“I didn’t put anything back in the space after Deputy Parker took the lockbox,” Leonard explained, reaching deep into the dark hole.

“Except for this one thin notebook that had fallen behind the support beam.

I missed it the first time I searched.”

He pulled out a slim, weather-stained leather notebook and handed it straight to me.

The initials “B.B.” were stamped clearly into the lower corner of the leather cover.

With shaking fingers, I opened the notebook.

The first pages held Brandon’s detailed handwritten observations about the private service trail, the blocked drainage culvert, and the unregistered commercial trucks.

But as I turned to the middle of the book, the entries became far more personal and desperate.