Resolution: Evan Warner Book 1 Read Online Free PDF Page B

all the hubbub.”
    She hurried off and left me standing there with Frank. He leaned against me and I rubbed his ears, telling him he’d done well. He really had.
    The remaining state trooper stepped over. Cleared his throat. I looked over at him.
    “Do you speak to all your guests that way?”
    “Just the ones that deserve it.”
    He laughed quietly. “Maybe I went into the wrong line of work. There’s no way I could be that blunt and keep my job.”
    “I believe in honesty.”
    “So I see.”
    “Was I wrong?”
    “No. I’d say you hit the nail on the head.”
     
     

 
     
    6
     
     
    An hour or so after the action, everything was settled. Most of the crowd had melted off to their campsites and activities. Which meant I was able to walk back to my golf cart without any further fanfare or disagreements.
    I drove to my cabin and sat on the porch with a glass of iced tea to unwind. Frank took a drink of water and lay down on his outside bed. The excitement hadn’t gotten to him in the least. He was asleep within minutes.
    I lit a cigarette. Sat there thinking. Jeremy Conner was the topic of the day, the buzz of all the guests. But I was thinking of something else. Something a year removed. Someone in particular.
    Lucy Kurtz.
    Two years old. Twenty-six months. Somehow she got out of her family’s tent without anyone knowing. It was after six in the morning before her mother and aunt realized that Lucy was gone and began shouting her name. Within a few minutes the whole campground was awake. People were buzzing. Spreading the word. Calling the girl’s name. The place didn’t quiet down again until late that night, when everyone was thoroughly exhausted.
    The day played over in my mind. The tension. The fear. The fact that it happened at all was bad. The fact that it happened on my land, under my watch, made it worse. The fact that nothing had been resolved, almost a year later, was salt in the wound. It burned me like few things ever had before.
    For a long time I’ve been seriously considering questions of responsibility. Probably since I was sixteen, when I started helping my father police the campground. Life in general does not confuse me. I understand that the strong and the intelligent endure and survive, while the weak fall by the wayside. Through the ages small details have changed, but overall the principal is still the same. Food chains are food chains, regardless of the century. I understand that in theory, as a natural occurrence. A force which manages billions of people and animals. But when that principal comes down to individuals, that’s when I begin to feel uneasy.
    Exactly where is the line drawn? Who governs it? Is it a strict border line? Or is it something more flexible, subject to personal interpretation and intervention?
    There are seven or eight billion people in the world. That means seven or eight billion possible opinions.
    No easy answers.
    Personally, I enter this equation near the top of the food chain. I’m a fit male. Larger and stronger than average. Not rich, but financially secure. Only a tiny fraction of the world’s population pose any hint of a threat to me. Hostile billionaires. Pissed off grizzly bears. Special Forces operators. Otherwise, I’m golden. Got it made in the shade.
    So why should I feel disturbed? If the point of life is to pass successful genes on to another who will then carry the torch after I die, why should I be bothered by the inevitable failure of the weak to make a splash in this world? Why should it even cross my mind?
    And why should I be troubled by the memory of Lucy Kurtz?
    I never met the girl. Never laid eyes on her but for the pictures on her missing flyers. I’m not the one that lay sleeping while she crawled from the tent. Or, more likely, was taken from the tent. Why should I wonder if she’s dead or alive? Life has gone on without her. The earth keeps turning in its proper orbit, neither getting so close to the sun that it becomes a