. The backpack held the laptop, along with the flash drive and earpiece. They weren’t letting it out of their sight. When they were finished they sat down on the couch and Kristy let out a long yawn.

“Tired?” asked Cam.

“Yeah. More mentally tired than anything, I think. I just feel drained. When do we need to go?”

“Whenever Juan calls. It will probably be a couple of hours.”

“Mind if I lay down?”

“Not at all. I’ll wake you if I need to.” Cam smiled and watched her go into the other room.

Kristy got a pillow and blanket off the shelf and lay down on the mattress. She hadn’t slept long the night before, and she felt better knowing Cam was awake in the other room. She pulled out her phone and went through the messages she had from her friends. There was a text from Ariana that asked her to call when she could, and a message from Gram. Kristy knew she couldn’t tell Gram what was going on, but she wanted to see her. Maybe tomorrow, she told herself. She missed her friends.

She missed Gram.

She missed Alex.

Kristy opened her email and scrolled through it. She deleted the junk and opened a couple from work. She thought about calling to see if there was any work she could do from home. She would love to have something else to think about.

As if she needed anything else. She rolled her eyes at herself.

In the other room, Cam got himself a beer and turned a chair to face the window in the front of the cabin. He stared out the window and let his mind drift. He tried to fathom what Alex could have been mixed up in. What had happened before Alex came home the last time? What had happened leading up to his death? How much more to the story could there be? Cam hoped they could find the answers they were looking for.

A sudden movement outside caught Cam’s eye, forcing him back to reality. He stood up and stepped toward the window. His nose was almost touching the cool glass. Cam watched the landscape around him for movement. He hoped he had just imagined it, but his eyes caught another brief movement. It looked like something was moving through the bushes on the ground. He focused his attention on the area for a few minutes before his eye caught another flash of movement. This time it was behind a tree. He stared at the tree as if he could bore a hole and see through it with his eyes. Soon, he saw it again. It looked as if something was looking around the tree trunk. He tensed and kept watching. The bushes moved again. Cam expected some fluffy forest critter to pop out of it and scamper away, but nothing did and soon it stopped moving.

His eyes went back to the tree. He could still tell there was something behind it, but what was it? Or, Cam’s main concern, who? Just then, a figure popped out from behind the tree and ran to hide behind another tree closer to the cabin. The figure was clearly a person, and he suspected that’s what was moving the bushes too.

Aw, hell.