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Jack shouldn’t have called her Chloe in front of Suzanne. It was a dead giveaway. Maybe not to everyone , but Suzanne was not everyone. She had a keen eye, an even keener ear and a nose for things other people didn’t want to share.

Jack had never once slipped up in front of anyone in all this time, and dread swept through her because she had a terrible feeling that Jack had used her first name because something really bad was just about to fall in her lap. Courtesy of Detective Hart.

Chloe wanted to ignore the call, run in the other direction, ask Jack to handle it. A million things that she wouldn’t do, because whatever this was, it was all hers. Just like always.

She moved stiffly into one of the offices the deputies all shared, closed the door and gave herself a second to breathe before she lifted the phone receiver. Whatever it was, she could weather it. She’d gotten this far, hadn’t she? “This is Brink.”

“Hey. Detective Hart here. I just wanted to give you an update on what we found in that chest of yours.”

Chloe swallowed, found a spot on the wall to stare at and made sure she sounded strong and firm. “Go ahead.”

“Mostly, it was just the dolls. We’re going to run some tests on the smears—determine fake or real blood and go from there. Some weapons were hidden inside some of the dolls. We’ll have to keep and run tests on those too. See if they were used in any of your father’s known crimes.”

“Great.” She hoped she didn’t sound too sarcastic.

“There was also an old scrapbook. Delaney-Carson and I both looked through it, and we don’t see any reason for Bent County to keep it. It seems more family heirloom than anything else. Whenever you have a chance to stop by County, you can feel free to pick it up.”

She didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or cry or just rage. All that—dolls and weapons—and her father hadn’t even been fully lying. There was a family heirloom hidden in there.

She should tell Hart to throw it in the incinerator. “I’ll be by tonight.”

“Okay. It’ll be up with Administration. You know the drill.”

“Yeah, thanks.” She returned the phone to its receiver. Then she just stood there, still staring at the same spot. She didn’t have her cruiser here; that was at her cabin. Her personal car was at the Hudson Ranch. She did not want Jack driving her over there. She didn’t know what kind of reaction she was going to have to this scrapbook, and she didn’t want him witnessing it.

She didn’t want anyone with her when she picked it up, when she inevitably went through it even knowing it was pointless. Whatever she wanted to find wasn’t going to be in some old, dusty book that may or may not even actually be a Brink family scrapbook.

But regardless, she wanted to handle all that alone. Where she didn’t have to worry about how her reactions might affect how anyone viewed her.

She blew out a breath, closed her eyes and tried to find her lifelong inner toughness. That thing she’d been building up since she was a kid. She had known, always, that life was nothing more than a series of blows to dodge and absorb as needed. Any good, you carved out yourself with hard work and fierce grit.

Why was she having such a hard time with these blows?

A knock sounded at the door. Chloe didn’t have to be psychic to know who it was. She twisted the knob and pulled it open.

Jack stepped in, closed the door behind him and studied her.

Here was the answer to the question. Where was her grit? Well, this man had somehow washed it away. By taking care. By loving her.

And what was it going to get her, this love? Ridicule? Pain? Guilt? And so much fear that it would all disappear, she didn’t know how anyone lived with the weight of love you chose.

“Everything okay?” Jack asked carefully.

“Yeah.” She realized that Jack had been the one to tell her Hart was on the phone, which meant he’d talked to Hart first. “I’m sure Hart filled you in on everything.”

Jack shook his head. “No. Just that he wanted to talk to you about the contents of the chest.”

She shrugged, still not ready to look at him. “Running tests. Found some weapons. Mostly called because they found some old family scrapbook, I guess. I can go pick it up sometime.”

“I’ll drive you.”

She forced herself to look at him, to be strong . She had not gotten this far in life by being an emotional weakling or coward. She would not be cut down at the knees just because he loved her. “Look—”

But this was Jack. Did she think there’d be some way to get around that bullheaded need to control and protect?

I need you to let me . He’d said that to her like...like she had any say. Like he had wants or needs he couldn’t expressly make happen in the Jack Hudson world of control and determination.

Like she had that kind of hold over him.

“Two-man until we have answers, Chloe,” he said firmly. “And I don’t just mean at work. If it’s not me, you’re going to have to ask Baker or Clinton to drive you over. Or we’ll head back to the ranch, and you can take Ry with you later tonight. Or Mary.”

She wanted to do just that—pick someone else—to prove to him she could. No. To prove to herself she could. To put some space between them when she had to do something she knew would be emotionally painful.

But he’d said he loved her.

