Total pages in book: 123
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114419 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 572(@200wpm)___ 458(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
It took him fifteen minutes to get to the trailer park, and when he got there, he had no real memory of the trip, his mind so preoccupied with what he’d found himself in the middle of and how this all might end. He parked near the new sign, with the new logo, a large boulder sitting next to the signpost. That was new too. Gavin walked to the sign and circled it once, running his hand along the top in case something flat that he couldn’t see was there. But there wasn’t. He moved his attention to the rock and attempted to push it aside, but it was too large and too heavy. He’d need a damn crane to lift the thing. God dammit. If he wasn’t meant to be here, where was he supposed to go? He swore, falling to his knees and desperately moving the sand around the base of the boulder aside to see if something might be buried in the dirt, but there was nothing.
He knelt there for a moment, listening, as a dog barked, then another and another as they all answered each other. A few yells rose in the air—owners telling their hounds to shut the hell up. He smelled the lingering scent of charcoal and meat. Someone, or several someones, had grilled their dinner, as many did rather than smoke up the small spaces inside their trailers.
He had to have been led here. Of all the people picking up that phone, only he would know that the picture on the screen was not Sienna’s and that it was a photo depiction of the old Paradise Estates logo.
He brought his phone out and shone a light on the rock, and with the additional illumination, he could see that there were etchings and writing on the surface of the stone. He moved the light around, his heart beating swiftly. It wasn’t graffiti; this looked very intentional and themed, done in shades of brown and gray, so he hadn’t immediately spotted any of it in the low light. There were outlines of children’s hands with inspiring words that declared, Faith! and Believe! and Grit! It looked like the owner of the trailer park, or whoever had redone the sign, had had the children who lived here participate in some feel-good art project that blended into nature and that they could be encouraged by as they passed it at the beginning and end of each day.
As a poor kid who’d grown up in a trailer park and gone to a public school system lacking in funds, Gavin was well versed in this type of project, some big like a man-made lake with swans to beautify a downtrodden area, others smaller like this rock of positivity. They were the projects that made others feel good but that typically did little to change lives.
Cynical, Decker. And not the time. His mind was just in a free flow, and he was so damn scared he was running out of time in some specific way he didn’t know how to measure.
He moved his phone flashlight over the rock hurriedly, looking for anything that stuck out or—
There. There it was. One word written near the bottom in black Sharpie. He did a quick sweep of the rock again to confirm that it was the only word written in black. Just like the number on that key Sienna had found inside the tennis ball and the name written on the coffee cup. The handwriting here looked the same, too, the word printed carefully: Renew! 4:2.
His breath was coming short now, his heart beating so rapidly he swore it was coming out of his chest. What the hell was he supposed to do with the word renew and the numbers next to it?
He did a quick Google search of the word. There was a medical spa he’d never heard of nor been a patient at with the word renew in its title, but that was about it. He opened a thesaurus site and looked up the word. Extend, prolong, reaffirm, revive.
He was at a loss. Fuck! He wanted to raise his face to the heavens and shout. What else did he have to go on?
4:2. Was that a Bible verse? He searched for it and found one option from Ephesians. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Okay, that didn’t help. And there were too many other biblical options to wade through. No, it had to be something else. Something more logical and less time consuming.
Right? Or was the point to keep him tied up in thousands of pages of Bible passages?
His mind reached, grabbing at possibilities.
Relax. You won’t help them if you don’t relax. Approach this as you used to approach cards. All in, but calm, controlled. It’s how you win. He took a moment to even his breathing.