Page 75 of Ambush

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Paradise and Jenna watched Blake with the boys at the telescope. The clear night would provide great viewing. With no breeze it was a comfortable temperature as well, and the peaceful setting with the buildings and enclosures around them made for a perfect evening. Paradise was envisioning a walk with Blake again tonight. Maybe this time they wouldn’t be interrupted by the knowledge of another break-in.

“He’s so good with his brothers,” she said.

“He was a kid magnet even when he was ten. I’ve always thought he would make a great father, and he jumped right in when Hank died. There aren’t many men who would give up their career and rush to help out.”

“He’s pretty wonderful.” She cleared her throat to give her a moment to push away the images of Blake with his own children. Withtheirchildren. “What do you think of our theory that Hank was the first casualty of this war against the refuge?”

“I’ve never thought it was an accident, but I tried not to dwell on it. The thought made me a little crazy. And honestly, I couldn’t think why anyone would want to harm him. You remember what he was like—always kind to people and animals alike. He often took care of animals for free when the owners didn’t have the money. After his first wife died, the trauma made him even more considerate of others. Why would anyone deliberately toss him out of the hayloft?”

“Why would anyone send a dead body to the park? Or shoot at us at the grizzly enclosure, or try to tempt a tiger to hurt someone? All the attacks have seemed random and unrelated, but there has to be a reason for all of it.”

“To get me to sell.”

Paradise gave Jenna a one-sided hug and released her. “Hold tight, Jenna. We will figure it out.” Blake gestured for them to join him. “I think we’re being summoned.” Jenna on her heels, Paradise got up and walked across the deck to where Blake and the boys clustered around the telescope. “See something exciting?”

Isaac took her hand. “You have to see Jupiter’s moons, Paradise! Look.” He dragged her to the telescope, and she peered in. It took a moment to adjust to what she was seeing. A bright star with four pinpricks of light, one on the top left and three trailing off the bottom right, came into focus. “Wow, you’re right.”

“Can we show her Polaris?” Levi asked. “It’s my favorite.”

“Sure.” Blake moved the telescope to accommodate his brother. “Have a peek.”

She peered into the eyepiece again. “It’s so bright through the telescope.”

“That’s the North Star. It’s like the Bible of the sky. It helps sailors navigate,” Isaac said. “Just like the Bible helps us navigate life.”

The total trust in his voice struck her, and she took another peek at the bright star. Until now she hadn’t been navigating her life by any sort of standard, yet these boys had been taught so much about faith already. She had a lot to learn.

“Boys, bath time,” Jenna said.

“Oh man,” Levi complained. “Can I see Polaris one more time first?”

“You have two minutes,” his mother said.

Paradise stepped out of the way for him to take another peek. She studied it with bare eyes. “The Big Dipper points right at it.”

“It makes it easy to find,” Isaac said. “I want to see too.”

Levi stepped out of the way for his brother, and when both boys were finished viewing, they turned to run to the house with their mother. Their happy voices faded as they went inside, and the chirping of crickets took their place.

“Could you shine the flashlight on your phone this way?” Blake asked. “I’ve been waiting to search the SD card in the telescope.”

“Sure.” She turned on the app and focused the beam on the telescope. “It takes pictures?”

“Yeah, and I wondered if Hank could have caught anything suspicious on it. He sometimes used the telescope to snap pictures of the animals out in their enclosures and the buildings in the distance. It’s a long shot, but I have to check. I didn’t want the boys here when I did it in case there was something problematic to see.”

She watched him fiddle with the compartment and pop out a micro SD card. “I’ll grab my laptop and card-reader adapter.” She rushed inside and retrieved the equipment, then hurried back where she found Blake waiting at the table.

He took the laptop and slipped the card into the adapter, then opened the files. “There are twenty-one pictures.”

The screen changed to pictures of the night sky, and he flipped through sixteen of them. The seventeenth photo was of tigers prowling the enclosure, and Paradise’s pulse blipped. Blake studied it before moving to the next one, hyenas staring at the fence.

He studied it. “Nothing out of place there. I think he was taking pictures for social media.”

The screen changed to the barn where he’d died, and she leaned forward to study it with him. “Is that someone in the shadows?” She pointed out a dark blob on the west side of the barn.

“It might be.” Blake enlarged the picture. “I think it is. The person is short. See what appears to be the head and its relationship to the light switch on the barn wall?”

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