She couldn’t wrap her head around why that put her more on edge than when she’d believed the whole thing had been about sex and nothing else. When she had convinced herself he was embarrassed of her family connections . That had been easy because it had been anger, she supposed. Indignation. Hard feelings that kept her silly heart guarded.

Now it was just soft feelings and too much outside stuff poking at her to bear.

“I need space on this, Jack.” She wasn’t going to cry again. Once was enough, but she could feel emotion mounting. So she needed to set a boundary. Or five hundred.

“I can give you space,” he said, nodding like he was agreeing with her even though she knew better. “You want to look through it alone? Your choice, Chloe. But someone is going to be with you at all times when you’re off the ranch until we can rule out a threat to you.”

I need you to let me. I need you to let me. It kept ringing in her head, over and over. Like it was something she could count on.

When she hadn’t been able to count on anything aside from herself in her entire life.

“Let’s just go get it over with,” she managed to say, not crying but sounding raspy nonetheless.

He nodded again; then he reached out. Just a quick, friendly squeeze of the shoulder. “I need to grab a few things. I’ll meet you at my truck.”

She gave him a sharp nod, refusing to react to the hand on her shoulder, the softness in his gaze or anything else.

Just had to get through the day. She could fall apart—alone—tonight. Then maybe tomorrow she’d have answers for how to deal with everything life had thrown at her today.

She collected her own things, met Jack at his truck. They didn’t speak. She didn’t even look at him. She watched out the window as he drove away from Sunrise and toward...

She frowned and sat a little straighter. “This isn’t the way to County,” she said with a frown. She glanced over at him. He was gripping the wheel, scowling ahead.

“We’re going to need to stop by the ranch first.”

“Why?” she asked because he seemed so serious, so determined, and she didn’t understand why.

His scowl deepened if that was possible. “Delaney-Carson is interviewing Ry again. I figured you’d want to be there.”

“Why is she doing that?” Chloe leaned forward, nearly screeching out the demand.

“There are some concerns he has a relationship with your father.” Jack let out a long breath. “Mark Brink was spotted in Denver the morning after the remains were found.”

“He’s in prison.”

“He’s on parole.” Jack looked over at her then. “Hart made it very clear I wasn’t supposed to share any of this with you, but I don’t want you finding it out from anyone else.”

Another rule broken, a line crossed for her , and Chloe couldn’t handle that. Not right now. She had to handle the actual information. “So, he was in Denver? What does that...” But she was a cop. She understood how you built a case. If her father had been halfway between Texas and Wyoming the morning the remains had been found, they were thinking someone had warned him the remains were going to be found. If he was involved, if he’d been on his way to Wyoming.

Was it even an if anymore?

“Ry doesn’t have any connection to our father.” Her father had loved to play mind games with her, but he’d actually knocked Ry around some. Ry wouldn’t...

But with drugs involved, there weren’t a whole lot of things she could count on Ry never doing. Including this. He could have called their father before he’d called her. Her father could have told Ry to dig there, and Ry didn’t mention it because he knew how she felt about Mark Brink.

There were a lot of could s. Too many.

When Jack pulled up to the ranch, she once again didn’t want to face what awaited her, but she didn’t have time to wish for different. The detective’s car was parked out front. She was already inside, talking to Ry.

Chloe knew she should let her. Let Ry handle himself. But...

“Can you not come in with me? I don’t want the detective to think we’re like marching in as Sunrise Sheriff’s Department, trying to take over—or worse, make a mess of her investigation. I just want to be there if Ry needs me. I’m not stopping anything.” She said that last bit more for herself than Jack.

Jack nodded. “I’ll go around back.”

She swallowed what was beginning to feel like a perpetual lump in her throat. “Thanks.” But before she could push out of the truck, Jack took her hand, held it in his and pressed their joined hands against his chest until she met his gaze.

Serious. So damn serious. “I know Ry’s your responsibility, but he’s not under your control, Chloe. Trust me, as a man who has spent the past seventeen years trying to control Anna’s mouth, sometimes you just have to be there to catch them when they fall, not try to stop it from happening.”

She wanted to be angry that he was trying to tell her what to do, but she saw it too clearly for what it was. Commiseration. She managed a nod, then to get her hand free. She got out of the truck, didn’t look back at Jack. Just marched onto the porch and to the door, which was unlocked, so Chloe let herself in. It felt a little weird, but worry over Ry superseded any awkwardness she felt. She followed the sound of voices—Ry’s agitated one—and found them in the living room.

Ry was pacing the room like a caged animal while Detective Delaney-Carson sat relaxed as could be on the couch. When Ry heard her enter, his chin snapped up.

