Paper Trail (Laurel-Leaf Books)

Someone was calling his name. The boy stopped wriggling. His mother. No. She was supposed to be running in the other direction, decoying the Soldiers of God away from him. The boy’s father was the one who was supposed to circle back, and he wouldn’t do so unless the woods were clear. The boy edged up to the knothole. He blinked against the light. And the distinctive crack of a Sako TRG-21 sniper rifle shattered the glassy stillness of the April morning. A 15-year-old boy, while hiding inside a hollow log, witnesses a violent antigovernment group, the Soldiers of God, murder his mother. His family joined the militia group when he was five and it’s the only existence he’s known. Today, both the boy and the Soldiers of God make a startling discovery about the boy’s father. The boy, unaware of his dad’s secret, tries to piece together clues from his childhood and must somehow find the strength and courage to escape and survive.