“Chloe, why won’t they leave me alone?” He pointed at the detective. “Isn’t this harassment? I didn’t do anything wrong .”

“Okay,” Chloe agreed, because there was no arguing with her brother when he was this agitated. She turned to the detective, tried to smile. “I thought you’d already questioned us, Detective.”

She nodded. “Yes, but you know as well as I do when new information comes to light, a second, third or even fourth questioning might be necessary.”

“What new information?”

The detective’s expression bordered on disdainful now. “Deputy Brink, I’m not going to share—”

“She said Dad’s out on parole and is acting like I know something about it or, like I’m hiding him or I don’t know. But I didn’t do anything wrong!”

Chloe wanted to melt into a puddle of embarrassment, but she kept her placid expression on her face as she faced the detective. “Are you charging my brother with anything?”

“No, Deputy. We’re just asking when the last time he had contact with Mark Brink was, and answers have not been forthcoming.”

Chloe tried to ignore her stomach sinking. If he wasn’t answering... But she turned to her brother. No blame, no embarrassment, no frustration on her face. Just blank. “Ry,” she said calmly, “it’s a simple question. Even if you don’t know the exact date, you have an idea. How long has it been?”

“You know Dad. He’s not consistent. In one day, out the next. I don’t remember talking to him since he went to prison, and I don’t know why that’s anyone’s business, what it’s got to do with those bones. I’m only twenty-four! You think I was a kid burying skeletons?”

“I don’t think anything, Mr. Brink,” the detective said, her voice on the chilly side. “And at the moment, you’re hardly a murder suspect. What I am trying to do is gather information to solve a case. It would help if you could be cooperative instead of combative.”

“You’re accusing me of doing something wrong! You don’t think I know how you people think? All your female-cop bull—”

“Rylan Jonas Brink,” Chloe said sharply. Sharp enough that he was surprised into clamping his mouth shut. “That’s enough. Now, are you saying you haven’t had any contact with Dad since he went to prison?”

“I don’t remember talking to him once ,” Ry grumbled.

Chloe turned to the detective, so tense it was a miracle her bones didn’t simply shatter from the force of it all. “Do you have any more questions, Detective?” She expected to see fury or affront on the detective’s face.

What Chloe saw was worse: pity.

“No. Not right now. Thank you, Deputy Brink. If I have any more questions, I’ll let you know.” She stood, but as she passed Chloe on the way out, she said something quietly enough so Ry couldn’t hear. “If he changes his story, or if you find out something you think might help this investigation, I’d really appreciate it if you let me know. We all want the same thing here. Answers.”

Chloe nodded jerkily. Because it was true. They all needed answers.

She stood in silence, watching her brother pace. She had no words. She had nothing . So she just watched him until he stopped pacing. Until he looked at her, all sheepish and sullen.

He was good at being angry, at blaming everyone around him, but he always broke in the face of her anger. Well, if he was sober.

“I’m sorry, Chloe,” he said, crossing the room to her. “I didn’t mean it. She just got me so riled up, poking at me with the same questions.”

This was the problem with Ry. She believed he was sorry. In the moment. She just also believed he’d do it again and again because he wasn’t sorry enough to change, to grow, to learn. He was determined to stay stuck in this everyone-else-is-to-blame place.

And she couldn’t fix him.

She’d spent so many years trying to accept that. She wondered if she ever fully would be able to.

“How was working with Cash and Carlyle?” she asked, because she needed to make sure he hadn’t ruined anything else today before she went back to the subject at hand.

He gave her a jerky shrug that reminded her of the little boy he’d been. She’d tried so hard to save him from everything, and she’d failed. “They have like a hundred of them.”

“Of what?”

“Dogs.” His mouth curved ever so slightly. “They didn’t give us that speech in high school when they were telling us we had to think about our futures. Maybe if someone had told me, ‘Hey, dog training is a thing people do,’ I would have tried harder.”

She didn’t say anything to that, even though she had told him. She had tried to find any way of getting him to care , to put forth an effort. Vet school. Owning his own kennel or working on someone else’s ranch. Anything .

But Ry had to blame someone else for where his life was. Always.

Which brought them right back to the subject at hand. “Ry, have you had any contact with Dad in the past year?”

“You heard what I told the detective.”

“I did. And now I want you to look me in the eye and tell me that for an entire year, you haven’t had a phone call, an email, a certified letter, nothing.”

“I didn’t do anything wrong,” he said. Which was the third or fourth time she’d heard that in the last ten minutes. And didn’t answer the question.

“Then what did you do?”

He stood there. Then slowly, his dark eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry, Chloe. I really am.”